Hsiang Tzu was born in a poor village, he lost both his parents and he came to the city when he was eighteen, the only thing he knew was that the easiest way to earn money would be pulling a rickshaw. He also had an ambition to buy his own rickshaw. Once he achieved this, he wanted to buy another one. He wanted to be a businessman. He was a typical capitalist. The turning point of Hsiang Tzu was his capture by the warlord soldiers and his new rickshaw being confiscated. This is the warlordism. One of the goals of the May Fourth Movement was anti-warlordism. From the story of Hsiang Tzu, people would realize what warlordism was. People would think about the good or bad of warlordism. Warlordism destroyed the hope of Hsiang Tzu. He could have lived in the way he wanted to, but warlordism did not allow this, they took away his choice.

Hsiang Tzu then had to go back to rent rickshaw from Jen Ho agency. Old Liu, the owner of Jen Ho agency, was another capitalist. However, he and Hsiang Tzu are examples of rich and poor. Old Liu had more than 60 rickshaws to rent out. He can make money by just renting out the rickshaws. On the other hand, Hsiang Tzu only got paid a little but had to work harder and harder and he has no opportunities to make more because he spent all his time pulling the rickshaw. This was capitalism. Old Liu owned a great deal of assets which included the Jen Ho agency. Old Liu could use the money to invest into more rickshaws and made more money. How much could a rickshaw puller make? “If he pulled it, he’d always average about fifty or sixty cents a day. That was just enough to pay for the rent, coal, rice, firewood, kerosene, tea, and water for two people, not counting new clothes” (Rickshaw, 185). A rickshaw puller spent all his strength for the whole day and could only make just enough for the basic living expenses. They had no opportunities. They had no hope. They had no choice. This was the message that Lao She wanted to deliver to the reader about capitalism. Capitalism could make richer people get richer and poorer people get poorer. A poor rickshaw puller was a victim under capitalism. Hsiang Tzu was an example. He worked very hard but only could save a little by sacrificing many things. In order to save enough money to buy a new rickshaw again, he ate little, he wore insufficient, and he slept less.

The authority of Confucianism and traditional ethics and females in an old family system were also big issues in this novel. Lao She tried to deliver these kinds of situation and effects by Old Liu and her daughter, Hu Niu, together with Hsiang Tzu. Hu Niu did all the work for the Jen Ho agency, besides the work in Jen Ho agency; she also had to take care of her father and the family. In the traditional Chinese ethics and the Confucianism, there were three obedience for females. First, you had to obey your father before you married. Obey means that you have to listen and follow and you cannot have any objection to any kind of orders. Secondly, you had to obey your husband after you married. Lastly, you had to obey your son when you were old. You will notice that the father, the husband, and the son are all men. The females had no power and position under an old family system. Hu Niu was one of the victims under these implications. She was old enough to get married but she even had no time to go dating because she had to help her father to run the Jen Ho agency. Without Hu Niu, the Jen Ho agency could not be run properly. We can understand this situation after Hu Niu married Hsiang Tzu, Old Liu sold everything and did not leave anything for his daughter and his son-in-law. Moreover, the Confucianism and the traditional Chinese ethics stated that a marriage should be under the permission of the parents and Hu Niu’s pregnancy (although later on we find that she pretended) was not ethical either under the old family system. She could make Old Liu losing his respectability. In addition, Hsiang Tzu was just a poor rickshaw puller, he was considered a failure. It was said that marriage had to be in balance, that is, rich people had to marry with rich people and poor people had no choice but to marry with poor people. Old Liu thought that he was rich, he could not accept a poor son-in-law and her daughter’s pregnancy before marriage. Hu Niu and Hsiang Tzu became the victims of the authority of Confucianism and traditional ethics.

We could sympathize with female hardships in an old family system. Another victim was Hsiao Fu Tzu, her father Chiang firstly sold her to an officer, then forced her to be a prostitute to raise him and her two brothers. Hsiao Fu Tzu’s obedience was normal in an old family system. She followed one of the three obedience, that is, to obey her father. Although it is hard to believe that a father would ask his own daughter to be a prostitute in order to earn money to raise the family, it is true in an old family system. Females, especially daughters, had no choice but to obey their parents. Hsiao Fu Tzu’s finally was dead and the killer seemed to be his father but actually was the traditional old family system.

In addition to Chiang’s family, Hsiao Fu Tzu’s mother was beaten to death by Chiang but Chiang was not accused of any murder. This was another example to show how females were treated in an old family system. The May Fourth Movement led to the rise of feminism. It is to increase the authority and position of females in a family as well as in the society. Hu Niu, Hsiao Fu Tzu and Hsiao Fu Tzu’s mother were just some examples of victims in an old family system.

