The Little Seamstress

Write a paragraph for each and make sure to add a quote from the book!

a. Describe a rite of passage that each of the three characters (narrator, Luo, the Little Chinese
Seamstress) complete. How are they changed as a result of the rite of passage?
b. In what ways was the education of the LCS empowering for her?
(I answered both questions together, because I believe that they tied together, that the first time she
heard the story of the banned books and how these books in powered her)

The narrator, Luo, and the Little Chinese Seamstress experience many rites of passage
throughout this book. The point in the two boys lives when they are sent away from the village to be
re-educated was a complete turning point, everything that they were used to changed and they were
forced to grow up and deal with new problems that were thrust in front of them. This first rite of
passage takes place before the book begins. We as readers, only see the affects of this first rite of
passage, we do not know many details about how it happened. Luo and the narrator had to step up in
many way in order to keep/better their 3 in 1,000 chance of returning home. For them, this
responsibility was an important stage to being mature adults. In the following quote, the narrator talks
about part of the responsibility of re-education that is placed on them. “Luo and I, like other city
youths, were put to work underground for two months as part of our re-education.”
There were several rites of passage for the Little Chinese Seamstress, such as when Luo and the
narrator showed the young woman her first book and when she lost her virginity to Luo. Both events
were a big deal in her life. This in powering event changed everything for her, including her outlook
on life, understanding of love, and made her strive for a deeper meaning to everything she did. In my
opinion, the education that she received through the book that the narrator and Luo read to her, changed
her life the most. It was this which lead to her leaving the mountain for the city.
The narrator went through a big change when he read his first banned book. Ursule Mirouet by
Balzac. It changed the way he saw everything, including how he pictured the lifestyles of people in
different countries around the world. “Picture this, a boy of nineteen, still slumbering in the limbo of
adolescence, having heard nothing buy revolutionary blather about patriotism, Communism, ideology,
and propaganda all his life, falling headlong into a story of awakening desire, passion, impulsive
action, love, of all the subjects that had, until then been hidden from me.”

c. In what ways was the education of the LCS oppressive for her?

Although knowledge seemed to empower Little Chinese Seamstress in many ways, it also had
an oppressive affect on her. One of the major affects was that she was no longer content with her
simple mountain life. She felt the need to leave her home, to experience some of the things she read in
the books. This discontentment was not necessarily a good thing for both her mental and physically,
because it made her uneasy and resulted to her putting herself in more dangerous situations.
“ 'She's gone,” I said.
'She wants to go to the city,' he said.
'She mentioned Balzac'.”

d. What do you make of the last two lines of the novel? How is it a liberation for the LCS? How is it
imprisoning for the LCS?

The last two lines of the novel definitely have a lot of meaning behind them. She is telling Luo
about how much Balzac has influenced her, in a way that both expresses her womanhood, and showed
him what her view about beauty was, especially in herself. I think that this meant a lot to him, because
it have him insight to how she thinks and feels. “She said she had learnt one thing from Balzac; that a
woman's beauty is a treasure beyond price.”