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
In Wei’s absence, the task of telling Tao a bedtime story falls to Kai Ying. She only reads to him from books, where his grandfather often told stories from memory or made them up. Wei thinks about his grandfather’s soothing voice as he taught Tao about history, and he realizes suddenly how much Wei must have missed being a teacher. He realizes how lucky he is to be his grandfather’s last student. Sometimes, Wei would read from his secret books, the ones the Communist Party forbids, like The Arabian Nights or The Three Musketeers. Suddenly, Tao worries that he might never learn where Wei hides these treasures.
The issue of the bedtime story emphasizes yet again that Kai is trying to do something impossible. She cannot keep things the same as they were before; Wei’s and Sheng’s absences make a very big difference in the family’s life and trying to ignore this only seems to magnify everyone’s suffering. Nor can she keep the family together by herself. She needs the rest of the family to support her efforts. She needs Sheng and Wei as much as they need her.
Themes
Tao wants Sheng back, but not badly enough to risk losing Wei. He longs for the return of normalcy. He regrets not apologizing to Wei for his harsh words before his grandfather left, but Tao didn’t know what to say. Now everything is different yet again. Tao watches Kai Ying choosing a book. She teaches him right and wrong, how to behave, and how to take care of himself. He used to ask why he needed to learn how to take care of himself, since he had his mother, father, and grandfather to take care of him. They wouldn’t always be there, his mother told him. Now he longs to tell her that he’s not ready to care for himself yet. He wants to ask why his father and grandfather both left before he was ready.
Again, Tao’s musings show that he doesn’t really hate his grandfather, that Wei’s absence is nearly as painful as Sheng’s. Tao can muddle through his current difficulties at school and in his recovery better when he has a loving, supportive family. Earlier, he took pride in telling himself that he wasn’t a baby that needed constant care. But now he realizes that no one ever grows out of needing the love and support of others—not Tao, not Sheng, and not even the elderly Wei. However, Kai Ying’s insistence that Tao needs to learn to care for himself also suggests that she doesn’t want Tao to become exactly like his grandfather: dependent entirely on others without caring for them in return.
Themes
