Balzac And The Little Seamstress By Dai Sijie

The book Balzac and The Little Seamstress by Dai Sijie is a story about two boys, the narrator and his friend Luo, who are forced to move to a village for re-education. Many students are taken out of school to be re-educated by rural peasants and do labor work. Luo and the narrator are sent because their parents are medical professionals and the villagers think they are too smart. They don’t want people to have a chance to be smarter than them. In the passage that is being examined, the headman of the village, Mao Zedong, directs Luo to fix his tooth that is hurting and he threatens to take the narrator to Public Security Office if he doesn't do it. The reason he threatens this is because when Luo and the narrator first come to the village,

they are put to work in a coal mine. When the villagers realize that they have a special talent for storytelling, they are sent to watch movies and retell the stories to the villagers. The headman overhears one of the stories and believes the narrator is spreading reactionary filth and so he blackmails Luo into fixing his tooth. It is easy for the headman to find a way to get Luo to fix his tooth now because he has a the upper hand in the situation. The scene to the novel is very disturbing, revealing the nasty hygiene of the headman and the narrator's angry feelings and revengeful actions towards him.
The way the headman is portrayed shows his unclean ways and creates a disturbing image to the reader.

The passage is filled with hideous descriptions of the headman’s mouth. The passage starts describing the headman's mouth as a “jagged mountain ridge” with “tobacco-stained canines.” This highlights the fact that the headman doesn't really care about his appearance or what people think about him. He just wants to care for how he feels and he doesn't care if it looks bad. His mouth is described as a “porous coral reef” which he is “caressing” with his “yellow tongue.” This grotesque imagery gives the reader a chilling feeling and proves the way the headman is

portrayed.
The headman's insolent diction also shows his grungy personality.

He seems to not care how he acts towards others and just cares about how he feels about himself. While Luo was fixing his tooth, the headman fumed that Luo nearly “killed him.” This explains that he is making his tooth into a bigger deal than it is and he wants them to think that he is better than them. He wants it to seem like it's Luo’s fault that his tooth is hurting by saying he “nearly died.” When Luo and the tailor say that the headman's body refuses to cooperate and they need to strap him down, the headman thinks he is a big shot and tells them that he is basically in charge and has the “commune leader’s mandate.” This is saying that even though his body isn't cooperating, he still finds a way to tell them that he is in charge even though they are helping

him.
The narrator becomes revengeful and wants to humiliate the headman. He wants him to know that he isn't invincible and is just as equal. When Luo and the tailor finally strap the headman down, the narrator has to take over the tailor's job. He had to put his foot on the treadle and pedal the machine with the needle that is going to drill the headman’s tooth attached to it. He was “filled with trepidation” when he first started the job. This is because he didn't want the headman to become more angry at him. He was nervous that it wouldn't work as he wanted. The headman was strapped down however, and so he couldn't say anything to the narrator. The narrator took advantage of that and he pedaled slower because he wanted to punish the headman for “threatening custody” upon him. He covered his hatred with a “innocent, calm deliberation.” This was because he now had the advantage and he didn't want the headman to know that he was doing this on purpose.