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Friday, September 30, 2016

A Key to the Cage

Narrator’s Sheepskin Coat:

“I decided I would write directly onto the inside of my sheepskin coat… I copied out the chapter where Ursule somnambulates. I longed to be like her: to be able, while I lay asleep, to see what my mother was doing … Better still, like Ursule, I would visit, in my dreams, places I had never set eyes on before…” (58).

“After I had read the passage from Balzac to her word for word, he explained, “‘she took your coat and reread the whole thing, in silence. When she’d finish reading she sat there quite still, open-mouthed. Your coat was resting on the flat of her hands, the way a sacred object lies in the palms of the pious. “‘He 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.She said having Balzac’s words next to her skin made her feel good, and also more intelligent" (62).  
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Four-Eyes’ Suitcase:

“So I could ask him what sort of treasure he had so securely hidden away in his secret cache” (49).

“We crept up to the suitcase. It was tied with a thick rope of plaited straw, knotted crosswise. We removed the rope and raised the lid in silence. Inside, piles of books shone in the light of our torch: a company of great Western writers welcomed us with open arms. On top was our friend Balzac, with five or six novels” (99).
Introverts and Schools: a TED talk by Susan Cain | Heads and Tales at ...

Main Idea/Summary of the Two Symbols relating to a Novel Topic:
In the book Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, the locked suitcase full of books and the sheepskin coat represent Luo and the narrator’s journey to intellectual liberty during their re-education. The boys view the suitcase as a cage which locks their knowledge away and prevents them from learning. Once they get exposure to free thinking from the Balzac book, they want to experience the ability to think for themselves again. This makes the suitcase turn into their cage, because it denies them of the additional knowledge they want to gain. Eventually, the boys will do anything to break the cage open, which is for them stealing the suitcase from Four-Eyes. They succeed, allowing them a whole stash of books which gives them the knowledge they were craving. During the time that the knowledge is locked in the cage (when the books are in the suitcase), the narrator is desperate to feel close to this knowledge again. His sheepskin coat is the solution- he can feel close to the works and his intellectual freedom again when he writes the passage inside the coat. This allows him to remember the passages even when the book is gone, as well as feeling close to the books and reminding him to think freely despite this being something Mao looks down on. Overall, the books inside the suitcase represent the only knowledge the boys have access to up high on the mountain. The suitcase denies their ability to continue thinking freely, and to maintain this intellectual liberty, they turn to the writings inside the sheepskin coat for that access.

10 comments:

  1. Your analysis of the suitcase in contrast to the sheepskin coat is very insightful and well thought out.

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  2. Do you think the boys will get tired of what's in the suitcase and try to find an additional source of knowledge and literature?
    I think the boys have grown up in the sense that they have a greater understanding for the importance of education and literature. They have developed a passion for learning that they didn't really have when they arrived at the reeducation camp.

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  3. This post was well thought out and in depth! I think this passion is a point of coming of age for the boys, and their desire to learn this forbidden literature proves it. How do believe the both boys' point of views will change after reading this literature?

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  4. The connection between the coat and the suitcase was very thorough and they complimented one and another.

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  5. Your analysis of how the suitcase is like a "cage" is very insightful and I never saw it that way. I also like how you tied together the two symbols in a way and found a way to make them relate.

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  6. This analysis really considered how the two symbols were connected. I already understood that these were both signs of intellectual liberty, but they way you guys connecting that to breaking out of their constraints by writing the passages on the coat and opening the suitcase was really insightful.

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  7. I really like your analysis and connection between the two symbols based on the desire to learn more. Do you think they will ever spread the knowledge of the books they have to other people, not just the Little Seamstress?

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  8. How far will Luo and the narrator go to gain more knowledge? How greedy are they?
    Luo and the narrator have realized how significant intellectual liberty is to them. Because they are denied access to education, they realize that the suitcase is the only way to read and learn new things and therefore steal it from Four Eyes.

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  9. Do you think that there has been a change in how the boys and the seamstress act/think after reading the books? I really like how you connected the suitcase and the sheepskin. I think that these symbols definitely represents intellectual liberty as well

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  10. I liked how you connected the themes of coming-of-age and intellectual freedom to analyse how the entire situation of their re-education impacted the lives of Luo and the narrator.

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