Seeing Hope
Quote #1: “‘You’re mad,’ Luo said to him. ‘Without your glasses you won’t be able to manage that mountain path.’ ‘I’ve written to my mother. She’s going to send me a new pair as soon as possible, but I can’t sit and do nothing until they arrive. I’ve got to work, that’s what I’m here for. At least that’s what the headman says.” (53)
Quote #2: “Eventually the arrival of his new glasses, sent by his mother, delivered him from his his semi-glasses, and put an end to our hopes for the time being,” (61)
Analysis:
Dai Sijie uses Four-Eyes glasses to emphasize how different people experience hope. Four-Eyes has myopia but because of his rich background, he can afford glasses, these are his mark that everyone can see. This hope of being on equal terms with everyone else is very fragile, and through his persistence to be seen as a hard-worker, a buffalo crushed his glasses.
In distress, but still persisting Four-Eyes continued to work hard, and even tried to go through with carrying a heavy load of rice over a precipice that he could not see. He fell and dropped all of his rice, but when all hope seemed lost, Luo and the narrator stepped in. Four-Eyes did not want their help, he felt he had to go through with the task on his own, but Luo and the Narrator saw their chance. They hoped that they could make a deal. To help him in exchange for a book.
Luo and the Narrator’s eyes were finally opened through this one book that they were gifted, to a new side of the world they were isolated to. They hoped that if they could continue to help Four-Eyes, now without the crutch his status allowed him to have that kept him on an equal level, they could get even more books. Once Four-Eye’s mom sent a new pair, though, they lost all of that hope, although Four-Eyes’ was restored because now he could get along on his own.
