Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (paragraph 11)

At the beginning of the final chapter the boys are burning the books one by one. This part is so saddening because they are destroying all of the wonderful things that brought such happiness to them. They are destroying the characters who they had grown to love and admire, as well as the incredible worlds and adventures that the books held. Prior to the burning of the books the seamstress began to change the way that she dressed and spoke to sound and look more like a city girl. Luo of course is very happy with her change because all along he wanted her to be more modern. But then the two boys start to realize that the had perhaps influenced the seamstress too much especially with the literature. For now she wanted to be someone other than the beautiful mountain girl. Luo says, "She said she had learnt one thing from Balzac: that a woman's beauty is a treasure beyond price." I think that the seamstress finally admits to how beautiful she is and decides to leave behind her old life and take advantage of being beautiful. Even after all that the narrator had done for her with her abortion and how in love she seemed to be with Luo she just up and left the two behind. In a way the two boy's plan to modernize the seamstress backfired because the result was not anything they had been expecting. As a result I believe that the boy's burn the books because a part of their lives, the seamstress, had died in them and without her the books were no longer as good, or perhaps the books reminded them so much of the seamstress that they could not bare keeping them any longer.