The sheepskin coat in “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” is used as a symbol to show the boys’ desire to learn despite the lack of intellectual liberty.
Given to him by the villagers in the “Phoenix of the Sky”, the Narrator’s sheepskin coat is a short coat made of patches of wool varying in length and texture. Inside, the coat is bare hide and much of it is old and cracked. Because of the sentimental value of the coat, it is a prized possession of the narrator, and he keeps it close to himself. After reading Balzac’s Ursule Mirouët, the Narrator is so struck by Balzac and the freedom and lives of the characters that he feels he must copy down as much of the book as possible. He says, “It was the first time in my life that I had felt any desire to copy sentences from a book. I ransacked the room for paper, but all I could find was a few sheets of note paper intended for letters to our parents. I decided I would write directly onto the inside of my sheepskin coat.” (58) The Narrator having a “desire to copy sentences” shows that he sought a private space to escape the harsh reality of the Cultural Revolution. The lack of intellectual liberty drove the narrator to copy these passages onto the coat in order to revisit the story in private without risking his chances of escaping reeducation.
Soon after, Luo takes the coat with him on his daily pilgrimage to the Little Seamstress’ house. After returning, he tells the Narrator, “When she’d finished reading she sat there quite still, open-mouthed. Your coat was resting on the flat of her hands, the way a sacred object lies in the plans of the pious.” (62) Similarly to the Narrator, the coat allows the Seamstress and escape from her reality into a world of expression and freedom. The author specifically chooses the words, “the way a sacred object lies in the plans of the pious” shows how important the coat truly is. The use of the word “pious” compares the coat to a religious object in the eyes of an extremely devout religious person shows the ultimate importance importance of it.
