Balzac And The Little Chinese Seamstress (She’s So Sexy)

6 Pages 1406 Words

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (She’s So Sexy)

One of the most influential philosophers read by the colonists while forming the framework for the Constitution was John Locke. His writings influenced American and other Western political leaders. Locke built his philosophy on the belief of Natural Rights. Lock declared that people exist in a state of nature where there are no formal laws of government. Conversely, he suggested that laws determined by people’s innate moral sense govern people. Natural Rights include Life, Liberty, and Property. Natural Rights promote that government should be built on the consent of the governed; people must agree on who their rulers will be. It should also be limited in the sense that there must be clear restrictions on what leaders can do. At the same time, Lock’s philosophy limited government so that they must provide standing laws so that people know in advance whether their acts will be acceptable (Bill of Rights). Locke also emphasized that the supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his consent. The preservation of property would be the end of a successful government. The crux of his philosophy is that the exclusive purpose of Government is to protect the natural rights of its people. Natural Rights are a huge part of the Democratic practice; a successful Democracy is supported with documents like the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie, the complete absence of democracy and a written Constitution/Bill of Rights has a crucial impact on all the lives of the characters. The story takes place during Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution, where two boys from privileged families are sent to an isolated mountain village on Phoenix Mountain to be "re-educated" by peasants. Throughout the novel we see the penalty of such a system, which weights on the freethinking characters as much as...