Item - Narrator’s Sheepskin Coat
Topic - Hope
Two key quotes:
“Writing on the skin of an old mountain sheep was not easy: the surface was rough and creased and, in order to squeeze as much text as possible into the available space, I had to use a minute script, which required all the concentration I could muster. By the time I had covered the entire inside of the jacket, including the sleeves, my fingers were aching so badly it felt as if the bones were broken” (58).
“‘When she’d finished reading she sat there quite still, open-mouthed. Your coat was resting on the flat of her hands, the way a sacred object lies in the palms of the pious….[Balzac] touched the head of this mountain girl with an invisible finger, and she was transformed, carried away in a dream. It took a while for her to come down to earth… She said having Balzac’s words next to her skin made her feel good, and also more intelligent’” (62).
Thesis Statement - Sijie uses the symbol of the narrator’s sheepskin coat to illustrate how the power of literature can instill hope, even in the most dire of times.
Moved by Balzac’s writing, the narrator goes to great lengths to inscribe the literature within his threadbare coat. His worn sheepskin coat, a representation of the poverty and hardships of re-education, becomes a sacred symbol of hope with Balzac’s words. The literature is able to empower and touch the minds of two once pessimistic teenage boys and the Little Seamstress, a simple uncultured mountain girl.
The sheepskin coat also draws parallels with the symbolic representation of the movies being displayed in the town. Similar to how Luo and the narrator become filled with hope after reading the Western literature, the villagers become hopeful when they hear about the movies from the town. This demonstrates how stories and media can provide hope for a better future.
What other topics could the sheepskin coat represent and how do they affect the boys? The topic hope could also relate to the little Chinese seamstress who gives the boys the courage and hope of a better life.
ReplyDeleteWhile the jacket definitely represents hope, I believe it also has two more meanings. One, it represents how much the characters need to hide - otherwise they'd be writing it on paper, not a coat. Two, it represents courage. Though the topic they're writing about is considered illegal/reactionary, they show courage in writing it out on something they wear every day anyways.
ReplyDeleteDo you think there is a significance to the sheepskin coat, rather than a different article of clothing?
ReplyDeleteAs far a focus topics, I definitely agree with the theme of hope through literature. I also think that, in a way, writing out the book on the coat shows a sense of loss. Because of the extremely strict cultural revolution, the boys have lost the freedom and ability to simply copy down the book onto paper, or to read it in public.
Is there any connection between the material and the significance of the coat? I viewed it as somewhat ironic as the narrator is clearly doing things that are anti-revolutionary. He quite literally becomes the wolf in sheeps' clothing. I also see the connection to intellectual liberty and courage as he is pushing the boundaries of the cultural revolution in order to stimulate his mind.
ReplyDeleteI really like how clear this post is! It is laid out in a way that is very easy to follow. This does line up nicely with the hope topic as you mentioned in your writing. One thing I wonder is if there is any evidence that Luo and the narrator were once pessimistic in the beginning. To me, it seems like they were actually being optimistic through most of the plot starting with the manipulation of the violin confiscation and then continuing throughout. This is really nice analysis showing that Luo, the narrator, and the Little Chinese Seamstress have been touched and given hope by literature. Well done!
ReplyDeleteCould it be that the sheepskin coat also is a symbol for the peasant village and the re education process?
ReplyDeleteThe coat could also be a symbol for the cultural revolution/reeducation as the merging of the two 'cultures', the peasant way of life and the intellectual way of life, can be seen through this as the narrator writes and adds intellectual knowledge to the simple, but useful/necessary sheepskin coat. When the Little Seamstress reads off the coat, this can be seen even more as she is a simple peasant girl, being influenced and altered by the presence of the city boys, just as they are by her.
Could there be another meaning to the sheepskin coat, besides the hardships of re-education?
ReplyDeleteI think the sheepskin coat connects to loss, as was mentioned in this post, but also to intellectual liberty. This coat shows Luo's and the narrator's freedom to have a little more say in what they want to learn. They have the ability to have preferences on types of books, allowing them to be able to write down their favorite parts of the books onto the jacket. I think this could also relate to coming of age, as the narrator and Luo are not selfish about the books they have, but they want to share them with the little seamstress.
Do you think that the fact that the words were written on that specific coat as opposed to another article of clothing or item affects its importance to the boys?
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement that the writing on the coat represents hope. However I believe that the coat itself represents where the boys came from and their coming of age and growth from who they were when they lived a privaleged life in the city. It also represents their loss of wealth and everything else that they had to leave behind.
Is there a significance to the fact that the narrator struggled to write the quotes on the inside of the sheepskin?
ReplyDeleteThis could also tie into intellectual liberty, showing a learning curve of the narrator from not giving much value to storytelling to painstakingly etching quotes from a book because he understood the power that words can possess.
Do you think the quality of the sheepskin plays into its symbolism?
ReplyDeleteThe sheepskin plays into hope because the narrator is taking something from the peasants, nothing more than a carcass strewn together to make a vest compared to clothes the narrator used to wear, and modifying it to have more significance to him. The passages
from Balzac provide the narrator a glimpse into the Western world which he longs for.
In what ways might the near inability of the narrator to write on the inside of the coat also add to the significance of this symbol in the story? I think that it could even be possible to tie two essay topics together with this symbol: hope and intellectual liberty.
ReplyDelete