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 Canada, Li-ling has been dreaming about The Book of Records. Ai-ming wakes her up gently. Today, Ai-ming is going to try to cross over into the United States. Li-ling is sorry to see Ai-ming go but she knows that there is no other way: Li-ling’s mother doesn’t have the financial resources necessary to support Ai-ming indefinitely, and Canada does not have amnesty for Chinese nationals.
Ai-ming leaving Li-ling and her mother’s home is another example of the ways in which adverse political situations isolate people from one another. Now, it is not China’s policies but Canada’s lack of accessibility to immigrants that causes loved ones to need to live separately from one another.
Themes
Back in Shanghai, decades ago, Big Mother Knife has fallen ill after her trip to Bingpai. Luckily, Sparrow is reading The Book of Records to her, which helps her pass the time. In it, the character Da-wei has become trapped in the Gobi Desert at an abandoned radio station. From there, Da-wei imagines listeners and he makes up letters from them each day to read aloud on his imaginary radio show.
In The Book of Records, Da-wei uses the radio just as the other characters engage with The Book of Records: as a way to tell stories and communicate with loved ones. Based on the way the radio has been used in the novel up until this point—as a way to disguise free, creative expression—readers may be able to guess that Da-wei’s messages to “imaginary” listeners may be more than that and may contain a real message that he intends to share.
Themes
Sparrow is reading Da-wei’s story to Big Mother Knife when there is a knock on the door. Outside, a small girl is standing with a plastic bag containing clothes, a towel, and two records. She asks Sparrow to tell her “Aunt Mother Knife” that she is here. Big Mother Knife had already come out into the courtyard to investigate and she pulls the little girl, Zhuli, into her arms. “Where’s your mother?” she asks Zhuli.
In this moment, Zhuli arrives at Big Mother Knife’s house. At the age of six, she has already been isolated from her parents and has had to travel to a distant city. The Communist Party’s political practices have separated her from her mother and father.
Themes
Later that night, Big Mother Knife receives a letter addressed to her under the door, informing her that Wen the Dreamer and Swirl have been convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes and have been transported to separate “re-education camps” in the far-away Northwest. Big Mother Knife is so shocked that she feels she can’t comprehend the letter. Ba Lute, on the other hand, is calm. “Sometimes the local revolutionary committee gets carried away,” he says. “I’ll take care of it.” That night, Big Mother Knife is so worried about Swirl that she cannot sleep. Her sister is the great love of her life, she thinks to herself, crying. She wonders what a counter-revolutionary crime even is—she has never heard of one before.
Here, Thien exposes readers to the way in which the Chinese government uses family separation as a punishment for not agreeing with the government’s policies. They have separated parents from children and spouses from one another. Another element worth noting here is that Ba Lute, due to his high position in the Party, feels that he can intervene on his in-laws’ behalf. His sense of social privilege demonstrates the lack of genuine class equality under Mao’s regime.
Themes
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Ba Lute, meanwhile, embarks for Bingpai that same night. Through the bus window, he sees countless banners with revolutionary slogans like “Serve the People!” and “Dare to think, dare to act!”
The cheerful-seeming slogans are deeply at odds with the violent, horrifying reality that many Chinese people, including Swirl and Wen, are experiencing.
Themes
When Ba Lute arrives in Bingpai the next day, he heads straight to the Party office. Surprisingly, there is an electric fan on the ceiling to keep the place cool, powered by the office’s very own generator. The grinning village head welcomes Ba Lute with a “very large piece of cake.” But when Ba Lute asks after Wen the Dreamer and Swirl, wanting to know where they are, the official becomes nervous.
Thien mentions that the Party officials have an electric fan, which subtly implies their class privilege—it is unlikely that most people in Bingpai, who readers already know are poor and rural, have access to such luxuries. The “large piece of cake” also conveys the same message and implicate Ba Lute in perpetuating this social inequality.
