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
Early one hot and humid summer morning, just a little shy of his seventh birthday, Tao decides to climb the kapok tree in his family’s courtyard. He longs to see White Cloud Mountain—a distant peak that his father (Sheng) used to point out to him from the second-floor balcony of their house. Tao hasn’t seen his father in a months, not since two policemen dragged him away in handcuffs while Tao’s grandfather (Wei) and his mother (Kai Ying) protested. Neither his mother nor his grandfather would tell Tao where his father had gone or when he would be back.
The kapok tree symbolizes strength and resilience; it’s been the same through a hundred years and generations of the family. Tao climbs it because it connects him to his father’s memory; it’s as a child-like way to try to return to the happy past. White Cloud Mountain represents this unreachable past. But of course, Tao wishes for the impossible; the repression of the Chinese Communist Party (whom the two policemen are no doubt a part of) has torn the family apart. Still, Tao’s upward journey starts him—and the family—on the path towards wisdom and eventual redemption, although he has no idea of this at the time.
Themes
Tao remembers that at first, Sheng’s absence felt like a game of hide-and-seek. He looked everywhere, from the alleyways of their neighborhood to the busy city streets. He found his way to Mr. Lam’s sweet shop, where Mr. Lam gave him a candy, promised his father would return, and brought him home. The candy tasted like grief. For almost a year, he has only seen his father in dreams. This morning, a dream gave him the idea to climb the kapok tree and look for his father on White Cloud Mountain.
The idea of the hide-and-seek game suggests the loving nature of Sheng’s and Tao’s relationship. Tao clearly adores and trusts his father, which makes his silence so painful for Tao, as he’s a sheltered child and doesn’t understand. Importantly, Tao responds to the loss with movement—traveling around the city and ultimately trying to climb up the tree—to learn more.
Themes
Tao hears a door creak, but no one emerges from the red-brick villa where he lives with his family. It’s too early for Kai Ying’s patients—she’s a well-known herbal healer—to start lining line up at the gate of the villa. Tao’s great-grandfather built it many decades ago. After the Communist Party came to power in 1949, they subdivided the villas in the neighborhood. Tao’s family now shares theirs with Auntie Song and Mr. and Mrs. Chang.
The Chinese Communist Party sought to reallocate wealth to the poorer members of society, but often did so through violent and heavy-handed means such as subdividing the villa. This highlights the immense power the Communist Party had to change everyday life for its people—it invades people’s homes and forces them to embrace new living and family structures.
Themes
Wei reveres the kapok tree, with its brilliant red springtime blossoms and dark green, spear-shaped summer leaves. As Tao climbs upwards, he pauses to peer down into the courtyard below. Each villa in the neighborhood has a unique design based on a different era of Chinese garden architecture, but Tao thinks they mostly look identical. He imagines the scolding he will get if his Kai Ying or Wei catches him. He’s almost to the top when he loses his footing and plummets to the courtyard 30 feet below. As he falls, he feels like he leaves his body, at least until he experiences the wrenching pain of impact and loses consciousness.
Tao understands his place in the world through his home and his family. While the kapok tree stays the same despite its seasonal variations, when Sheng left, Tao’s family assumed a new and unfamiliar shape, which has left him feeling vulnerable and unsettled. He tries to escape this discomfort by trying to return to the past. Instead, he ends up suffering even more, suggesting that Tao can’t escape his present difficulties.
Themes
Get the entire A Hundred Flowers LitChart as a printable PDF.
