Balzac And The Little Chinese Seamstress Summary

The Cultural Revolution was a time of much confusion in china. The memoir Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang illustrates the chaos of that time. Ji-li’s experiences during this time period led to her point of view changing. Ji-li starts the Cultural Revolution full of progressive thoughts, but this quickly turns to confusion, and leads to an important choice, something that impacts the rest of her life.

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.

In communist, Mao-ruled China, children were ripped from their families to be “reeducated” to have individual intellect snuffed out and made to better fit the mold of the ideal communist. Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Seamstress tells the story of two boys subjected to this practice. A boy named Luo and an unnamed narrator who are put through the difficulties of being forced into another way of life. . In pages 142-144 the headman of the village the protagonists are staying in comes to arrest the narrator for telling forbidden western tales. To avoid this arrest the protagonists decided to help the headman with a tooth decay. While the narrator controls the speed of the makeshift drill, he starts to slow down the rotation speed to

In the 20th century, the world saw the rise of many new political regimes that would redefine how the people of the world were governed. New political structures such as communism and Fascism took control in countries such as the USSR and Germany. Ultimately, all of these governments failed by the dawn of the 21st century, but the legacies they left behind have not been forgotten. China is one of these countries, and installed a communist government led by Mao in the mid 20th century. As part of their new regime, China instituted a process of re-education, where citizens would be educated in the ways of communist principles. The book Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress details two young Chinese men, the narrator and his friend Luo,

From that first day of kindergarten fraught with mothers scraping their loving sons and daughters from the safety of their legs, to those tearful partings between lovers, siblings, and friends as careers, family, and extenuating circumstances fling you two on opposite ends of the state, the country, or the globe, separation is an opportunity at growth often masked with considerable pain and hardship. In Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, the Narrator must face a great number of conflicts, from alienation to avarice; the numerous trials and tribulations he faces are troubles difficult to face alone, but chief among them is a conflict he must fight alone: dependency. In this passage, the Narrator must face the mutilated mountain ridge torn apart by recent storms with Luo, whose daily journey to the Little Seamstress’ village has grabbed his attention. Soon we realize there’s more to this journey than Luo’s supposedly excessive fear of heights and come to see that their camaraderie is a crutch the Narrator depends on. Through his experience on that ridge, his attempt at separation and autonomy reveals itself to be no more than a boomerang careening away from dependency on Luo and looping back again.

Love. Adventure. Lust. Individuality. Liberty. Influence. Freedom. These are the things that give people the will and desire to live, and most of us cannot imagine a world or life without them. But what if these aspirations were taken away overnight? In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie (戴思杰) illustrates these turn of events with a significant focus on three characters: Luo, the narrator, and the Little Chinese Seamstress. The story takes place during the Cultural Revolution in Maoist China when young intellectuals from the city were forced to be re-educated in the peasant environments. The narrator and Luo are among these people. They are relocated to the mountainous countryside and re-educated by the peasants there. Even though they are stripped away from all outside influences, they experience bits of freedom by reading forbidden foreign books in a suitcase. In addition, they share their findings among those in the countryside, especially with the Little Chinese Seamstress, an ordinary peasant girl as a result of her romance with Luo. Thus, their eyes are opened to new ideas, and their lives are changed with new understandings and perceptions. In his novel, Dai demonstrates the importance of intellectual liberty through the influence of outside cultures and the development of the characters.

Communism came to power in China in the year 1949 and was dictated by Mao Zedong, who later ordered for all educated men and women of China to be reeducated in the countryside. Lou and the narrator were just two of many thousands to be sent off to be reeducated. Lou and the narrator then meet the Little Chinese Seamstress, and Lou, as well as the narrator to an extend fall in love with her.

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 reasoning of why the tailor would want to stay in their house compared to a much nicer one. Before bed the tailor says, ¡§The pair of you are excellent storytellers, so my daughter says. Which is why I insisted on staying in your house.¡¨

This passage also reveals a side of the Little Seamstress’s character which has not been revealed, her independence of her mind. This is where she explains why she loves to dive for Luo’s key ring. She rejects that she is “I’m like a silly dog that keeps running to fetch the stick thrown by its master. I’m not like those young French girls Balzac talks about. I’m a mountain girl.” This shows her

The little Chinese Seamstress which was written by Dai Sijie in 2000 tells a story about re-education in communist China under the rule of Chairman Mao. The narrator tells the story from his point of view (The only exception being some interviews he conducts) and explains his interest in literature and continuing “conventional” education. This suggests that the narrator is still immature and does not have concrete ideals on what his purpose and goals are.

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

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.

Stories have the power to change a human being’s life. In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Die Sijie, the narrator experiences many emotions, when he is sent to a rural mountain side in China to experience re-education. This new program instated under the communist party of China, led by Mao Zedong, aims to restructure the knowledge and understandings of modern culture of people in China. However, the narrator changes through the stories he reads. The novel, illustrates how books can have such a power influence, on those that read them. The stories in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress transform the narrator, from a bored reader and into a someone who is fascinated and motivated by the books, they allow him to experience emotions and see worlds he has never seen before.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie, is a story about two teenagers fighting for their opportunity of education. In communist China, re-education is an issue dealt with by the youth of the nation. Two teenagers, an unnamed narrator and Luo, attempt to leave their village and take back their freedom and opportunity from the government. Along their way, they enlist the help of a little mountain seamstress, whom both boys immediately fall head over heels for, while Luo claims she is too uncivilized for him. As the story unfolds, the relationship between the characters grows, as they attempt to fight their re-education. The narrator tries very hard to win over the heart of the seamstress, to no avail. Later in the story, as Luo was out of town, the narrator saw his opportunity to swipe in and steal her heart.