Sunday, November 23, 2008

Balzac Questions pg 158-184

50. The Little Seamstress told the narrator that she was pregnant. She, herself, wasn't ready to be a mother or wasn't aloud to be a mother at her age. Narrator helped her as much as possible by asking the top hospital doctor for help. The law doesn't allow the women to have an abortion or marriage before the age 25.

51. Narrator's parents could have just kicked him out of their house and let him live by him self.
There is a law of not allowing women to have any abortion or marriage before turing 25 years old.

52. The preacher is a very wise man so the narrator trusted him that he could help the Little Stream Stress. His live along with the Bible, so he wanted to stay in his own thoughts.

53. The narrator chose to give a book to the doctor if he was going to help. First the doctor didn't believe about the book, but the smart narrator had some part of the book on his jacket which made the doctor believe him.

54. The Little Seam Stress changed her style. Her shoes, clothes, everything changed. From a village mountain girl to a young lady.

55. Luo and the narrator felt betrayed by the Little Seamstress because she just left without saying anything to them, when they thought they were pretty close friends/relationships. Narrator had some connection with her while Luo was gone, but she left so he's upset with this too.

56. I think it means that the Little Seamstress's strength is to have a good talents with looks. Her reeducation by the boy was from reading her books which changed her from the moutain village girl to a high fashion stylish girl .

57. The boys finally believed that books were the one that led them into troubles they got. Even the Little Seamstress got adicted to books with them. Without books, they might have had more peaceful life.

58. No, the reeducation for them was a backfire. It ended up having both of them believe more into the books rather than forgetting about it. Meating the Little Seamstress made it worse too, they kept on reading bookis to her which let them not forget about it. The ideas changed but not towards the goals of Cultural Revolution.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Balzac book and movie

I liked how the movie one flashed into the the real time life, showing what they were doing now. In the book it ended where the Little Seamstress left the village and Luo weren't able to stop her, but the movie, well it ended in with that sad good bye but the way they led it to that was from Luo and Ma watching video during the real time, which really sounded so story like, and more interesting. It was nice to see Luo being married and Ma being single, and still trying to find the Little Seamtress. Overall, I was more interested in the movie than the book, not saying book was bad, just that movie pulled me more into the story than the book.

Balzac Questions pg 131-157

46. This quote shows that the narrator was enjoying seeing the headman in pain while he was pedaling. This might be true to him since the headman was treating him in an unfairly way.

47. The Old Miller saw Luo and the Little Seamstress having sex in the water. Lou enjoys seeing the beautiful posture of the Little Seamstress into the water. He was worried when she didn’t come back up from the water after searching for his keys.

48. The narrator was very surprised by how Lou trusted him to guard the Little Seamstress, when he knew the narrator also liked her as well. This is related to his favorite book Jean Christophe, this boy was trying to do the exact same thing as the narrator.

49. The narrator in this part just acted as a storyteller. People in the village, mostly guys were very jealous of him, how he gets to stay close with the Little Seamstress. He felt like as if he was a secret agent and protecting the Little Seamstress. In his dream, the Little Seamstress became the narrator’s savior and she tended him afterward as well.

Balzac Questions pg 109-130

39. Love and romance. They had a new way of thinking and really wanted to experience it.

40. The main theme is music and the narrator is very attracted to it because he himself plays the violin.

41. Luo loves the Little Seamstress. He is willing to risk his life and go through a very dangerous path to reach her home. The red-beaked is a evil omen and the significance is death.

42. Luo and the Little Seamstress are getting closer and closer each day. If the Little Seamstress dies, Luo will faint, and loose his mind.

43. The headman asks Luo to fix his teeth since the people at the hospital did a poor job. It is going against the rule because they are suppose to be educated and they should be educated, not supposed to use their knowledge for anything.

44. He heard that the two boys were really good storytellers, so therefore he wanted them two to tell him a story.

45. He protest to the story because it's foreign. The headman insists the narrator to go back, go have talk at the security office but obviously the narrator doesn't want to, so Luo had to fix the headman's teeth in order to skip that step.

