Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

by

Dai Sijie

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress makes teaching easy.

The Narrator Character Analysis

The narrator is a 17-year-old boy who has been sent from his hometown to a mountain in rural China to be re-educated in the ways of peasant life. His re-education has been decreed by the communist government as part of the Cultural Revolution, an effort to eliminate intellectuals and elevate the working class and peasants. The narrator, though he has only completed middle school and has never read anything besides communist texts, is considered to be an intellectual because his educated parents have been labeled enemies of the state. Because of who his parents are, the narrator's chances of returning from re-education are three in a thousand. The narrator is extremely loyal to his best friend, Luo, who was sent with him to the mountain. Upon learning that their friend Four-Eyes brought a suitcase of banned novels to the mountain, the narrator and Luo become obsessed with western literature and go to great lengths to gain possession of the suitcase. The narrator is particularly inspired by the novel Jean-Christophe, which helps him to develop his own personal philosophy that champions individuals who stand up to take individual action against the world. Despite this inspiration, the narrator situates himself as a passive observer to the relationship between Luo and the Little Seamstress (a beautiful village girl with whom the narrator is also in love). Out of loyalty to Luo, he never tries to win the Little Seamstress for himself, and he risks his safety to arrange a dangerous illegal abortion for her. However, when the Little Seamstress betrays him by not telling him she's leaving the mountain, the narrator realizes that friendship needs loyalty that flows in both directions.

The Narrator Quotes in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

The Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress quotes below are all either spoken by The Narrator or refer to The Narrator. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Education, Re-Education, and the Cultural Revolution Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 1 Quotes

The peasants' faces, so grim a moment before, softened under the influence of Mozart's limpid music like parched earth under a shower, and then, in the dancing light of the oil lamp, they blurred into one.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Village Headman
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 2 Quotes

The sheer audacity of our trick did a lot to temper our resentment against the former opium growers who, now that they had been converted into "poor peasants" by the communist regime, were in charge of our re-education.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Village Headman
Related Symbols: Luo's Alarm Clock
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:

The only thing Luo was really good at was telling stories. A pleasing talent to be sure, but a marginal one, with little future in it. Modern man has moved beyond the age of the Thousand-and-One-Nights, and modern societies everywhere, whether socialist or capitalist, have done away with the old storytellers—more's the pity.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Village Headman
Page Number: 18
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 3 Quotes

She's not civilized, at least not enough for me!

Related Characters: Luo (speaker), The Narrator, The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 27
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 1 Quotes

All this talk of literature was getting me down. We had been so unlucky. By the time we had finally learnt to read properly, there had been nothing left for us to read. For years the "Western literature" sections of the bookshops were devoted to the complete works of the Albanian Communist leader Enver Hoxha...

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, Four-Eyes
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:

Just as your parents and mine always dreamed that we'd be doctors like them, Four-Eyes's parents probably wanted their son to be a writer. They must have thought it would be good for him to read books, even if he had to do so in secret.

Related Characters: Luo (speaker), The Narrator, Four-Eyes, The Poetess
Page Number: 52
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 2 Quotes

In spite of my complete ignorance of that distant land called France (I had heard Napoleon mentioned by my father a few times, that was all), Ursule's story rang as true as if it had been about my neighbors.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker)
Page Number: 57
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 3 Quotes

"This fellow Balzac is a wizard," he went on. "He touched the head of the mountain girl with an invisible finger, and she was transformed ... She ended up putting your wretched coat on (which looked very good on her, I must say). She said having Balzac's words next to her skin made her feel good, and also more intelligent."

Related Characters: Luo (speaker), The Narrator
Page Number: 62
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 4 Quotes

What this gentleman is looking for is precisely that: the authentic, robustly primitive words of ancient ditties.

Related Characters: Luo (speaker), The Narrator, Four-Eyes, The Miller
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 5 Quotes

The change he had undergone since receiving his mother's letter was truly remarkable. A few days before it would have been unthinkable for him to snap at us like this. I hadn't suspected that a tiny glimmer of hope for the future could transform someone so utterly.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Little Seamstress, Four-Eyes, The Miller
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 6 Quotes

But I shouldn't let it worry you too much. Right now, ignorance is in fashion, but one day the need for good doctors will be recognized once more. Besides, Chairman Mao is bound to need your father's services again.

Related Characters: The Poetess (speaker), The Narrator, Luo, Four-Eyes, The Dentist
Page Number: 86
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 7 Quotes

"So are you weeping tears of joy?" I said.
"No. All I feel is loathing."
"Me too. Loathing for everyone who kept these books from us."

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo (speaker), Four-Eyes
Page Number: 99
Explanation and Analysis:

He shut the suitcase again and, resting one hand on the lid like a Christian taking a solemn oath, he declared: "With these books I shall transform the Little Seamstress. She'll never be a simple mountain girl again."

