Little Seamstress Test

4) If you choose the following and answer the question well, you will receive 10 points extra credit:
In the early chapters of Pere Goriot by Honore Balzac (the same author that the guys read in the novel you are reading), the narrator describes the setting and conditions of early 19th century Paris where the main characters live.

"...in that famous valley of ever-peeeling plaster and muddy black gutters, that valley where suffering is always real and joy very often false, and the everyday turmoil so grim that it is difficult to imagine any castastrophe producing more than a momentary sensation there... A Parisian losing his way here would see nothing but lodging houses and institutions, penury or boredom, old age declining into death, bright youth pressed into drudgrey."

In what ways does Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress relate to this passage from Pere Goriot?

The setting in which the boys are being "re- educated" is parallel to the setting described in the passage above. The setting they are thrown in to is simple, methodical, and most importantly loyal to the revolution. The narrator and Luo were born into prominent families, which to the government is threatening to the revolution. Like Honore Balzac said, "bright youth pressed into drudgrey." The everyday work in there village was supposed to shape them into the perfect revolutionary citizen. "Each day we had to fill the 'back-buckets' with a mixture of excrement and water, hoist them onto our shoulders and clamber up the mountainside to the fields, many of which were situated at dizzying heights(Dai Sijie, 14)." The tight schedule of chores left no time for imagination, which in turn allowed an extra hour of sleep to be the greatest escape for the boys. Every worker on the mountain and in the villages near were working to old age. Working until "old age declining into death(Balzac)." The villagers only had there work to look forward to. There lifes were black and white. "The everyday turmoil so grim that it is difficult to imagine any castastrophe producing more than a momentary sensation there(Balzac)."