Balzac Questions pg 80-105

28. Yong Jing is a small town with daily basic needs like post offices and a open-air cinema where the two boys go watch movies and passes the story on to the villagers.

29. It was Four-Eyes' mother. The narrator acts as if he was Luo because Four-Eyes has a bad impression on the narrator and he thought his mom would be the same. The quote means that she believes at some point, the doctors and intellectuals will be useful again.

30. It was the Little Seamstress' idea and it is an interesting development because usually all those pop ups come from the two boys.

31. The buffalo was pushed off the side because people weren't allowed to kill working animals.

32. Four-Eyes is drinking the blood so that people in the village including the headman will believe that he's been reeducated. He has hidden books and he actually read them so he is still smart at the same time.

33. The function of the five sorceresses was to show that people were superstitious and didn't know better.

34. These books had a huge effect on him because it is a really precious object where people can't get in normal life. They believe that books have lives that can change people's life/personality.

35. If they get caught they will get in real big trouble but if they don't, it would satisfy their personal desire, and they will continue to be smarter. The outcome was that they didn't get turned in and the books were still kept secret.

36. Luo purpose that taking the books was for teaching Little Seamtress and "transform" her.

37. No, because they are stealing.

38. They important part is that he is changing his appearance himself. Underneath his "reeducated" self is the old Four-Eyes still desiring for books.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Balzac Questions p 61-79

22. Four-Eyes' mother set a forth for him to write an article of a journal in the city. He fails the task because he couldn't accomplish the task. He got attacked my lice instead of getting old man sing for him.

23. The boys appeared as an army leader of the Mao Communist party. They wore very formal navy blue jacket with a dark gray collar made by the Little Seamstress, representing an army’s officer. The old miller showed a lot more respect to them than when Four-Eye visited and did as they asked, to sing his mountain folk songs to them.

24. They gathered on the bed and had some drink of liquor and "jade dumplings" with the old man.

25. She is asking for a mountain folklore with a mix of romantic realism. The old miller sang to the boys a song complaining about the bugs, which might just be a mountain tale about the bugs on there.

26. They are searching for these forbidden because they are really interested in it. They want to learn something beyond they are restricted and continue to search for literature s that are amazing like the Balzac story.

27. Four-Eyes simply took the old miller’s and the boys’ work as jokes and randomly changing it from it’s original meaning. He wouldn't accept the work the two boys did for him, he wouldn’t take it and appreciate it.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Balzac Questions p 45-61

Vocabulary:

sadistic (adj): syn: vicious ant: merciful
vigilance (n): syn: alertness ant: carelessness
substantiate (v): syn: affirm ant: disprove
garish (adj): syn: tawdry ant: tasteful
myopia (n): syn: nearsighted ant: farsighted
belligerent (adj): syn: aggressive ant: kind
redolent (adj): syn: scented ant: unscented
somnambulates (v): syn: sleepwalking ant: awake

16. Four-Eyes is a friend of Luo and the narrator. He's been living in the lower on the slopes of the Phoenix mountain, his background is "highly educated". His personality is bery insane.
17. All the Western Literature in China got banned in China durin the Cultural Revolution. It was for to restrain the people from knowing other ideas and informations. China back then was really strict unlike Europe. By the time it was unbanned, no more Western Literature were left in China.
18. Breaking of Four-Eyes' glasses nearly caused Four-Eyes to become blinded. It was a chance for the two boys to help him, to get their books back from him as a return.
19.The pang of jealousy through the narrator’s body was caused from me him wanting the little seamstress and to her to have same feeling as him. Both equal, like the book Balzac story.
20. The narrator copied passages from the book onto his sheepskin coat. He hopes that it will lead him to a place where he has never been before. It connects to how the girl wanted to meet her mother, and in modern day, it's narrator seeing the new world.
21. They had a sex under a gingko tree. This is going to be a serious problem for the Little Seamstress, because her father will never accept it. It can be really dangerous to how the story meant for the readers.