第97期 Book review 28/05/20
The little seamstress is a very important character in the book. In my opinion, she represents the individuals in that period of time, including how they were inspired and seek for the liberty of their mind. The filmmaker sculptured her into a figure of unliterated, which wished to be educated under any background and circumstances, just like the people during cultural revolution. But this luck consideration will eventually cause huge and disastrous consequences to the characters and people in real life if they accidentally touch the sensitive nerves of the politics. However, the little chinese seamstress doesn't have a name, which indicates and proves the thought that she is the symbolic character of the movie, symbolizing the peasants and people who dared oppose the government during the cultural revolution. All actions, scripts and thoughts perfectly correspond with people in real life during cultural revolution. For example, the character development of the little seamstress is the following:
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One ignorant uneducated countryside girl→
Information received from the “outside world”→
Inspired and willing to change but also facing tremendous difficulties→
Eager to change therefore strived and fought the fate→
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In comparison, the development for real people during cultural revolution is:
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Uneducated and ignorant peasants and pressurized intellectuals→
Information received from the “outside world”→
Inspired and willing to change but also facing tremendous difficulties→
Eager to change therefore strived and fought the fate (Riot, revolution and victory)→
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Therefore, she is the spirit of the central idea of the entire book. She is so significant that even the boys around her, the villagers around her are just the background of her development mentally. The boys represent the information received from the outside world, which later inspired the little seamstress to seek the liberty of her mind. The villagers around him, especially the captain, who represents the government which was pressurizing the intellectuals and convincing and mostly ordering people to do what they want to do. Thus, the entire village is the society, with little seamstress representing the “reactionaries”, the captain and villagers representing the government, and the boys representing the new information. That’s the reason why the little seamstress doesn't even have a name, and that’s why she is mysterious.
