Balzac Dialectical Journal

1.) With me and My Metaphors, I Tend to Give all of my characters Spirit Animals/Zodiac Selection specific to their personality.

In the book Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie, the two main characters Luo and the unnamed narrator are sent for reeducation in the Countryside of China in the 1970’s for crimes of their parents. The main characters encounter a village girl known as the Little Seamstress along their travels in the Phoenix Mountain Area and Luo and the Little Seamstress pursue an interesting relationship throughout the course of the book. From pages 149-151, the portrayal of the relationship between Luo and The Little Seamstress through Luo’s perspective reveals his condescending nature towards her and his idolization of her physical features while overlooking the majority of her personality.

Of course not everybody in the world likes to talk about exactly what they are feeling or thinking all the time. There is a certain degree of things that generally are kept private. However, in the book The Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie, the main character (who doesn’t ever reveal his name to the audience, so is simply called the Narrator), comes off as an especially closed-off character-specifically in the beginning half of the story. He rarely ever speaks what he is actually thinking, which makes him a kind of difficult character to relate to. The Little Seamstress, a local beauty, has caught his eye-along with every other male in the village-, but he struggles with how to express his feelings because he is not used to doing so, and because his best friend (Luo) is dating her. On pages 161-163, Luo has left the village and asked the Narrator to keep an eye on the Little Seamstress while he is away. However, even though the Narrator keeps his word, he can’t help but feel attracted to her and an inner battle between what he wants and what is right begins. In this part of the story, the Narrator feels torn between his love and affection towards the Little Seamstress and his commitment/promise to Luo. Here, the Narrator finally portrays to what extent he feels towards her, but does so very subtly (which is fitting seeing as that’s who he is a character: altogether reserved).

In chapters 22-32, what happens in the story is when Maniac ran away from the west end and he meets a new friend name, Grayson. Along the way, Grayson is curious about where he lives and who is he. When Maniac told him about living Beale's family, he surprised how they didn't care about what color Maniac is. They even didn't care about sharing things with Maniac. Later on, They both help each other with things they struggle with like reading so it can help push Maniac to go to school since it really bothers him. But one thing that really gets the attention to Maniac the most is that they don't have an address. Maniac paints an address to feel like he has a home again. During his new "home", Grayson and Maniac celebrate Christmas by decorating

In the Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress book by Dai Sijie, the passage that stood out most was The Old Miller’s Story. This is a story told by the old Miller and when he passed a waterfall on his way to cut firewood and noticed Luo and the Seamstress having sexual interactions but decided to stay and hide while watching it all happen. When reading this scene, it was evident that it displayed the feeling that as a character the old Miller is very curious and zealous about the physical attraction between Luo and the Seamstress. However, as the Miller analyzes the physical attraction between the two of them, it reveals that he is in shame and regret with his own body which has decayed with age.

In the beginning of the story, both the narrator and Luo immediately fall in love with Western literature because they value the actual content of the books and understand its power. In fact, the narrator is so compelled by the novel that he eagerly writes down a few passages from Ursule Mirouet on his sheepskin coat. When Luo reads the passage to the Little Seamstress, both Luo and the narrator start to acknowledge the power of literature: “‘This fellow Balzac is a wizard,’ he [Luo] went on. ‘He touched the head of this mountain girl with an invisible finger and she was transformed, carried away in a dream. It took a while for her to come down to earth...She said having Balzac’s words next to her skin made her feel good, and also more intelligent’” (62). In addition to the narrator and Luo realizing how potent Balzac's novels are, the two realize the benefits of Western literature towards their relationship with the Little Seamstress. It is quite clear that both of them seem to have an affection towards the Little Seamstress, and thus realize the crucial role that these books play in order to strengthen the bond between them and the Little Seamstress. The problem with the two becoming obsessed

I had lit a fire on a dark and gloomy night while wandering the wilderness. I hoped that warmth would rejuvenate me and help me continue my journey, but the night sky had become so murky that is seemed impossible to find my way through the dark. Continuing the journey would be hopeless without a source of light to guide me along the way. While warming my cold body by the crackling flames of the fire, I realized that a man was approaching me. He had emerged from the darkness of the forest trees and appeared to be just as cold as I had been before I had lit the fire. He drew closer to the fire and asked me if he would warm himself. I agreed, but asked that he would show me the way to Bronzville. The man claimed that he was also journeying

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.

Of the many thoughts and feelings the Narrator displays throughout Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie, many can be found on pages 42-44. While working in the coal mines, Luo catches a bout of malaria. Despite this, he and the Narrator travel to the Little Seamstress’ village to visit her. Upon arriving, the Little Seamstress gets Luo into bed and calls four village sorceresses to stay with him over night. When they start to fall asleep, the Little Seamstress asks the Narrator to tell them a story to keep them up. This scene demonstrates to us the many emotions the Narrator feels toward Luo, from admiration to inferiority to jealousy.

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’

Soon after, the two boys meet the Little Seamstress, the daughter of a tailor in village not to far from theirs. They are both captivated by the Little Seamstress’s beauty and talents. At first, luo is interested, but later explains how she’s not civilized enough.

In order to make her more city like, Luo narrates novels to the Seamstress, teaches her city dialect and introduces her to stylish clothing. The Little Seamstress receives a rather patronizing education. “She’ll never be a simple mountain girl again,” Luo avows (100). Much to his dismay, the Little Seamstress leaves to pursue a more preferred life far, far away from the mountains. Before her departure the Little Seamstress told the Narrator that what she learned from Luo instead was that a “Woman's beauty is a treasure beyond price” (184).

In the novel ‘Balzac and the Chinese Seamstress’ Dai Sijie uses key moments in the novel, such as the seamstress’ departure, her transformation, and Four-eyes’ and the two boys’ change of attitude to display the significance including the importance of literature. At the end of the novel, the seamstress decides that she has outgrown both Luo and the Narrator and decides to leave. The line “She said she had learnt one thing from Balac: that a womans beauty is a treasure beyond price” adresses how the two boys were not to tie her down anymore. Throughout the novel, the boys are constantly trying to ‘re-educate’ the seamstress with western literature, in hopes that she will reach their ‘level’ of intelect.

The beauty of the Little Seamstress is first captured through her eyes that ‘had the gleam of uncut gems, of unpolished metal” (24). Sijie uses the gleam of her eyes as a symbol of purity for the Little Seamstress and shows an untainted aspect that attracts the boys to her. The Narrator proceeds to examine the Seamstress’s face that “possessed an impressive, sensual beauty”(25). She became a beacon of light whose beauty entranced Luo and the Narrator and “arouse in us [Luo and Narrator] an irresistible desire to stay” (25). However, even though she attains such beauty Luo persists that “she’s not civilised” enough to have fallen in love with her but he does “fancy her” (27). The limitations Luo puts on the Little Seamstress’s intellectual abilities leads him to focus more on her beauty as he sees it as her greatest strength and quality. The emphasis on imagery when describing the Little Seamstress complimented the concept of beauty presented throughout the

From this quote it is clear that Luo fully understands that by sharing books, which equate to knowledge, with the Little Seamstress, he will be completely altering the rest of her life. By doing so, he is equipping her with cognizance that she can do and be whoever she wants, despite all odds. Through this piece I developed a new understanding of Luo as a character due to the following: I have discovered evidence of his thorough, yet immature love for the Little Seamstress because with her newly found comprehension of life, she may determine she no longer desires Luo’s love. This quote also helps me understand how the books impacted Luo because he said the Little Seamstress won’t be “simple” after reading, which makes me think after reading