Books and Their Transformative Power

Symbolism: Books

Elena, Emma, Sanjeev, Robert, and Kat

Quotes:

“My sentences became more precise, more concrete, more compact as I went along. … It was like seeing a great, uprooted tree: the nobility of its trunk, the grandeur of its branches, the strength of its naked roots” (125).

“[Balzac] 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 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, also more intelligent” (62).

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The Western books in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress symbolize an exposure to individualistic ideas forgotten by the Great Proletariat Revolution, allowing the characters to experience an intellectual liberty unbeknownst at the time. Under the reign of Chairman Mao, the alleged propagation of Western, capitalist, and individualist ideas through both artistic and literary works was strictly prohibited. As the Cultural Revolution progressed, the government placed less value in educating their youth, closing down schools and restricting them from accessing information through a re-education program.

As reeducated youths in the uncivilized mountain villages of China, Luo and the narrator, experience a complete lack of intellectual liberty as their exposure to culture and art is confined to the occasional films of propaganda shown in a neighboring town. However, through reading the Western books stolen from Four-Eyes, our protagonists’ eyes are opened to the novel ideas of hope, love, and individualism, all values that had been razed in the proletariat attempt at creating a united society.Thus, the books represent an opening to new ideas which had been taken away from the Chinese people.

Not only are the protagonists exposed to these complex, oft-forgotten notions praising the individual, but they are truly transformed by the books. When the Little Seamstress first reads the excerpt of Balzac etched onto the inside of the narrator’s sheepskin coat, she cannot resist putting the jacket on, to enrobe herself in the words to absorb them. The simple girl that had only ever been exposed to the culture of her little village is so touched that she cannot bear to part with the wisdom of Balzac. Likewise, the narrator is revolutionized by the blatant individualism conveyed in Romain Rolland’s novel, exposing him to the idea of the underdog, the power of the individual, and the hope of revolution.

While on the inside the narrator is affected by the book, it also affects his storytelling capabilities, allowing him to reach Luo’s status as a storyteller for the first time. His storytelling becomes as grand as a mighty tree, reaching and expanding in response to the intellectual liberty granted by the novel. Therefore, throughout Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, the value of intellectual liberty and its impact on the individual is reasserted time after time through the symbolism of the Western books.