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Four-Eyes
The headman is the most powerful person in the village where Luo and the narrator undergo their re-education. He has three blood spots in one eye and horrible teeth. He's a generally unpleasant person and loves power. As such, he's especially taken with Luo's alarm clock, since it allows him power over the villagers' schedules. He loves oral storytelling most of all, and is willing to break with communist ideals to allow Luo and the narrator to see films in Yong Jing and then perform "oral cinema shows" for the village.
The Village Headman Quotes in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
The Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress quotes below are all either spoken by The Village Headman or refer to The Village Headman. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 1, Chapter 1
Quotes
The peasants' faces, so grim a moment before, softened under the influence of Mozart's limpid music like parched earth under a shower, and then, in the dancing light of the oil lamp, they blurred into one.
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Part 1, Chapter 2
Quotes
The sheer audacity of our trick did a lot to temper our resentment against the former opium growers who, now that they had been converted into "poor peasants" by the communist regime, were in charge of our re-education.
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The only thing Luo was really good at was telling stories. A pleasing talent to be sure, but a marginal one, with little future in it. Modern man has moved beyond the age of the Thousand-and-One-Nights, and modern societies everywhere, whether socialist or capitalist, have done away with the old storytellers—more's the pity.
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Part 3, Chapter 1
Quotes
In the ensuing political vacuum our village lapsed into quiet anarchy, and Luo and I stopped going to work in the fields without the villagers—themselves unwilling converts from opium farmers to guardians of our souls—raising the slightest objection.
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The Village Headman Quotes in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
The Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress quotes below are all either spoken by The Village Headman or refer to The Village Headman. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 1, Chapter 1
Quotes
The peasants' faces, so grim a moment before, softened under the influence of Mozart's limpid music like parched earth under a shower, and then, in the dancing light of the oil lamp, they blurred into one.
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 2
Quotes
The sheer audacity of our trick did a lot to temper our resentment against the former opium growers who, now that they had been converted into "poor peasants" by the communist regime, were in charge of our re-education.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
The only thing Luo was really good at was telling stories. A pleasing talent to be sure, but a marginal one, with little future in it. Modern man has moved beyond the age of the Thousand-and-One-Nights, and modern societies everywhere, whether socialist or capitalist, have done away with the old storytellers—more's the pity.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 1
Quotes
In the ensuing political vacuum our village lapsed into quiet anarchy, and Luo and I stopped going to work in the fields without the villagers—themselves unwilling converts from opium farmers to guardians of our souls—raising the slightest objection.
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Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
