Summary Of Balzac And The Little Chinese Seamstress

The second reason is the narrator knows he should have appreciated his brother more. Although Doodle did his best to make his brother proud, it was never good enough for the narrator. The narrator wanted to force him to be like a normal, healthy person. Once Doodle learns how to walk, the narrator is too swollen with pride and wants to teach Doodle to run, swim, and many other complicated tasks. The narrator should have valued Doodle more. It was already extraordinary that Doodle even got to walk. That should have been good enough for him. Unfortunately, the narrator kept on pushing him and pushing him.

As I read this short story in the beginning, the gist of what I have captured the narrator writing is whether the man with a strange habit does really exist or not. Or, if he did exist who was the man that was hitting the narrator in the story on the head without stopping. It sticks in my mind wondering who the strange man was to the narrator. Somehow, despite the agony of trying to understand the motive underlies the story; I was at first wondering what was the strange man had gone through

The narrator begins going into detail regarding the spear he let go of that caught Ras and “locked his [Ras] jaws” (Ellison). Ellison introduces the use of elongated syntax to portray the anxiety the narrator feels. The narrator “scrambled over scattered shoes” (Ellison) which signify that the narrator was quickly in a rush. The two officers “came behind...like a draft of flames” (Ellison) which means that the two officers were getting closer and closer to the narrator. Ellison continues to use elongated syntax throughout the whole excerpt

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 the second section of this passage, the author uses a horrific imagery and tone, as well as a fearful diction to show the narrator’s impending sense of dread as he comes to realize that his repressed hate is rearing its head. When headman is put into the vulnerable position of the operation, the tone of the piece darkens and creates foreboding and menace. When the drill is in the patient’s mouth, the narrator describes the noise made as “dreadful gurgling” (Sijie 143) and uses words such as “juddered” (Sijie 143) and “trembled” (Sijie 143) in describing the movement of the headman. This dark tone foreshadows the emergence of the narrator’s sadistic

Passage 2 (pathos)- "Mr. Severe was rightly named: he was a cruel man. I have seen him whip a woman, causing the

In the passage chosen from Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Siji, the villagers are confronted with the death of a buffalo. This “accidental’ death reveals the double-sided nature of the village, which spotlights their furtiveness, spiritual morals and their thirst for acceptance in their new re-educated world.

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

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

After she begins to dress the way a city girl would dress, and act the way a city girl would act, she makes the seemingly sudden decision to leave for the city and start her new life there. When asked why she did, why she would make such a sudden change on the very last page, Luo quoted her saying, “She said she had learnt one thing from Balzac; that a woman’s beauty is a treasure beyond price.” This sudden and drastic change was very unlikely based solely on her actions. However, like all ideas, her transformation was not entirely spontanious. She had thought about what she would do, perhaps for a very long time. Although it is not obviously stated, her thought process beginning to change was hinted at long before she chose to leave. “Suddenly swung her head around to face us. ‘About those books of his- what if we stole them.?’” (Sijie, 89) At the time, this strikes the reader as somewhat uncharacteristic. Before this, she had been very mild mannered and chose to go along with the will of others. So much so that one would assume that she would not act on her own will. Because of this, one could argue that her seemingly abrupt transformation was due to the actions of Luo wanting to change her. While this claim is understandable, it is not really true. Yes, Luo did tell her the stories and attempt to make the little seamstress more cultured. In many ways, he succeeded in doing so. However, he was only the messenger, the means of getting

Rather it is the old man’s that is so unsettling. Any time the eye looked upon him his. It is that eye by which he is consumed and that eye that sends him into madness. It pushes him to wish to never have to look upon, or be looked upon by, that eye again. His solution, in what seems a rational choice to him, is to kill the old man. With a similar precision as the Montresor took in “The Cask of Amontillado”, the man in “The Tell-Tale Heart” has devoted himself to the perfect method to dispatch the old man.

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.

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

The narrator of the story suffers from heightened senses which makes the narrator despise the clouded eye of his roommate. Due to his condition, he is driven to the point of plotting the murder of the cloudy eyed man. However, the narrator argues that since he planned the deed so meticulously, he could not be crazy and that “madmen know nothing” and he was no madman. There is reason to believe he is lying about the state of his sanity because the narrator does end up killing the man to rid himself of the evil eye. Affected by his anxieties, the narrator begins to hear what he believes to be the heartbeat of the man he has murdered. The heartbeat did not create a sense of regret in the narrator, rather “it increased [his] fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.” The unreliable source of narration is due to the mental illness which allows for the narrator’s judgment to be misconstrued. Guilt of conscience is the main theme and allows for the overall character arch of the narrator as his heightened senses, or more realistically, his anxieties, are the cause of his confession. Although the narrator had killed the man, he was not evil. The narrator was not in the right mind to take action and immediately had the guilt weigh heavy on his mind, causing it to slowly collapse. Nevertheless, the narrator, for these reasons, remains unreliable and mentally