In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, how does Dai Sijie represent how authority

impacts individuals?

In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie illustrates the growth of the two re-
educated city youths during the Cultural Revolution. In the story, the author ironically
criticized the impact brought to individuals by the authorities. The headmen, representative
of the local authority, ignorantly abuses his authority based on the change of his feelings and
impressions. Though the author made the criticism toward the local authority pronounced,
the novel also indicates the impacts from all forms of authority on people from different
classes. In the novel, the absolute authority during the Cultural Revolution brought different
impacts to the local power holders, the city youths, and the villagers including the Little
Seamstress. These distinct impacts influence the growth of all the characters which
eventually lead to changes in personalities, values, as well as their views of the world.

First, the writer illustrates the ignorance and self-approbation of the local power holders
during the Cultural Revolution. According to Dai Sijie, while governing their villagers, the
local headmen’s ignorance, and selfishness leads to various abuses of power. When the
headman of Ma and Luo summons the villagers to work, instead of encouraging them
positively, he unkindly refers to the local citizens as “lazy louts” “spawn of bullocks’ balls”.
On the contrary, the author describes the headman using the phrase “dead on cue”. This
contrast indicates the man’s superiority in this small village. Though like lots of other
villagers, the headman was just an opium grower previously, when given the power of
authority, he mentally separates himself from the rest of the villagers and considers himself
smarter than the others. Also, since he is the representative of the authority, no one in the
village disagrees with him. As a result, he successfully made himself the “king of the village”.
A portrait describing the headman’s king’s status in the village can be easily found
throughout the story. Back from the district Yong Jing, when Luo and Ma retell the film,
“The headman sat in the middle of the front row, holding his long bamboo pipe in one hand
and our 'phoenix of the earth' in the other, to time the duration of our performance.” Details
like “sat in the middle” and “time the duration of our performance” suggests the headman’s
importance and his absolute power. All these supreme identities he created is an
embodiment of personality cult. However, his ignorance is exposed when he encounters the
two “intellectual” city youths. When the two youth readjust their clock, the headman has no
idea about the trick because he has never seen any clock beforehand. Though being highly
called the headman, his ignorance and lack of knowledge prevent him from completing his
duty precisely. Apart from him, the headman of the Four Eye’s village also abused his power,
but instead of creating a personality cult, the headman of Four Eye’s village committed
bribery. When sharing the buffalo blood with Four Eyes, “He caressed the edge with the tips
of his fingers”. The word “caressed” gives the reader a sense of the carefulness and worries
of the headman when slicing the pudding blood. According to the saying, the pudding blood
can “treat cowardice”, which indicates his fear caused by the bribery. After being bribed by
the poet, the headman’s guilty conscience makes him feel insecure. Ironically, instead of
ending the bribe, the headman thought he could treat this insecure feeling by eating the
coagulated blood.

Authority’s impact on the city youths also ends in different results on account of their
different personalities and values. In the story, Luo, Ma, and Four Eyes are all being affected
by the suppressions from the authority. Being forced to work in ‘the little coal mine’, Ma
describes how their “stint in the coal mine would mark us for the rest of our lives, physically
and especially mentally”. In the mine, they first realize how close death is. For Luo, without
the hope of life his crying “bounced off the walls and echoed all the way to the other end of
the shaft before subsiding into the shadows”. This contrasts with the first impression the
writer created for Luo when he first arrived in the village: he “lit a cigarette and smoked
quietly, like a man”. When he first came to the village, though Luo does not have a lot of
experience, he expected himself to be a mature man. However, after experiencing “the little
coal mine”, Luo first felt hopeless and realized the harshness of life. This has turned Luo into
an even stronger man. Though being attacked by malaria, Luo still managed to travel
through the mountain to the Little Seamstress’ village to tell stories. Even though the
authority forces Ma and Luo to face danger, it also helps them develop their strength. As for
Four Eyes, under the pressure of the authority, he turns himself into an obedient coward.
After Luo and Ma brought the folktales to Four Eyes, filled with arrogance and hatred, Four
Eyes changes the lyrics to a less reactionary style. While changing the lyrics, he has given up
the principle of keeping the folktales’ original style. This is because he does not dare to
challenge the authority standard set for literature at that time.

Villagers are also being influenced by the authority unconsciously. During the Cultural
Revolution, the strict authority control spontaneously trained the villagers as tamed
henchmen of the authority. At the beginning of the novel, the writer depicts the angry cries
from the crowd after the headman defined the violin as a toy. “Everyone started talking at
once, shouting and reaching out to grab the toy for the privilege of throwing it on the coals.”
By piling up active verbs “shouting”, “grab” and “throwing” the author indicates the
villagers’ thirst for burning the violin. The ardor’s cause is simply a headman’s command “go
on, burn it”. The author not only uses this set of cause and effect to serve as a foil to show
the strong power of the headman but also conveys the villagers’ blindness to obedience
during the Cultural Revolution. Moreover, when recalling being hit by Luo, Ma also recalls
the rally criticizing Luo’s father. By comparing “the sports ground” as “a bobbing sea of dark
heads”, the author shows the huge number of people coming to the public place of
humiliation, which further indicates how the authority impacts on the citizens. During the
rally, the uneducated crowds were being used as tools by the authority to denounce the so-
called “class enemy”, but ironically, instead of criticizing Luo’s father as a “reactionary”, the
ignorance villagers care more about his story of sleeping with a nurse.

However, unlike the city youths, the local authority gives the villagers freedom while
encouraging them to belittle the advancement and the education of the city youths. In the
end of the story, the Little Seamstress’s flight to the city ironically contrasts to the youth
being restricted in the village. The writer uses the imagery of a bird to represent the Little
Seamstress as she takes her leave: “At my first shout she hastened her step, at my second
she broke into a run, and at my third she took off like a bird, growing smaller and smaller
until she vanished.” Piling up a sequence of verbs like “hastened, broke into a run, took off
and vanished”, the author creates a dynamic scene of the Little Seamstress’ disappearance.
This simile of the image of the bird emphasizes the sense of freedom when she discovered
her value and set herself apart from the ignorant villagers to become a city-dweller. This
represents her rejection of the local authority and her parental authority to fight for her
dream of a different future than the villagers.

The personality cult in the authority during the Cultural Revolution brought different kinds of
impacts to people with different identities and personalities. In the novel, the headmen of
the villages abuse their authority. Some city youths are compelled to grow their resilience,
while some give up their principles to obey the authorities. Moreover, the villagers are also
being used by the authorities unconsciously. Though in the name of doing the best for its
people, the government deliberately controls the citizens to support its ideology and
suppress the privileged classes. Ironically, none of these impacts brought by the authority
brings benefits to its people.

Citation:
Dai, Sijie. Balzac And The Little Chinese Seamstress. Anchor Book, 2002.