Reflective Statement: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

is that he himself is trying to be re-educated himself. It is better explained by relating to Plato’s Allegory of the cave. The thesis behind this allegory is the basic idea that everything that we perceive is imperfect and these imperfections are like reflections of the real truth. In the story Plato establishes four prisoners inside of a cave chained down and forced to look at the front wall of the cave. There are basically four parts to it: first is when they are all in the cave, forced to look at the wall, there is a fire behind them and shapes are projected on to the wall by other people. They then give names to all of these shapes is the only life they have ever known. The second part to this is one of the prisoners is released from the cave and allowed out. This prisoner at first is dazed and cannot see much, but then his eyes adjust. After a few days he has been enlightened and his perception of reality has been changed. If he were to return to the cave, missing his old life, but when he is there and isn’t accustomed to the darkness anymore and can’t make the shapes out wouldn’t he be made fun of? Wouldn’t the others think badly of the outside world? If someone were to try and lead them out, would they kill him? The story the novel tells is similar in many ways to the allegory. We can think of the prisoners as being the villagers on Phoenix Mountain and the one that is released is the Little Chinese Seamstress, when she is taught about the rest of the world by Luo and the Narrator it is like she is the prisoner being let out and her perception of reality is changed. If she were to go back to the village and talk to them about her new ideas (went back in to the cave) and Luo was to try and convince the others to read books and learn about Western culture (to leave the cave). They would most likely severely punish him, even kill him. In this point of view is the novel is very pessimistic as there is no hope as for other young intellectuals like Luo and the Narrator to teach the villagers and farmers that only know the life in Mao’s communist China.