"One split second of inattention was enough for Four-Eyes to receive a blow to the face from the buffalo's tail, which sent his spectacles hurtling through the air. He swore and dropped the reins from his right hand and the plough from his left. Clapping his hands over his eyes, he let out a stream of abuse, as if he had been blinded" (47).
"He advanced blindly, tottering and lurching like a drunkard. At one point where the path fell away he extended a leg in search of a foothold, but his other leg, unable to sustain the weight of the hod on his back, buckled, and he fell to his knees” (54).
Sijie uses the symbol of Four-Eyes’ glasses to demonstrate the loss the Cultural Revolution has forced upon the relocated students. Four-Eyes’ glasses are one of his most defining features, especially considering that is the only name the readers ever know him by. When the buffalo breaks Four-Eyes’ glasses, he loses an important part of himself that affects his ability to read, write, and work. Four-Eyes’ glasses are a defining feature of his personality, and without them he is vulnerable and his hard-working personality disappears. When Four-Eyes is without his glasses, he “let out a stream of abuse, as if he had been blinded.” Without his glasses, Four-Eyes is basically blind, cannot function, and loses an integral part of himself. When he breaks his glasses and has to work without them for even longer, he advances “blindly, tottering and lurching like a drunkard.” The glasses are one of the things that connects him to his old intellectual life from the city, but the breaking of them signifies the loss of that intellectual part of him. When his mother sends glasses to him, he also gets the assignment from her to collect mountain songs. This renews his intellectual side, signified by the new glasses.
When he gets his new pair of glasses, we see a change in his personality. He becomes a lot more arrogant, as he also has a letter promising him with a chance to get back into the city. The opportunity for a life outside of re-education causes him to be very short-ended. He starts reading more and an air of superiority comes over him. Four-Eyes is grasping at every glimpse of civilized life he can. Once his mother comes to take him home, his greater depth of knowledge than before causes him to act as if he was of more importance. The liberty and level of intellect that Four-Eyes had developed gave him the ability to escape and have a new life. This gave way to a new trait of his: dominance.
Why do you think the new pair of glasses that Four Eyes received made him more powerful and cause him to act arrogant?
ReplyDeleteI see a connection to intellectual liberty in this post
Follow up question: was it only four-eyes' glasses that created his new arrogant persona, or was it the idea of going back to the city with his mom if he got the folk songs? Did the glasses really affect his behavior?
ReplyDeleteI see a connection to hope in this post, as it talks about "The opportunity for a life outside of re-education," and therefore Four-Eyes' hope for a better life outside the village.
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ReplyDeleteHow do the glasses also symbolize the bourgeois life lost by the Cultural Revolution, taking with it the loss of intellect?
ReplyDeleteThere is definitely a connection to the effects of reeducation throughout all of China in this symbol. The loss of the glasses by Four-Eyes' resettlement represents the larger loss of intellect from the disbanding of the educated.
An interesting question: Was it just the glasses that brought with Four-Eyes his arrogance?
ReplyDeleteThere's a connection of hope here as you talk about opportunity.
Was Four-Eyes always secretly a dominate and forward person and the glasses brought that out in him, or did the glasses change him?
ReplyDeleteThere is a connection to intellectual liberty in your analysis. Four Eyes has opportunities to learn that aren't available to others who don't have the intellectual liberty that he has.