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 Village Headman Character Analysis

The headman is the most powerful person in the village where Luo and the narrator undergo their re-education. He has three blood spots in one eye and horrible teeth. He's a generally unpleasant person and loves power. As such, he's especially taken with Luo's alarm clock, since it allows him power over the villagers' schedules. He loves oral storytelling most of all, and is willing to break with communist ideals to allow Luo and the narrator to see films in Yong Jing and then perform "oral cinema shows" for the village.

The Village Headman Quotes in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

The Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress quotes below are all either spoken by The Village Headman or refer to The Village Headman. 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 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:
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The Village Headman Quotes in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

The Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress quotes below are all either spoken by The Village Headman or refer to The Village Headman. 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 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: