Little Chinese Seamstress

Luo is the narrator 's childhood friend who travels to the countryside with him for re-education. Unlike the narrator, Luo is outgoing and theatrical, and is less pensive.

never find another man like Lio. She worries she will never find a sneaky complicated love, ever

Luo comes off as detached and uncaring. When he first throws his key ring into the pool and she dives in for it he has an annoyed tone when she doesn’t come up right away. He says he “got very agitated” he even shouted out “‘Where are you

The character was illiterate and thus excluded her from others. In the beginning of the story, the shame from the daughter and others was made prevalent as the author wrote “I learned to be ashamed of my mother” (58). The shame and prejudice began to grow when the mother goes to the school to register her daughter. The mother needed and asked for help when she was filling out the forms that were required for her daughter to go to school. The author wrote “The women asks my mother what she means . . . The women still seem not to understand. ‘I can’t read it. I don’t know how to read or write,” (60) showing that the women the mother was asking for help, did not understand her question, because her ignorance of other people. Her poor understanding of the question clearly made the mother feel even more ashamed of herself. The author goes on to write “My mother looks at me, then looks away. I know almost all of her looks, but this one is brand new to me.”(61) exhibiting how the mother never felt so ashamed and embarrassed in front of her daughter. Once the woman realizes that she was on a higher “level” than the mother, she agreed to help, the author wrote “and suddenly appears happier, so much more satisfied with everything”(61). The mother was being ridiculed and humiliated by the second, as the other

The Little Chinese Seamstress is a story told through the eyes of a young narrator living in Communist China. Throughout this story the character constantly evolves in his mannerisms and his train of thought. His relationship with his best friend, Lou, constantly changes as well as Lou begins to hang out with the rural seamstress. One particular passage, beginning at 123 and ending through the end of 125. In this passage, the narrator has a dream about the Little Seamstress tumbling over a cliff side. The dream has deeper meaning and speaks volumes on the narrator’s jealousy, as well as fear, of Lou and the Little Seamstresses relationship.

In the process of learning about security, Luo starts off as hopeless regarding his own status within the reeducation system and little can comfort him. Luo and the Narrator are truly alone in their spot of reeducation. Luo and the Narrator a caught in a worst case scenario for teens of bourgeois families as they didn’t get to complete high school also and more importantly their parents are enemies of the government. Luo’s father specifically has had many kids with varying wives which is despised by the government. While there is a slim chances for them eventually leaving reeducation, their nightly solitude brings out their thoughts and real feelings. When Luo struggles to sleep, he will make himself a cigarette and “Sit and smoke in the dark.”

Now, Sarah feels that her personal pursuit relies on getting herself embedded in the American culture through getting herself educated. This dream, however, is to face the negligence of her family, leaving her strong will to be the only tool in need to fight with the ancient molding of cultural dilemma which taught to treat women like they were the dolls in the house and are to be treated whatever the man’s in house wished to treat them as. If one raids out the whole book to find the very cause of her family being negligence will find the need for her family’s food and warmth as equal as the societal expectation

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.

To continue, Chin’s grandma has no money, therefore in order to experience a better quality life, she is sent to live with other relatives, however many of them consider her a burden because she’s just another mouth to feed. Each time Chin moves, she experiences harsh class differences, for example in some of the homes she stays at, they have no electricity or running water. While on the other hand, other families she has stayed with have been fortunate enough to afford color television, a maid and other luxuries. Fortunately, Chin is able to overcome class stereotypes with her intelligence, which allows her to attend a prestigious high school regardless of her class ranking.

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

Through the Seamstress’ time with Luo at the lake, she expresses her individuality therefore building on her character. Repetition of “you’re” such as “I know what you’re getting at…” shows the Seamstress’ ability to be brave and stand up for herself. She is aware that others make judgements of her vulnerability due to her strong loyalty to Luo, however she addresses the reader through these pronouns to uphold herself, exhibiting vitality. Her confrontation with the reader shows confidence and strength, characteristics she didn’t have when being cooped up inside her house. Through the selection of detail, the Seamstress claims she isn’t like the “French girls Balzac talks about” and describes herself as a “mountain girl”. Here, the Seamstress is acknowledging that she is different and unique. She separates herself from other girls with the descriptive word “mountain”, applying that she is more adventurous, bold, and courageous than the “French” girls.

as he wanted me to"( Minerva pg72). Minerva was very clever she secretly liked Lio but

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’

In the beginning of the novel, Luo is performing as a high-caliber kind of individual towards his best friend, the Narrator. He is acting like he is superior over the Seamstress, saying things like, “She isn’t civilized, at least not enough for me” (29). Luo doesn’t believe that the Seamstress is that important of a figure, at least not considerable enough to be in his life at this point and time. All that he believes that she is to him is a little seamstress girl that he can read books to. Nothing more than that. The a Seamstress isn't as polite and courteous, as so he thinks. Despite his “uncivilized” feelings about her, he still reads books of reeducation to her and goes by her every chance he gets, which conveys that there is something there that he may be trying to hide, such as his underlying feelings for her. The Narrator noticed that Luo had been “following her every move”(29) and “taking his time to reply”(28). This specific action that Luo tried to hide wasn’t hidden enough for the Narrator to pick up on. Luo doesn’t want to admit that there may be some

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