Related Characters: Luo (speaker), The Narrator, The Little Seamstress, Four-Eyes
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 1 Quotes

In the ensuing political vacuum our village lapsed into quiet anarchy, and Luo and I stopped going to work in the fields without the villagers—themselves unwilling converts from opium farmers to guardians of our souls—raising the slightest objection.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Village Headman
Page Number: 109
Explanation and Analysis:

But Jean-Christophe, with his fierce individualism utterly untainted by malice, was a salutary revelation. Without him I would never have understood the splendor of taking free and independent action as an individual.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker)
Page Number: 110
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 2 Quotes

It would evidently take more than a political regime, more than dire poverty to stop a woman from wanting to be well dressed: it was a desire as old as the world, as old as the desire for children.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Tailor
Page Number: 122
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 6 Quotes

Before, I had no idea that you could take on the role of a completely different person, actually become that person—a rich lady, for example—and still be your own self.

Related Characters: The Little Seamstress (speaker), The Narrator, Luo
Page Number: 145
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 7 Quotes

I couldn't resist taking slight liberties, adding bits here and there by way of a personal touch to make the story more interesting to her. When I felt good old Balzac was running out of steam I would contribute little inventions of my own, or even insert whole scenes from another novel.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:

It was not long before I took it upon myself, out of a sense of courtesy and respect for womanhood that I had learned from Balzac, to relieve the Little Seamstress of her laundering duties...

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 151
Explanation and Analysis:

Although illiterate, my tormenters, or rather the Little Seamstress's swarm of disappointed suitors, were flabbergasted by the sight of this recondite object: a book.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 154
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 8 Quotes

I felt as if it were my child that she was carrying, as if it had been me and not Luo making love to her under the majestic gingko tree and in the limpid water of the secret pool. I was deeply moved; she was my soul mate and I was ready to spend the rest of my life taking care of her, content even to die a bachelor if that would help.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis:

There was nowhere for them to go, for there was no conceivable place where a Romeo and his pregnant Juliet might elude the long arm of the law, nor indeed where they might live the life of Robinson Crusoe attended by a secret agent turned Man Friday.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 160
Explanation and Analysis:

It was insane, but the bourgeois intellectuals upon which the Communists had inflicted so much hardship were no less morally strict than their persecutors.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Little Seamstress, The Gynecologist
Page Number: 164
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 9 Quotes

I wondered what was making me chase Luo across this treacherous mountain slope? Was it friendship? Was it affection for his girlfriend? Or was I merely an onlooker anxious not to miss the ending of a drama?

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 182
Explanation and Analysis:

Although I was fully aware of my role as spectator, I felt just as betrayed as Luo, not by her decision to leave the mountain, but by the fact that she had not thought to tell me about it. I felt as if all the complicity we had shared in procuring the abortion had been wiped from her consciousness, as if I had never meant more to her than a friend of a friend, which was what I would remain forever.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 183
Explanation and Analysis:
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Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress PDF

The Narrator Quotes in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

The Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress quotes below are all either spoken by The Narrator or refer to The Narrator. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Education, Re-Education, and the Cultural Revolution Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 1 Quotes

The peasants' faces, so grim a moment before, softened under the influence of Mozart's limpid music like parched earth under a shower, and then, in the dancing light of the oil lamp, they blurred into one.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Village Headman
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 2 Quotes

The sheer audacity of our trick did a lot to temper our resentment against the former opium growers who, now that they had been converted into "poor peasants" by the communist regime, were in charge of our re-education.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Village Headman
Related Symbols: Luo's Alarm Clock
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:

The only thing Luo was really good at was telling stories. A pleasing talent to be sure, but a marginal one, with little future in it. Modern man has moved beyond the age of the Thousand-and-One-Nights, and modern societies everywhere, whether socialist or capitalist, have done away with the old storytellers—more's the pity.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Village Headman
Page Number: 18
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 3 Quotes

She's not civilized, at least not enough for me!

Related Characters: Luo (speaker), The Narrator, The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 27
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 1 Quotes

All this talk of literature was getting me down. We had been so unlucky. By the time we had finally learnt to read properly, there had been nothing left for us to read. For years the "Western literature" sections of the bookshops were devoted to the complete works of the Albanian Communist leader Enver Hoxha...

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, Four-Eyes
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:

Just as your parents and mine always dreamed that we'd be doctors like them, Four-Eyes's parents probably wanted their son to be a writer. They must have thought it would be good for him to read books, even if he had to do so in secret.

Related Characters: Luo (speaker), The Narrator, Four-Eyes, The Poetess
Page Number: 52
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 2 Quotes

In spite of my complete ignorance of that distant land called France (I had heard Napoleon mentioned by my father a few times, that was all), Ursule's story rang as true as if it had been about my neighbors.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker)
Page Number: 57
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 3 Quotes

"This fellow Balzac is a wizard," he went on. "He touched the head of the mountain girl with an invisible finger, and she was transformed ... She ended up putting your wretched coat on (which looked very good on her, I must say). She said having Balzac's words next to her skin made her feel good, and also more intelligent."

Related Characters: Luo (speaker), The Narrator
Page Number: 62
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 4 Quotes

What this gentleman is looking for is precisely that: the authentic, robustly primitive words of ancient ditties.

Related Characters: Luo (speaker), The Narrator, Four-Eyes, The Miller
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 5 Quotes

The change he had undergone since receiving his mother's letter was truly remarkable. A few days before it would have been unthinkable for him to snap at us like this. I hadn't suspected that a tiny glimmer of hope for the future could transform someone so utterly.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Little Seamstress, Four-Eyes, The Miller
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 6 Quotes

But I shouldn't let it worry you too much. Right now, ignorance is in fashion, but one day the need for good doctors will be recognized once more. Besides, Chairman Mao is bound to need your father's services again.

Related Characters: The Poetess (speaker), The Narrator, Luo, Four-Eyes, The Dentist
Page Number: 86
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 7 Quotes

"So are you weeping tears of joy?" I said.
"No. All I feel is loathing."
"Me too. Loathing for everyone who kept these books from us."

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo (speaker), Four-Eyes
Page Number: 99
Explanation and Analysis:

He shut the suitcase again and, resting one hand on the lid like a Christian taking a solemn oath, he declared: "With these books I shall transform the Little Seamstress. She'll never be a simple mountain girl again."

Related Characters: Luo (speaker), The Narrator, The Little Seamstress, Four-Eyes
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 1 Quotes

In the ensuing political vacuum our village lapsed into quiet anarchy, and Luo and I stopped going to work in the fields without the villagers—themselves unwilling converts from opium farmers to guardians of our souls—raising the slightest objection.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Village Headman
Page Number: 109
Explanation and Analysis:

But Jean-Christophe, with his fierce individualism utterly untainted by malice, was a salutary revelation. Without him I would never have understood the splendor of taking free and independent action as an individual.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker)
Page Number: 110
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 2 Quotes

It would evidently take more than a political regime, more than dire poverty to stop a woman from wanting to be well dressed: it was a desire as old as the world, as old as the desire for children.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Tailor
Page Number: 122
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 6 Quotes

Before, I had no idea that you could take on the role of a completely different person, actually become that person—a rich lady, for example—and still be your own self.

Related Characters: The Little Seamstress (speaker), The Narrator, Luo
Page Number: 145
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 7 Quotes

I couldn't resist taking slight liberties, adding bits here and there by way of a personal touch to make the story more interesting to her. When I felt good old Balzac was running out of steam I would contribute little inventions of my own, or even insert whole scenes from another novel.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:

It was not long before I took it upon myself, out of a sense of courtesy and respect for womanhood that I had learned from Balzac, to relieve the Little Seamstress of her laundering duties...

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 151
Explanation and Analysis:

Although illiterate, my tormenters, or rather the Little Seamstress's swarm of disappointed suitors, were flabbergasted by the sight of this recondite object: a book.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 154
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 8 Quotes

I felt as if it were my child that she was carrying, as if it had been me and not Luo making love to her under the majestic gingko tree and in the limpid water of the secret pool. I was deeply moved; she was my soul mate and I was ready to spend the rest of my life taking care of her, content even to die a bachelor if that would help.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis:

There was nowhere for them to go, for there was no conceivable place where a Romeo and his pregnant Juliet might elude the long arm of the law, nor indeed where they might live the life of Robinson Crusoe attended by a secret agent turned Man Friday.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 160
Explanation and Analysis:

It was insane, but the bourgeois intellectuals upon which the Communists had inflicted so much hardship were no less morally strict than their persecutors.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Little Seamstress, The Gynecologist
Page Number: 164
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 9 Quotes

I wondered what was making me chase Luo across this treacherous mountain slope? Was it friendship? Was it affection for his girlfriend? Or was I merely an onlooker anxious not to miss the ending of a drama?

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 182
Explanation and Analysis:

Although I was fully aware of my role as spectator, I felt just as betrayed as Luo, not by her decision to leave the mountain, but by the fact that she had not thought to tell me about it. I felt as if all the complicity we had shared in procuring the abortion had been wiped from her consciousness, as if I had never meant more to her than a friend of a friend, which was what I would remain forever.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Luo, The Little Seamstress
Page Number: 183
Explanation and Analysis: