Luo is the son of a famous dentist who had casually bragged of having worked on Chairman Mao's teeth, and was accused of being a
reactionary for having committed the sin of suggesting (however inadvertently) that the leader of the Communist Party was anything other than perfect. It is implied through this mention of his father's "faults" that Luo's re-education is punishment for his father's careless tongue. Luo's father is used as a point of reference for other characters as the story progresses- his prestige and tragedy connect Luo and the narrator to others struggling with the oppressive social atmosphere like Four-Eyes' mother the poetess.
