Balzac and the Chinese Seamstress - Short Essay

The first time the two boys told the story, their voices touched the audience. The effect had been so strong that even the village headman who, for all his harshness, couldn’t hold back the years pouring from his eyes. When Luo was sick with malaria, the little Seamstress brings four sorceresses to help Luo recover. To keep the sorceresses awake and watching over Luo the narrator recounts ‘The Little Flower Seller’. When the narrator told the story, the sorceresses weren’t too engaged and did not show any sign of influence. Luo wakes up in time to say the final line ‘The saying goes that a sincere heart can make a stone blossom. So tell me, was the flower girl’s heart lacking in sincerity?’ The sorceresses could no longer hold back the tears and started crying. Those people show that even the more emotionless person can have emotions, and stories can bring it out. Stories were invented a by people at the dawn of civilization for many reasons. Some stories were invented to tell history, some to show patterns. In the book "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" they discover what stories can do to them, and how powerful they are.

Storytelling can be found in every corner of the world. It is used to pass the time, tell of past or current events, and is the way that we communicate with each other. In Balzac and the little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie, storytelling occurs during times of hopelessness when life seems hard and allows the characters to live through the tales told. The narrator and Luo use storytelling as an escape from reality in times of desperation. The tailor is influenced by the stories to the point where he changes the style of clothing he creates to escape the boundaries of Mao approved clothing. The importance of storytelling to the little seamstress is that she learns the importance of beauty, and is able to leave the current life she lives. She says, and I quote, “A woman’s beauty is a treasure beyond price”. Throughout the novel the