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
Wei has permission to visit Sheng the following afternoon. Clerk Hu, more helpful than he’s been all week, tells Wei that it will take place at the correctional facility in nearby Ruyang. The town lies close to the quarry and a public bus travels between it and Luoyang. Tian goes with Wei to check the bus schedule. They discover that a bus leaves every other hour, and that a short walk from the depot will take him to the facility. Tian tells Wei that he will be returning to Guangzhou the following day; by the time Wei boards his bus, Tian will be on a south-bound train.
Having seen Wei through to this crucial juncture, Tian prepares to depart. Since he fills a familial role for Wei, it’s appropriate for him to leave before Wei reunites with his biological son, Sheng. But, more importantly, Wei began this journey alone and he must end it alone, too. Being able to take the last steps on his own will show that he has learned how to fend for himself in the world—and thus that he has become capable of taking care of his family, not just letting others take care of him.
Themes
Wei apologizes for taking so much of Tian’s time, but Tian insists that the trip has accomplished what he needed it to. He has accepted that the Ai-li he loved no longer exists. Wei, acknowledging how much he himself has lived in the past, tells Tian to go home and live his life looking toward the future. Then Wei asks why he found it easier to talk to Tian, a stranger, than to think of what to say to Sheng. Tian replies that Wei’s trip speaks for itself. And, he assures his friend, the rest of the words will come at the right moment. As they walk toward the boardinghouse, Wei can’t escape the feeling that he’s trading one son for another.
Tian’s grief arises from the love he still feels for Ai-li, but which she long ago stopped reciprocating. Finding a mutually supportive relationship with Wei—and, crucially, helping Wei to reunite with the family member he lost through the Communist Party—helps to heal that grief for Tian. He finds redemption in returning to Luoyang as a helper, not just as a victim of circumstance and fate. One possible answer to Wei’s question is that he found it easier to form a relationship with Tian because he was not burdened by his guilt over the past, as he is with Sheng. And forming that relationship has given Wei the confidence he needs to trust that he can make things right with Sheng.
Themes
