How do symbols in Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress represent China's Cultural Revolution?

Two symbols that are central to the story and that
represent the Cultural Revolution in China are the violin and the violin strings. The
violin itself is the more clearly understood symbol as it was literally one of the
symbols of Westernism that the Cultural Revolution threw to the literal ash heaps of
sacrificed objects of culture. The novel starts by highlighting this
symbol:

my
violin ... was the sole item that exuded an air of foreignness, of civilisation, and
therefore aroused
suspicion.

The Cultural
Revolution was intended to purge capitalist thought and Western culture, with its
bourgeois elements such as music and art, from China. To that end, youths were denied
educations, lest they become Western style intellectuals, and were sent to live with
peasants to be re-educated. Dai Sijie
writes:

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The universities were closed and all the "young
intellectuals," meaning boys and girls who had graduated from high school, were sent to
the countryside to be
"re-educated.'

The early
emphasis on violin strings represents a more subtle symbol. In Chapter one, the narrator
is afraid that his violin strings will break under the "enthusiastic" examination they
are undergoing.

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His investigation was so enthusiastic I was
afraid the strings would
break.

This symbolizes one
theme of the book in that it laments the broken condition of China after the rigorous
and "enthusiastic" examination that rid Chinese life of capitalistic and Westernizing
elements that might corrupt the "pure" peasant mentality and result in more “young
intellectuals.”