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 cannot sleep; the humid August night and her gnawing hunger make her too uncomfortable. She knows that if she’s hungry, her baby is too, and she feels anxious about her inability to protect it from suffering. It’s too early to go to the park and rummage through the trash or to beg or steal food at the market. Whispering a promise to her baby that one day they’ll eat nothing but their favorite foods, she chews on a handful of straw from her makeshift bed.
Suyin suffers the double indignities of being pregnant and homeless at the same time, possibly because her family failed to protect and care for her. Yet, adversity shows her strength, and instead of giving up on the idea of a family, she redoubles her efforts to provide a good one for her own baby, even though she cannot imagine at the moment how she will do this.
Themes
