Clouded Vision

Red& Three blood spots in the Headman's eye

"The headman held the violin upright and peered into the black interior of the body, like an officious customs officer searching for drugs (3)."

"Raising the violin to eye level, he shook it, as though convinced something would drop out of the sound holes (3)."


Sijie uses the symbols of Red and Three blood spots in the Headman's eyes do demonstrate a lack of intellectual liberty. The Blood spots in the headman's eyes represent the headman being blinded by communism. Because of the ideas of communism, he cannot see the Violin as a harmless instrument, rather he was so convinced that the violin was dangerous and a threat to communism. This resulted in him searching the violin like a"Officious customs officer searching for drugs". This shows that the Headman was lacking intellectual liberty because of what the cultural revolution had taught him, which was to treat anything that was not related to communism as a threat even if it was clearly harmless.