The Power of Literature: Western and Outside Sources in Mao's World Anonymous 10th Grade

In life, reading is a gift. Reading often remains an instrumental component of growth, change, and influence. At times, reading literature delivers a magical power that can reveal new worlds and perspectives to people. Beginning in 1966, The Cultural Revolution in China, created by Mao Zedong, exiled the upper class youth into re-education camps in an ironic attempt to ‘limit’ their learning. Despite the name of the camps, Mao restricted all forms of education, including reading. For the majority, only those who secretly gained possession of ‘non-approved’ literature were actual able to further broaden their knowledge. In Dai Sijie's novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, the various Western books greatly influence the narrator by changing his perspective on individualism during his re-education, from one of limited free, unbiased thinking to one based on independent thought, reasoning, and judgment.

Romain Rolland, the author of Jean-Christophe, greatly helps the narrator find transit into a world of freedom and individual choices, while also leading him to hate the Chinese re-education system. After reading Jean-Christophe, the narrator comments “up until this stolen encounter with Romain Rolland’s hero, my poor...