This novel, Rickshaw, addressed many social problems that should raise the attention of many people, especially the educated people. Housing, sickness, ignorance, poverty were some of the problems. In chapter 16 of Rickshaw, it said:
"There were about eight families in this mixed courtyard and most of them lived in one room. This one room might have as many as eight persons living in it, both young and old. The rooms were so small and the walls so dilapidated that the cold wind could blast right through the openings between the bricks on one side. Straight across the room it would blow and out the other side, taking whatever warmth there was inside along. Ashes, dirty water, and sweepings all landed in the courtyard. Worst off were the old people and the women. The old people lacked clothing and food and had to lie on the ice-cold k’ang. The girls of sixteen or seventeen had no trousers. All they could do was sit inside wrapped up in some tattered thing in a room that was a natural prison, helping their mothers get the work done as quickly as possible." (Rickshaw, 150-151)

This was the place where Hsiang Tzu and Hu Niu lived. Housing environment was a big problem. With a bad environment, people would easily catch diseases and get sick. Poverty would not allow them to see a doctor and even buy some medicine. When Hu Niu was in labor, she was in great pain; Hsiao Fu Tzu went to the hospital and got the cost of the doctor’s service. “It cost ten dollars to have a doctor make one visit and that was only to look, not to do anything about the delivery. It was twenty dollars for that” (Rickshaw, 194). However, as I have already mentioned above, Hsiang Tzu only made fifty to sixty cents a day by pulling the rickshaw and that was just enough to cover the basic expenses. Pulling a rickshaw could only earn fifty to sixty cents a day; a doctor’s visit would cost half a month’s earnings. How could the poor people afford to see a doctor?

Poverty and sickness were always linked together. Here is another example of how poverty can kill sick people. Hsiao Ma’s grandfather told Hsiang Tzu, “Hsiao Ma had been dead for more than six months … he got sick and I had no money for medicine and I watched him die in my arms” (Rickshaw, 229). That’s why some people said that sickness was for rich people, not for poor people. There was a Chinese slang saying about the poor people, “you can die but you cannot get sick.”

Ignorance was also a social problem. When Hsiang Tzu was sick, “Hu Niu was upset. She went to the temple of Kuan Yin and begged the goddess for a prescription” (Rickshaw, 184). How can a goddess give you prescription? In an old traditional superstition Chinese family, people especially females mixed the dust inside an intense burner with water and said that was a prescription. This dusty water then gave the sick person to drink. What do you think about a sick person drinking this kind of water?

When Hu Niu was about to deliver, she was in so much pain that she “called on every Buddha there was and made all sorts of vows but none of it did any good” (Rickshaw, 192). Finally, Hu Niu could not tolerate and asked “Hsiang Tzu to go out and get old lady Ch’en, a shaman of the Mystic Toad” (Rickshaw, 192). A shaman was a priest of shamanism. How could a shaman help you to deliver a baby? “Old lady Ch’en wouldn’t come unless she got five dollars so Hu Niu took out her last eight dollars” (Rickshaw, 192). Hu Niu took out her last eight dollars and paid someone who could not help her delivery, can we see how ignorant she was? Not only Hu Liu, there were many people foolishly doing the same things because of superstition.

Finally, Lao She uses the story of Yuan Ming and Professor Ts’ao to present the reorganization of Kuomintang and the birth of the Chinese Communist Party. From the introduction of Rickshaw, it said, “Professor Ts’ao is an amiable armchair Socialist. Yuan Ming is a student who will do anything, except study, to get a good grade. He toadies to professor Ts’ao and when that doesn’t get him a passing grade he accuses Ts’ao of Communism” (Rickshaw, x). Lao She not only addressed the birth of the Chinese Communist Party but also its rise to power. People who were accused of being a Communist would be punished.

“Later, Yuan Ming worms his way into the government and becomes a functionary in the Nationalist Party and also takes bribes from the opposition … Yuan Ming is, after all, a political prisoner, not a felon” (Rickshaw, x). Nationalist Party or Kuomintang was said to have heavy corruption practices. During the reorganization, the first thing Kuomintang would like to do was to fix the problems of corruption. Yuan Ming was one of the victims under the reorganization of Kuomintang. Yuan Ming also was the victim of Hsiang Tzu’s individualism. Hsiang Tzu informed on Yuan Ming for sixty dollars. “Lao She’s ‘Indvidualism’ is selfishness; Hsiang Tzu is the personification of this great flaw” (Rickshaw, ix).

The effects of the May Fourth Movement were widespread. Although it had been stopped because of lack of support by the Kuomintang and mainly due to the rise of the Chinese Communist Party, Lao She still tried to use this novel – Rickshaw – to address the goals of the movement. Lao She used a new vernacular literature to deliver the messages of the problems of warlordism, the Confucianism and traditional ethics, the old family system, the power and the position of females, the society, and the individualism mainly to those educated people and intellectuals. He hoped these people could think about these problems and these problems were mainly due to the effects of capitalism. On the other hand, communism was to sacrifice personal interest for the good of the whole. If you were an educated people at that time, what would you do? Would you like to be a capitalist or a communist? Would you like to do something to help solve these problems?

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