Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Individual Identity Under Communism
Class and Communism
Freedom of Expression vs. Propaganda
Political Oppression, Isolation, and Divided Communities
Storytelling, Family Connection, and History
Summary
Analysis
In the weeks following the protests, Ai-ming and Ling search for Sparrow in all of the hospitals of the city, but when they don’t find him after three weeks, Ai-ming decides not to pretend anymore. Ling continues looking for Sparrow, and one day while she’s gone to another hospital, Yiwen knocks on Ai-ming’s door. She says someone is calling for her father. On the phone is Jiang Kai, who says he needs to speak with Sparrow urgently. Ai-ming says that she doesn’t know where her father is, and Kai tries to insist on helping. But Ai-ming, overcome with grief, hangs up.
Sparrow’s death is yet another tragedy in his family, which lost so many members to political violence and its aftermath. Kai, who has managed to survive all this time by being on the side of the government, represents what may have happened to Sparrow had he chosen to sacrifice his values and be complicit with the authoritarian regime. Kai’s guilt over choosing this path likely informs his desire to help Sparrow leave the country.
Themes
When Yiwen and Ai-ming get back to Ai-ming’s apartment, there are strange people there: a man and a woman who, although they behave with authority, wear no uniforms. They ask for Sparrow’s residency permit and factory badge. When they see Sparrow’s composition on his desk, the man begins to tear it up “almost without thinking […] as if he [is] just folding laundry or doing the dishes.” Ai-ming yells for help, and Yiwen appears, yelling at the strangers to leave. With Yiwen’s help, Ai-ming is able to piece together nine pieces of her father’s composition.
The people who arrive in the apartment are more similar to the Red Guards than the student demonstrations ever were. Their habitual violence—almost a reflex—shows how normalized violence against the people has become. Yiwen and Ai-ming’s attempts to restore the composition the thugs destroyed shows their commitment to preserving Sparrow’s legacy, his story, and by extension the family history that inspired the composition.
Themes
That night, Ling sits over Ai-ming as she sleeps. At Ling’s workplace, the radio station, several of her colleagues have been forced to write denunciations of the student movement. Ling knows that she herself will soon give in. She remembers what she saw when she went to the hospitals the day after the massacre—the nurses begging her to give blood and the bodies stacked up outside the hospital, with no room for them inside. All she wants to do is lie down next to her daughter and forget everything she experienced in those past weeks.
Ling’s horrifying memories of the hospitals show how exaggerated the army’s repression of Beijing was. To leave so many dead and wounded shows overuse of violence in repressing the movement. What’s more, Ling’s resignation—knowing that she will soon renounce what she believes in only to protect herself and her family—highlights the governments’ repression of freedom of speech and her hopelessness in fighting against it.
Themes
The next morning, the new director of the radio station summons Ling into his office. He tells her that Sparrow’s body had been found on June 4 and that he had already been cremated. He tells her that Sparrow died of a stroke. Ling asks where Sparrow supposedly had this stroke, and the director replies, “at home,” sliding a piece of paper across the desk for her to sign. He tells her that he knows Ai-ming is going to take the entrance exam in the following month—she needs to pass political background checks, and he asks Ling to tell him everything she knows about Sparrow’s involvement with people who “harbor resentment towards the Party.” After a moment of silence, Ling says, “He’s already dead […] What more do you want from him? I gave my life to the Party […]What more do you want from me?”
Here, the new director of the radio station shows great insensitivity in the way he treats Ling’s loss. Rather than expressing condolences, he questions her about her deceased husband’s political activity. This bleakly suggests that the government values its citizens political loyalty far more than it values their lives, which is an inherently dehumanizing posture to adopt towards the population. What’s more, his suggestion that association with political demonstration could harm Ai-ming’s chances at entering college reflect the unfair class systems that punish political dissent and foster inequality.
Themes
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When Ling looks up to meet the director’s eyes, he looks “genuinely ashamed.” As Ling pedals home, she thinks to herself that things could still be different—she and Sparrow had missed the opportunity, but Ai-ming could have a better life. Still, she thinks that “for her daughter behind this mountain was another mountain, behind this sea, another sea.”
Ling has managed to provoke an emotional response in the director, getting him to see her as an individual rather than seeing her and her family only through the lens of politics. The fact that Ling is optimistic about Ai-ming’s future suggests that she hasn’t completely lost hope even with the disappointing results of the demonstrations.
Themes
