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
That evening, Wei carries Tao down to the kitchen where Kai Ying and Auntie Song are cooking dinner that includes some of Tao’s favorite foods. Tao wants to wait in the courtyard, and Kai Ying allows it. The air feels good after weeks of confinement. Tao looks at the kapok tree, even as his grandfather tries to avoid it, and begins to feel at home once more. Tao thinks about how different—how sad and serious—his beloved grandfather has been since Sheng left. It’s like a heavy weight drags him down. Tao wants to lift that weight, but he doesn’t know how to. When Wei lowers him to the stone bench, Tao longs for his father’s strength. When Wei picks him up to go inside, Tao sees the thin gash in the kapok tree’s trunk. It’s small, but he knows it will leave a scar.
The kapok tree continues to offer a model of resilience for everyone in the Lee family—and readers—to emulate. It is both deeply rooted and constantly changing, budding in the spring, dropping its leaves in the fall, growing taller and stronger every year. It survived the blow Wei dealt it, although that attack will mark it for the rest of its life. Likewise, the letter, Sheng’s arrest, and Tao’s fall will leave indelible marks on the lives of everyone in the family. But if they can stick together, remain rooted in their family context, the symbolism of the kapok tree suggests that they will survive and thrive.
Themes
