Balzac And The Little Chinese Seamstress Analysis

Suicide can sometimes feel like the only way to pacify the pain. It is as if something is eating away parts of you slowly and intently and the only way to relieve the constant pain, is to die. Tiffany Hunter and Pierre L’errant are two very different characters with both equally unique yet queer personalities. Although Pierre and Tiffany are not the best of friends, their contrasting characteristics somehow complement each other. They both have similarities in their plans of suicide as well as differences that help them make the correct decision on where they want their life to go in future. Although they both made different decisions at the end, they assisted each other to settle on the right choice. Drew Hayden Taylor develops a theme of despondency and isolation from peers and loved ones in the novel “The Night Wanderer.”

Imagine being kidnapped and forced to work night and day on purses, in addition hardly any food or rest. In Threads, a novel by Ami Polonsky, Yuming, a thirteen-year-old girl, is trapped inside of a pink factory along with twenty-two other children, who are rumored to have been there for almost ten years. After finding a small piece of scrap paper, Yuming writes a note desperately asking for help and sticks it inside one of the purses. Clara, a twelve-year-old girl, finds the note inside of a purse at the Bellman’s department store in Evanston, Illinois. The note Yuming wrote stated “The middle of May. To Whom It May Concern: Please, we need help! There is pale pink factory, few hours outside of Beijing, somewhere in Hebei Province. 22 children in

A feeling readily distinguishable for Charlie, who became scarred off his reflective experience in the library. This purposelessness is apparent in a moment in our lives where we are short of ideas with what do with it. Associable with Charlie’s reaction on reading the horrific atrocities committed by people like Edgar Cooke notorious for his unreasonable, random, ruthless murder of people. And of Sylvia Likens, who is inhumanely abused like being, “made to live in the cellar with the dogs.” Page 111. Apart from Charlie, how would you have feel hearing that? Doesn’t that flame of resignation burn within you? Well, it clearly did for Charlie who suddenly experiences a surge of uncertainty and ponders to himself,”I don’t know what to do with myself... I wish you could unknow all I’ve learned. “ Charlies’s pondering could be considered Silvey’s warning to us the audience of these depressive moments postponed for us. Unfortunately, many of us have remained under the radar of Silvey’s notice. With over 13.3% of youth unemployed, according to Trading Economies. These are people like us aged 18-25 years whose has been denied a future motion into life, serving as an obstacle to their desires of prosperity. A denied prosperity forces both us, the readers and Charlie into a state of, “I don’t know what to

Luo decides to undertake the project of educating the Little Seamstress by reading books by western authors to her in hopes that she will learn from the characters in the stories and try to adopt their civilized ways. The Little seamstress forms a connection with the books almost instantaneously from her first exposure to Western Literature. According to Luo, “after I had read the passage from Balzac to her word for word...she took your coat and reread the whole thing, in silence. When she’d finished reading, she sat there quite still, open-mouthed. Your coat was resting on the flat of her hands, the way a sacred object lies in the palms of the pious” (Sijie 62). The is astounded by the wise words of Balzac and it is and eye opening experience for her. Through Sieves diction in this passage, the word “pious” also indicated that reading books is also a sacred or spiritual experience for the Little Seamstress. This moment is one of the most significant in the whole text, because it makes the beginning of the Seamstress's Transformation, by showing the great effect that literature has on her. From the Little Seamstress’

Stories give people new ideas and experiences along with lessons that they are unable to realize in their own lives. The narrator feels as though he is in the land of Balzac’s Ursule Mirouёt even though he has never before seen France. He is so fascinated with the story that he does not put the book down until he has finished the last page (Sijie 57). This allows him to experience life in an entirely different manner from which he is accustomed. From these stories, the boys gain insights into thoughts and emotions that are completely foreign to them. While Luo visits the Little Seamstress telling her of the stories he as read, the narrator feels one of these unfamiliar emotions. He states, “Suddenly I felt a stab of jealousy, a bitter wrenching emotion I had never felt before” (58). Although jealousy is not usually seen as a good feature and while this emotional awakening may seem like a negative effect of storytelling to some readers, it is actually an amazing accomplishment. Stories provide their readers with a new perception of life. They are able to feel what they have never felt, to see what they have never seen, and to be what they have never been. While these experiences may not be the most enjoyable, all experiences leave people with a more extensive idea of what life really is.

The shocked and flabbergasted diction of this section lends itself to a similar purpose. The surprise that the narrator shows when Luo initially begins the procedure is indicative to the fear within the protagonists and the absurdity of the situation as a whole. When the narrator says: “what the devil had got into him?” (Sijie 142) it shows the reader that the strangeness of the scene had not escaped the notice of those involved. The befuddled diction continues when the narrator says: “even today it confounds me” (Sijie 142) showing that the situation his oddness was not reduced with time. Overall, this section sets the scene for an intense and decisively odd situation.

