Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Hundred Flowers, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Redemption
Journeys and Growth
Suffering, Strength, and Resilience
Home and Family
The Promises and Failures of Communism
Summary
Analysis
Suyin can’t fall asleep. For two weeks after giving birth, she existed in a sleepy haze, barely waking up for long enough to sip some soup or nurse the baby. Now, finally recovering from months of being homeless, she can think clearly. She wonders how much longer she’ll be able to stay at the villa—last week, she overheard Kai Ying and Wei arguing downstairs, and she wonders if it was about her. Recently, she’s started stealing and hiding away small amounts of food, so she won’t starve immediately if they ask her to leave.
The villa has provided Suyin safety and security for the first time in months, if not years. But she remains acutely aware that she doesn’t belong to the family and thus has no claim on their ongoing generosity. She cannot yet see the ways in which she can help and support the Lees, and so she cannot yet imagine being counted as part of their family in the way that Song is.
Themes
Suyin can still hardly believe that she gave birth to a healthy baby. She rolls onto her side in the dark room, and flashes back to the afternoon that changed her life. She was at home alone, and when she heard the apartment door open, she assumed it was her brothers. But it was her stepfather, the smell of alcohol strong on his breath. He leered at her, then pounced, pinning her to the ground and covering her mouth with his hand so she couldn’t scream. When he had finished raping her, he left without a second glance. She longs to see her family again, but she knows that she cannot.
The fact that Suyin can think about her painful past in this moment shows how safe she feels in the protective care of the Lee family. The story of her rape at the hands of her stepfather adds more evidence to the book’s assertion that mutual responsibility and love make a family, not just ties of blood and law. Suyin’s nuclear family failed her, but the Lees—absolute strangers—could possibly become her new, chosen family.
Themes
