losing control

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress- Dai Sijie

Through Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie constantly reminds us that not everything in life is within our control. At times, as occurs several times in the novel, when a situation seems most within our control is when we realize that, in fact, we were never in control at all, quite a jarring realization.

The first example that Dai presents is the Chinese government, though perhaps it can’t be called a realization. It’s made quite clear to the audience that the Chinese government’s power is being evaded, yet the government itself never comes to this realization. But it is this secrecy that makes the government’s lack of control all the more enjoyable. The government has taken away both the narrator and his friend Luo from their parents and sent them to a mountain known as Phoenix of the Sky in order to be re-educated by the villagers. This program was usually reserved for young men and women who had attended high school, but the narrator and Luo were forced into the same program despite their lack of a high school education because of their parents’ poor relationship with the government. This situation, however, made it even harder for them to escape re-education. Stuck in a predicament forced upon them by a government they had little respect for, anything to go against that suffocating authority was welcome, and the two friends found just such an outlet in forbidden books that they were able to obtain and read. Not only was this going completely against the government’s wishes, but it was doing so while the government was trying to force them to follow the government’s wishes and it was right under the noses of the government’s minions. Such a controlled environment, yet, as the two young men showed, so little true control.

The acquiring of the books itself was yet another example of a perception of control that comes tumbling down, though this time the person that loses control is very much aware of it. Originally, the books that the narrator and Luo wanted were in the possession of their friend, who they called Four-Eyes, another young man that had been sent to be re-educated because of his parents. Upon discovering their friend’s stash of books, they offer to do various chores for him in order to read the books, and Four-Eyes begins to look upon the books as a way of using the narrator and Luo. He dangles the promise of a book in front of them in order to get them to find mountain songs for him that he can send to be published, possibly securing him a job that will allow him to escape re-education. In order to get the job, Four-Eyes edits the songs to support the government which angers the narrator and Luo, but Four-Eyes cares very little about their opinions when he finds his efforts successful. Leaving the mountain and re-education behind and heading towards a new job, Four-Eyes has every reason to believe that he is in control of his destiny. However, this completely changes when he discovers that his entire suitcase of forbidden books has been stolen. Of course he knows it is the narrator and Luo that have stolen the books. No one else knows about them. Yet he’s absolutely powerless to do anything about it. Accusing them of the theft would mean admitting to the fact that he possessed books banned by the government. In such a way, Four-Eyes was controlled by the very objects that he had thought he was using to control the narrator and Luo.

But the two protagonists, who relished the helplessness caused by their actions, find themselves faced with a similar situation. Soon after they arrived on the mountain, they met a girl they fondly called the Little Seamstress. It wasn't long before she became Luo’s girlfriend, but Luo didn't consider a “simple mountain girl” to be good enough for him. After first meeting her, he even commented, “She’s not civilised, at least not enough for me!” However, using the books they stole from Four-Eyes, Luo thought that he, the superior city boy, would be able to fix his simple mountain girl. As he read to her book after book, he always considered himself in the process of bettering the Little Seamstress for himself, as if he owned her. However, the Little Seamstress showed him how little he truly controlled her by leaving to go to the city, ironically enough inspired by the books Luo had read to her. In the end, it was not the Little Seamstress who had been controlled, but Luo, left chasing after her and upset to the point of burning the books he treasured so much, the books that had represented control over their own lives. The narrator and Luo had so many times seen others trapped in the perception of their own power and control, yet, in the end, they too fell victim to that perception.