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Red Scarf
Ji-li’s stamp album represents her individuality and uniqueness—and, by extension, the individuality of all human beings. Thus, the way that the Red Guards who raid the Jiang family home treat it when they confiscate and destroy it shows how little the Chinese Communist Party truly cares for the people it claims to serve. The album matters to Ji-li because it was a gift from Grandma and because it represents Ji-li’s hard work and persistence—it took years of collecting to get it to its current state. But when the Cultural Revolution begins, the government declares things like stamp collecting bourgeois and Four Olds—and therefore abhorrent to the true revolutionary cause. But despite her desire to conform to Party ideology, Ji-li cannot bring herself to get rid of the album, and this refusal foreshadows both her enduring loyalty to her family despite persecution and her commitment to remaining true to herself in the face of pressure to conform. Although she dresses, speaks, and acts as much like everyone else as she can to escape attention, deep within herself, Ji-li refuses to let go of her individuality—and the stamp album reminds her of that.
Stamp Album Quotes in Red Scarf Girl
The Red Scarf Girl quotes below all refer to the symbol of Stamp Album. 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:
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Chapter 8: A Search in Passing
Quotes
All my treasures were scattered on the floor. The butterfly fell out of its glass box; one wing was crushed under a bottle of glass beads. My collection of candy wrappers had fallen out of their notebook and were crumpled under my stamp album.
My stamp album! It had been a gift from Grandma when I started school, and it was my dearest treasure. For six years, I had been getting cancelled stamps from my friends, carefully soaking them to get every bit of envelope paper off. I had collected them one by one until I had complete sets. I had even bought some inexpensive sets with my own allowance. I loved my collection even though I knew I should not. With the start of the Cultural Revolution all the stamp shops were closed down, because stamp collecting was considered bourgeois. Now I just knew something terrible was going to happen to it.
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One by one I picked up all the clothes, folded them, and put them away. I picked up one of Dad’s white shirts and suddenly flushed with embarrassment and anger. My sanitary belt! It was lying on the floor, not even covered by its blue plastic bag. […]
This, of all things, was private. It was a girl’s secret. I never even let Dad or Ji-yong see it. […] Now one of those Red Guards, probably a boy, had looked at it—had held it! I felt as if I had been stripped naked in public.
[…] Wasn’t a home a private place? A place where the family could feel secure? How could strangers come through and search through our secrets? If Grandpa was a landlord, they could confiscate all his things. But I was not a landlord. Why did they have to search through my things?
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Get the entire Red Scarf Girl LitChart as a printable PDF.
Stamp Album Symbol Timeline in Red Scarf Girl
The timeline below shows where the symbol Stamp Album appears in Red Scarf Girl. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 8: A Search in Passing
...every cupboard, chest, and drawer, strewing the contents carelessly on the floor, including Ji-li’s precious stamp album . Ji-li knows that stamp collecting is now considered bourgeois, but still, she tries to...
(full context)
...a disaster. The possessions that escaped seizure lie on the floor in random piles. The stamp album is gone for good. Fourth Aunt’s apartment is worse—the Red Guards smashed every piece of...
(full context)
