“He was so enraged that he didn’t hear our jovial shouts of greeting. He was very short-sighted and was unable to distinguish us from the jeering peasants in the neighboring paddy fields… His vision restored to its former clarity, Four-eyes was shocked to see the state Luo was in.” page 47
“‘How could you waste all that time writing down this drivel? I can’t believe it. Do you seriously think an official journal would even consider publishing this shit? That they’d give me a job on the strength of this? You must be out of your minds.’ The change he had undergone since receiving his mother’s letter was truly remarkable. A few days before it would have been unthinkable for him to snap at us like this. I hadn’t suspected that a tiny glimmer of hope for the future could transform someone so utterly. He was insanely arrogant and his voice seethed with longing and hatred.” pages 77-78
Sijie uses the symbol of Four-Eyes’s glasses to demonstrate how hope can make a person irrational in their desperation to see something come to fruition.
When Four-Eyes is without his glasses, he is “so enraged that he didn’t hear our jovial shouts of greeting,”(Sijie 47) and was unable to distinguish friends from “the jeering peasants”(Sijie 47). This demonstrates how enraged he becomes without his ability to see. However, when his glasses are on “His vision restored to its former clarity, Four-Eyes was shocked,”(Sijie 47).
These glasses connect to the theme of hope because when Four-Eyes loses his glasses and receives the letter from his mother, it gives him a sense of hope of returning to his former life and receiving his glasses. Further, glasses are a symbol of him being composed and clear-headed But when it seems all is lost, Four-Eyes becomes highly desperate, arrogant, and angry, saying “‘Do you seriously think an official journal would even consider publishing this shit?’” The narrator continues to say that “a tiny glimmer of hope for the future…transform[s] someone so utterly.” These “glasses” of hope have actually compromised his vision so he is fully desperate. This desperation damages his relationship with those around him and causes him to be a more arrogant, insipid person.
On page 105, the narrator takes note of the tail sitting on top of the books in the suitcase. It was the tail from “the unfortunate buffalo responsible for breaking Four Eye’s glasses.” This is symbolic because it connects back to when Four-Eyes got angry about the broken glasses when he got the chance, he got his revenge. With this quote being at the end of the chapter where Luo and the narrator try to steal from Four-Eyes, they’re playing with his hope, the books, and that could come back around and get them.
