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
After breakfast, Wei goes to his bedroom to fetch a book of mythology for Tao. The room used to belong to his parents. His mother was his father’s fourth, much younger wife; wife number one had died before Wei’s birth, but wives two and three lived in the house during his childhood. Since his half-sisters were all much older, he grew up like an only child. He didn’t realize until he was an adult that he was once the much longed-for first son of his elderly father.
Chinese culture condoned concubinage (the sexual and social alliance of one man with multiple women who had lower status than his official wife) up to the Communist Revolution in the middle of the 20th century. Because concubines or plural wives indicated a man’s wealth and status, the Party condemned the practice as a sign of elite decadence—not necessarily to improve the lives of women. Wei’s reflections show how he belatedly begins to understand that familial responsibilities are mutual. Only long after his father’s death does he understand how much his father longed for heirs to carry on the family legacy.
Themes
Crammed bookshelves line the walls of Wei’s room, reminding him of his university office and providing a sense of security. When he was a child, the villa had a library downstairs, and he remembers feeling responsible for reading all the books it held when he was a child. After the Party subdivided the villas, the library became the Changs’ bedroom. Recently, Tao asked if Wei had read all the books in his room. Wei confided that he’d read all of them and more: he has many books banned by the Party hidden away in a safe spot that he promises to show Tao after his leg has healed.
Even as a child, Wei gave himself “responsibilities” that fell in line with his own needs and desires rather than anyone else’s, such as reading all the books in his father’s library. And although he thinks he gets a sense of comfort from the books in his room, his eagerness to share them with Tao shows his growing but still mostly subconscious awareness that true security and comfort come from relationships, not books or ideas. The need to hide certain books points towards the repressive nature of the Communist Party.
Themes
Wei’s gaze falls on a beloved book of poetry, given to him as a gift by a teenaged Sheng long ago. He reads one poem every day to feel close to his son. This morning, the poem he picks—an ode from a father to a distant son—makes him angry. It just reminds him how cruelly the Party punishes dissenters by sending them thousands of miles away from home and then trying to work them to death. Wei remembers a colleague, an outspoken critic of Mao and the Party who was sent to the mines in his 70s for dissent. They claimed he died of “natural” causes.
Books substitute poorly for people; handling this one, a gift from Sheng, makes Wei feel worse instead of making Sheng feel close. Wei shares the pain of absence just like the poem’s father, but it’s unclear exactly why the poem makes him angry. Is it because Sheng is currently imprisoned and may face a tortured death like the elderly colleague Wei remembers, or is there more to Wei’s anger?
Themes
Tears fill Wei’s eyes. He unlocks his desk and pulls out a worn leather journal that contains a copy of the letter he wrote to the Premier’s Office. The words he used to argue for freedom of expression are burned into his memory. He regrets writing that letter, regrets his vanity and self-importance, regrets signing it with the name he shares with his son, Weisheng. On the morning of Sheng’s arrest, he whispered his guilt into Sheng’s ear. He begged the police to take him. But they ignored him, and Sheng promised that he would be alright. Wei feels heartsick; what kind of father lets his son bear the blame for his crimes?
The full scope of Wei’s guilt finally becomes clear: when he dared to speak out against the Communist Party, he did so in a way that inadvertently endangered Sheng. Wei accuses himself of believing that his work and his ideas were more important than the safety and happiness of his family. In contrast, Sheng prioritized his father’s safety and wellbeing when he took the blame for the letter. Wei realizes, belatedly, that he owes his son care and concern too. But with Sheng gone, he cannot see how to fulfil his responsibilities.
Themes
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Now, Wei can only find solace with Tao. He wants to relieve the boy’s increasing restlessness but knows he will have to ask Kai Ying if he wants to carry Tao downstairs; she fears any movement that might compromise the leg’s healing and leave Tao with a limp. Things have been awkward between Wei and his daughter-in-law since he attacked the kapok tree. He tried to apologize, but he lacks the words to explain his actions and that his fury was directed at no one but himself.
When Wei attacks the kapok tree, he scars it for the rest of its life. Similarly, although he hasn’t yet openly acknowledged writing the letter, this action has irrevocably changed his life and the lives of his family in ways he could not have imagined. Even if Tao recovers as his mother hopes he will—without a permanent limp—his life will never be the same as it was before the fall, or before his father’s arrest. But by avoiding responsibility and keeping his role a secret, Wei increases his own pain and everyone else’s. He can only heal when—or if—he learns to honor his relationships and take responsibility for his actions.
Themes
This morning, to distract Tao, Wei tells him about the four mythical creatures that surround the world: the dragon, the tiger, the phoenix, and the tortoise. Wei watches Tao studying a picture of these creatures in a book, and the boy reminds him of Sheng, standing shyly in the doorway of Wei’s office as a child. Absorbed in his work, Wei neglected the opportunity to talk to his son. He regrets that now. Shaking himself, Wei explains how each creature represents a season and a direction and how they surround and protect the snake coiled at the center of the world. Tao is like that snake, resting in stillness while the world protects him. Tao smiles and asks if the creatures will protect his father, too. Wei promises they will.
Finally, the novel reveals that Wei neglected his relationship with Sheng when Sheng was young, which only adds to Wei’s guilt now, in the present. Looking at Tao, Wei continues to see his failures with Sheng, and he works hard to make up for the mistakes he made in the past. But he misses two crucial things: first, he wants to return to a point in the past that was happier, something that cannot happen. Second, he holds himself to an impossible standard; the book pointedly suggest that only mythical creatures can provide the kind of perfect protection he wishes he could give Tao now or could go back and give Sheng in the past.
Themes
