Shedding the Past

Thesis: Sijie uses the symbol of the narrator’s sheepskin coat to illustrate the connection the narrator feels to his former and life the significance of his friendship with Luo.

This connects to Coming of Age in that the narrator is coming to terms with Luo entering into a relationship and advancing past their friendship. He feels that he is losing his friend and his family, but is choosing to handle the change maturely.

Sheepskin Coat Represents:

• the boys’ friendship
• betrayal or hurt
• intellectual property being stolen?
• inner thoughts being used to benefit another?
• Luo’s disregard for the narrator’s possessions

• a connection to the narrator’s home
• making the mountain life his own journey
• staying connected to his past, or himself while on the mountain
• inspiration for what he wanted his life to be like again

• makes Little Seamstress feel more educated
• Luo’s struggle to civilize the Little Seamstress
• literature connected the Seamstress and Luo

1. “I copied out the chapter where Ursule somnambulates. I longed to be like her: to be able, while I lay asleep on my bed...I would visit, in my dreams, places I had never set eyes on before…”(58)

2. “He borrowed my sheepskin coat to wear when he went to meet the Little Seamstress at the foot of their gingko tree in the valley of love. After I had read the passage from Balzac to her word for word… she took your coat and reread the whole thing in silence… When she’d finished reading she sat there quite still, open-mouthed. This fellow Balzac is a wizard… He touched the head of this mountain girl with an invisible finger, and was transformed, carried away in a dream.”(62)

Thesis: Sijie uses the symbol of the buffalo to emphasize the significance of Four Eyes. Escaping from his re-education process, while giving up his morality in the process. This connects to Coming of Age in that Four Eyes has grown up from a boy into a man by really showing his literature skills.

Buffalo Represents:

• Four-Eyes’ re-education
• his struggle
• his revenge for the buffalo for breaking his glasses, like the re-education threatening his job?
• Cultural Revolution taking away his opportunities
• job blinded him to the value of the literature, like buffalo blinded him by breaking his glasses

1. “They’re waiting for the blood to congeal, … It’s a remedy against cowardice. To gain courage, you must swallow it when it’s still lukewarm and frothy… He (the headman) caressed the edge with the tips of his fingers and then sliced the pudding of thick blood in two: half for Four-Eyes, half for himself.” (94)

2. “For all his efforts to dodge the relentless lashes, one split second of inattention was enough for Four-Eyes to receive a blow to the face from the buffalo’s tail, which spent his spectacles hurtling through the air...He bent over and plunged his arms into the water, groping around in the mud. The blank expression in his bulging eyes was disconcerting.”(49)

Time to Fiddle

First symbol: Alarm clock

• Quotes:
• 1: “In the end we had changed the position of the hands so many times that we had no idea what the time really was” (15).
• 2: “I was convinced that the real reason behind his liberal attitude was the irresistible attraction of our alarm clock, with its proud peacock-feathered rooster...The only way he could have it all to himself, was to dispatch us to Yong Qing. During the four days it took us to get there, he would be lord and master of the clock” (80).
• Thesis: The protagonists’ manipulation
• n of the alarm clock represents the fact that although their circumstances are desperate, they find ways to exercise control over their lives, even if it’s only the small things.
• Relation to coming of age: The alarm clock represents the two boys asserting increasing control over their lives. Especially in the repressive environment of the cultural revolution, they have lived their whole lives possessing little control over their decisions. Changing the hands on their alarm clock allows them to truly have control something for the first time, helping them to mature and grow as individuals.

Second symbol: Violin [or Wy-o-lin]

• Quotes:
• 1: “Some day, perhaps, once I was an accomplished violinist, some modest local or regional propaganda committee- in the district of Yong Jing, for instance- might open their doors to me, and might even hire me to perform Red violin concertos. But Luo couldn’t play the violin, I reflected, and he wasn’t much good at basketball or football either. In fact, he didn’t  possess a single skill that might help him to become one of the three in a thousand. He couldn’t even dream of it” (18).
• 2: “One peasant took the ‘toy’ from the headman’s hands, drummed with his fists on its back, then passed it to the next person…

‘A stupid toy,’ a woman commented hoarsely.

    ‘No,’ the village headman corrected her, ‘a bourgeois toy’” (4).

• Thesis: While the narrator had originally stored his hopes in the violin, believing that it could be his key to escaping his circumstances, he increasingly finds that his hopes are exaggerated and that he needs to rely on himself to get ahead.
• Connection:  Earlier on in the story, the narrator believes that the violin will be the key to his success. However, as part of growing up and maturing, he realizes over time that he will need to rely on himself, instead of counting on his talents or possessions to solve all his problems.