In the novel, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie, it can be observed that through another character’s perspective as well as their own, Luo and the Seamstress’ relationship is less than ideal and what once may have been a whimsical experience would soon fall from its glorious state.

Lou lost the Little Seamstress to individualism and her wanting to have free will. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress suggests that we as people evolve in our lives. We learn thing about ourselves and change our perspectives based off of our experiences. One of the major themes in this novel is that you cannot dominate people completely and try to force people to do things then you are in the place of power. The human imagination cannot be restricted and put into a box called communism. The Little Seamstress realized that Luo was trying to control her like the government authorities of China was trying to do to their people towards the end of the book when she says told Luo that “she had learnt one thing from Balzac: that a woman’s beauty is a treasure beyond price” (184). People are going to want to live as individuals freely and find a way to escape the rules. The topic of not being able to fully dominate and control people is a topic that is still relevant to today’s

In the second section of the passage, in the first two thirds of page 31, the narrator shows that he is understanding of the situation that he and Luo are in, despite the aforementioned conditions mentioned earlier. One instance of this can be found in the use of the selection of detail where it says: “Luo would often help me work my cargo to the top and out of the tunnel”. The reason why this is important is because it shows that Luo and the narrator were able to work together to get through the situation, despite the noticeably awful conditions they were in at the time. Instead of panicking, they understood how to get through the situation effectively and carried it out. Another example in this passage is when it says, “In olden times the Phoenix of the sky was famed for its copper mines”. Despite his personal experiences in the mine, the narrator’s mind does not wander to self pity and fear, and he instead is able to assess his situation and the reason for his existence in

“When I finished the book Luo had not yet returned, there was no doubt that he had gone to visit the Little Seamstress so he could tell her this wonderful tale of Balzac’s. In my mind’s eye I could see Luo telling her the story and the Little Seamstress listening vigorously open - mouthed. As I was thinking about her I felt a sudden stab of jealousy, a bitter emotion I had never felt before and my desire to be with the Little Seamstress grew stronger. Later that day, Luo came back with leaves of a gingko tree. “We made love there, against the trunk”; those words made me feel somewhat sick in the heart, I didn’t even know that was possible. I strained to imagine it but words failed me... Why does Luo always get everything? He even said himself

The tailor finds another way to escape the controlling grip of Mao. On his customary tour of the villages before the New Year, the tailor decides to stay with Luo and the narrator while working in their village. The two are baffled upon the

There are many valuable lessons in this book. Even as a young child, Luong had to learn how to survive through this terrible situation. One lesson is that family is very important. Without her father, mother, sisters, and brothers, Luong wouldn’t have been able to survive. Without her brothers and father providing the family with food, the family wouldn’t have been able to survive. A second lesson is that sometimes a person or government’s actions can be different than their original intentions and ideas. The thought of having a classless society might seem good, but in reality, it is very impractical. A third theme is that even in bad situations, you have to have a good spirit. Even though her parents and two of her sisters were brutally murdered by the Khmer Rouge, she was still able to keep her spirit alive and

Love can immensely impact a person so much, entirely changing their character. In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie, the theme of love blossoms throughout the story. In the novel, two teenage boys are sent to be re-educated during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Lou, an exceptional storyteller and the unnamed narrator, a talented musician, meet “the region’s reigning beauty”: the Little Seamstress. Both fall in love with the illiterate girl, however Lou has won the Seamstress’ heart. Through the Seamstress’ relationship with Luo, she has revealed a deep fascination for the outside world, developing characteristics such as being curious and outgoing.

Providing the two heroines with strong and engaging personalities, the novel portrays the life of two young Chinese girls, who because of historical events and family secrets, have to grow up faster than what they had planned. The book delivers emotional themes that are powerful yet familiar, and is written in a compelling manner.

The Narrator is not free of such infractions, either. On page 162, when he is reading to the Seamstress in Luo’s stead, the Narrator says he is “merely a substitute reader” to her, but goes on to claim that “She even seemed to appreciate my way of reading... more than my predecessor’s”. He is reading too deeply into her opinion of him, and feels a sense of entitlement to her affections; he tricks himself into thinking she is more into him than she is her actual boyfriend. Later on, once he learns that the Seamstress is pregnant and seeking an abortion, he “summoned every means of persuasion to stop her from running to the sorceresses for a herbal remedy” (page 172). Describing her as “running” off on her own shows his own lack of trust in the Seamstress’s judgement, and reveals that he thinks she is irrational. On top of this, nearing the novel’s end at page 196, the Narrator is indignant that the Seamstress “had not thought to tell [him]” about her plans to run away to the city. His entitlement to her affections shines through once again, in that she didn’t even want to tell her actual boyfriend about her