Dai Sijie and his novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress provide a scope of huge intentions of two young men in China to provide their skills in learning foreign literature in a time when such perspective was banned by the government. The thing is that the events in the book appear when the process of the Cultural Revolution had the main purpose to redirect the society in their literature views and preferences. This approach considered the whole population of China, from urbanized regions to villages. In fact, the novel tells a reader a story of how two young students, the unknown narrator and his friend Luo, are exiled to a remote mountain village in order to provide a new policy of the Communist party (Dai and Rilke 11). This policy concerned the spread of ideological motives throughout peasants.
The story attracts also with the moment when two men were interested in the works of forbidden Western classics. Onore de Balzac and his novels appear to be the most significant. Then the adventures of the two led to their meeting with a tailor’s daughter from the nearest village. She is a peasant seamstress whom both students liked. The triangular love begins to circulate from this point. Their highest intention was to make this girl behave as a representative of high society. Their motives were driven by the sentimental works of Western classics. The flow of realistic literature is felt definitely. The suppositions that literature is one of the main cultural tools to be apparent with literacy are apparent among both protagonists. After a discovery of story-telling abilities in both men a headman of the village promotes their visits to other villages so that to entertain people orally while watching movies.
The author of the book describes the details of the story making emphasis on the idea of cultural wrong directions provided by the Chinese leaders. The title of the story provides real values of any cultural reformation. In a brief description, it may be understood as a flow of current experience in the field provided from up to down layers of the society, so that to reduce illiteracy and different trends of thought within masses. The author gives a demonstration of rational approach to the cultural issue by finding out the real sources of inspiration and progress implemented in classical works.
On the other hand, the book and its plot obviously remind about the novel of another classical writer, Bernard Show. In his novel Pygmalion he discovers the peculiarities of various accents of people living in Great Britain. There the author makes an attempt by means of protagonists to change the appearance of an illiterate woman teaching her how to speak and behave. All in all, the motives are the same – to prove that a person from lower strata can be sophisticated and well-bred due to cultural approach and the role of education.
Cultural values are presented in inspiration of protagonists for using genuine methods in order to reform society culturally. This trend is underlined with an idea that there is no need to find new ways to make people culturally mature. The experience of mankind can represent already made “assumptions” of better development for human beings. In other words, the author unintentionally promotes spontaneous awareness of characters in the value of world literature for people.
In the book, one of the main characters, Luo, is displayed as an incorporation of the author’s intentions to be read or heard by a listener. In this respect the story provides his image as an interesting, courageous, and spirited young man. His motives to follow the way of cultural reformation go to counterbalance the Chinese program of that time. It depicts the act of finding new ways for effective changes in the lower classes of society. The character charms, outwits, and entertains the villagers (Gelman and Krupp 37). The universal value to be patient with people and loving homeland is outlined in Luo. The author sees in his personal reflections how to make cultural reform easier and productive for society. There is no idea of intentional social split in order to oppose the Cultural Revolution. On the contrary, the author intends the protagonist to find humane ways, so that to make the process of reeducation light and proved. Of course, the implementation of such intentions is made on the example of “little seamstress”. All in all, Luo is not lack pure feelings of love and passion which are described toward the tailor’s daughter. Along with his friend he is successful in making word power increased among the peasants. The arguments of their statements and thoughts are strong and versatile. This character also expresses the key role of young people’s participation in every process for changes. Young people in the majority of cases have no old-fashioned ways for making life better and determined with something new and progressive. Thus, Luo is an apparent demonstration of how young passion insignificant for the country program can go another, most progressive, way; even if it is banned in the society.
Works cited
Dai, Sijie and Rilke, Ina. Balzac and the little Chinese seamstress. New York: Knopf, 2001.
Gelman, Judy and Krupp, Vicki Levy. The book club cookbook: recipes and food from your book club’s favorite books and authors. Los Angeles, CA: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 2004.