The Little Seamstress Analysis
Archibald John Motley Jr.’s painting, “Mending Socks”, illustrates an elderly woman sitting in a rocking chair. She has a scarlet blanket loosely hung around her shoulders and is wearing a lace-bordered white apron. Above her on the wall is a wooden cross. In the painting she is repairing socks, hence the piece’s name. On the periwinkle table to her left is a small pile of olive green socks.
I read the book, Bound, written by Donna Jo Napoli. The book is about a young chinese woman, who is bound to her father’s second wife. This is because he passed away and, back in 17th century china, young woman had very little power or say in situations. Also woman were thought to less value of worth then their livestock. Throughout the day’s of dealing with her step mom she, loves to do poetry and calligraphy.
Before, Little Seamstress more of a quiet girl; however, with the influence of the book “Balzac” Little Seamstress became bold and more active. This especially shows in the last scene when Little Seamstress leaves the
My Mother Pieced Quilts” and “Museum Indians” are about love and family history. Compare and contrast the speakers in the two texts and how they interact with their mothers as well as the way they describe their family history. Include examples of figurative language in your analysis. Remember to support your ideas with evidence from the texts.
Working in textile factories was unsafe for working class families because of the work environment they had to work in. Many workers had bad experiences in their time of employment. In the document “Testimony of Joseph Hebergam to the Sadler Committee” it says “Sadler: Did he tell you the cause of your illness? Hebergam: He told me that it was caused by the dust in the factories and from overwork and insufficient diet…”. This quote proves that the factories were unsafe to work in because it caused illnesses and even lead to death.
Analyzing Blankets The story Blankets by Craig Thompson is graphic autobiography talking about his life growing up and how he handled many situations he faced. The story is about Craig who starts off talking about how he grew up on an old farm house and first talks about his relationship with his younger brother. Also some of the struggles he faced in school with standing out and being bullied.
Dai Sijie is the Chinese author, who opposites side of the government of China during the Cultural Revolution, which is his childhood that he has to go to be re-educated by poor peasants. The setting of this book, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, is the re-education at that time, and the main characters of this book, Luo and Ma, are re-educated students like Sijie. He uses these literary elements to reveal political or social issues about the social class by the education difference, the area of living, and desire to read. In the Sijie’s book, the characters’ traits are used to explore the education difference because the villagers, who live in the Phoenix of Mountain, learn how they survive by farming and mining rather than reading and writing.
In this essay, Author Mei Chun began with explaining a concept of the prosimetric form, which is the incorporation of verse in a prose narrative. It is also a distinctive generic feature of vernacular fiction in late imperial China. The content of this article is about examining the narrative significance of verse in Feng Menglong’s “The pearl Shirt Reecountered”. Many scholar regards verse in friction as a type of narrative redundancy or a sign or orality. However, Menglong has utilized verse space and prose space in the story.
The Seamstress has started to be interested in the novels that Luo read for her and showed how she was changed through the new knowledge she has acquired. Luo believed that he could “transform” the “little mountain girl” by reading different kinds of novels. The evidence of this transform began in the change of her attitude towards education. At the beginning of the novel, the seamstress wasn’t really attentive towards education. However when Luo started to read her books hoping to “make her more refined and cultured”, Luo shares the magic of literature with the Seamstress.
The novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a novel by Dai Sijie set during the Cultural Revolution in China which lasted from 1966 until 1976. Even though the author’s main focus is not opposing Mao’s rule, acts of oppression and the strict control practiced by the government can often be observed in the book. The author focuses on the process of re-education which includes sending urban youth to rural areas. Sijie depicts the mental and physical development of two boys who are being re-educated on the Phoenix Mountain of the Sky. The novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress challenges the concept of re-education and the aspects of the Chinese government by contrasting the Communist ideology to the dynamic character of the narrator, by using symbolism to complement the transformation of the major characters and by including the picaresque story of the Little Seamstress narrated by herself.
When describing a girl in the narrator’s grade he says, “Linda Lieban was an artist, a free spirit, a bohemian who played the flute in the park, drew pictures or winged horse and naked nymphs” (Bagdasarian 1). The opposing side may argue this shows that Linda has a peaceful life with little responsibilities to worry about. As the plot goes on we realize Linda has to go through a break up and struggles to stay happy. After Linda expresses her feelings towards the narrator, “the bell ending recess rang and she kissed [him] and we walked together arm in arm toward our next class.”
In the letter to his sister, Lu uses some very negative words describing his co-workers. In the letter, Lu describes how all his life, he had been honest and straightforward all his life, and that Lu’s co-workers are not the same, and that his co-workers do not treat Lu very well. As Beard described the letter, “all my life I have been honest and straightforward, and I have most of all detested cunning, fawning sycophants and dishonest bureaucrats who think they are always right in everything” ( 8) In Lu’s letter to his sister, all Lu talks about is how the co-workers are not very good human beings, morally speaking.
In Duong Thu Huong’s Paradise of the Blind, Hang has been placed on a path of self-sacrifice and duty by her family. Her life unfolds in stages- childhood, young adulthood, and her eventual role as an exported worker in Russia. With each of these shifts in her life comes a shift in setting and a shift in her emotional state. Hang’s changing emotional state depicts her “coming of age” and her growth as a character. Setting is important to creation of shift in the novel, and is often described in detail.
When I first began to read the short story “Leng Lui is for Pretty Lady” by Elaine Chiew, it appeared like a simple story about a maid’s routine or simple life is explained. As I read further, I felt that the author is not just recognizing the life of a maid but it is portraying the importance of a maid in the family. As a reader, the part that stood out to me the most was where Mr. Kong tries to seduce Alina, I was stunned because I realized that there are people who think that maids would do anything he wants them to do. From the beginning itself
Mother Knows Best Often times in literature, character relationships change and evolve. “Two Kinds” written by Amy Tan, is a story about a daughter’s uncertain feelings toward her mother. Overtime, the mother-daughter relationship gets ruined when the daughter does not believe in her potential to be a child prodigy as strongly as her mother does. After an attentive analysis of the story, the reader is aware of how Jing-mei’s feelings toward her mother changes, why they did so, and how those changes affected the entire story.
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