Balzac...

3) There are many ironies present in the story. Choose one major irony and explain how/why the irony shapes the meaning of the story.

Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress illustrates the journey of two city slickers adapting to the secluded environment of Phoenix Mountain. Luo and the narrator, are apart of the "Cultural Revolution", in which Chairman Mao dictates the people of China. He enforces ludicrous laws and it just so happens Luo and the narrator were in violation of them. In the deepest of ironies, Luo and the narrator are sent to the rural hillside to be re-educated, yet they end up re-educating the locals. Using love and revenge as motives, they infiltrate the foreign environment with their beliefs.

The alarm clock with the phoenix had a profound affect on the village, especially the village headman. The new method of telling time captivated the headman from the start. "The village headman would pace to and fro, smoking his bamboo pipe... all the while keeping a watchful eye on the clock. At nine o'clock sharp he would give a long piercing whistle to summon the villagers to work in the fields." Lackadaisical attitude and the need for rebellion necessitates Luo and the narrator setting the clocks backward. "The sheer audacity of our trick did a lot to temper our resentment against the former opium growers who, now that they had been converted into "poor peasants" by the Communist regime, were in charge of our re-education." Bitter about being cut off from society, the two friends seek revenge in the only way they know how. They take it out on the locals.

Other objects of their culturalization are storytelling and the Little Seamstress. Luo's and the narrator's love for both compel them to do all sorts of insane things. They go against all guidelines of friendship and steal the forbidden books from Four-Eyes. The guileful deed is complimented with a disturbing remark. "We were so elated!" Luo is probably most happy because he is the one that gets the pleasure of relaying Balzac's stories to the Little Seamstress, and he gets her pleasure. His friend was not to be outdone, though. "The deal we had made was that I would give him our copy of Ursule Mirouet, but upon reflection I decided to extend his reward to include the book I treasure most of all--Jean Christophe..." The narrator is giving away his most prized possession, in hopes of gaining her love. Caught up in the race for love, they fail to read between the lines. "She said she learnt one thing from Balzac: that a woman's beauty is a treasure beyond price."

It is most unfortunate that these informal heroes lost the girl and their books, but at least they educated someone. Even if it was only one.