Themes
After much hesitation and beating around the bush, the official finally reveals to Ba Lute that Wen the Dreamer and Swirl have already been sent to the re-education camps in the Northwest. Ba Lute is surprised, as he predicted that they wouldn’t have left yet. The official explains that Wen and Swirl’s crime was having a “hidden cellar” on the family land. Ba Lute tells the official that a hidden cellar is not a crime, but the official continues, saying that “contraband” was found inside of the cellar—“books, records, some valuable heirlooms […] the Book of Songs and the Book of History.” The official, changing his tone, comments that he is surprised Ba Lute did not know. Meanwhile, Swirl is a “convicted rightist and shameless bourgeois element.” Both husband and wife will receive “re-education through hard labor.”
In this moment, readers learn that Swirl and Wen have been sent to re-education camps because they had art and literature on their property. It is particularly unsettling that having a Book of History would be incriminating—this suggests that the Communist Party isn’t just invested in controlling artistic expression, but also the narratives of history that people have access to. Through moments like this, Thien frames Mao’s persecution as an attack on the arts, literature, and access to knowledge.
Themes
Ba Lute suddenly recognizes the village official: the two played in the Shanghai Conservatory together. At the time, the village official was an oboist. Ba Lute asks him if he still has his instrument, and the official responds that he does. “Tell me your requirements,” Ba Lute says, changing the conversation back to the topic of Swirl and Wen the Dreamer. But the village official insists that Ba Lute misunderstands: Swirl and Wen cannot be brought back from the camps, nor can Ba Lute receive permission to visit them. “You must know how things are,” the official tells Ba Lute, “you are justly celebrated! […] Heroes like you built the road. I’m only following the path,” he adds. As Ba Lute leaves, the official says, “One should be careful of the sun […] One should learn to practice in the shade.”
In this passage, Ba Lute tries to bribe the village official, sensing an opportunity since the two know each other. This undermines his moral authority, and suggests that the Communist Party participates in corrupt practices such as bribery. In this passage, playing music seems to be a stand-in for appreciating art, owning books, or engaging in any other type of artistic expression that might get one in trouble with the Communist government. The official seems to imply that what’s important isn’t that people not do these things—now labelled counter-revolutionary crimes—but that they hide them. This contributes to a climate of deceit and lack of trust in other people, which further causes separation among communities.
Themes
Meanwhile, at the re-education camp, Swirl is freezing. Even when she submerges her hands in water at the tap, she “fail[s] to register any sensation. [It’s] as if the hands belong[] to someone else.” At the camp, she shares one bed with seven other people who spend their free time speculating about when they will be released. Swirl has received news that Zhuli is now registered to live in Shanghai, which makes Swirl so relieved that she weeps, even though she is known for never crying. The only thing Swirl knows about Wen the Dreamer, though, is that he has been placed at the men’s re-education camp nearby—where it is rumored that no one survives.
In this moment, Thien’s choice to describe Swirl’s lack of sensation as feeling like her hands “belong to someone else” suggests that her experience of brutality in the re-education camps is causing her to lose her sense of self. In a way, this is the objective of the camps: to destroy people’s individual identities and replace it with identification with the Communist Party and its values.
Themes
Each night, the women with whom Swirl shares a bed share stories. Soon enough, they all know everything about one another. Swirl reflects that she was about to cross over into Hong Kong when she started receiving copies of The Book of Records and she fell in love with Wen the Dreamer. If it hadn’t been for that turn of events, she might not have ended up here. She recalls how, when she was sentenced, the head of the Bingpai revolutionary committee accused her, saying, “Deep in your heart you oppose the Communist Party.” Although it wasn’t true at the time, Swirl admits to herself that now, at the re-education camp, it certainly is true.
Swirl’s experience in the re-education camp furthers Thien’s characterization of the Chinese government as vengeful and punitive of those it considers to be its enemies. This seems to be one of the camp’s core aims, rather than “re-educating” those who participate in it. Indeed, Swirl seems not to have been re-educated at all. Instead, her experience of poor living conditions solidified in her a loathing for the Party.
Themes
Swirl’s closest friend at the re-education camp is a translator known as Lady Dostoevsky. Well-known for her translations, Lady Dostoevsky wryly comments one night that she wonders “how [she] could have studied Dostoevsky so keenly and not realized [she] was digging [her] own grave?”
Thien’s choice to include Lady Dostoevsky’s character further emphasizes her point that the government persecutes artists, writers, and other people dedicated to creative expression and storytelling. Lady Dostoevsky’s comment here is ironic: reading a celebrated Russian author seems far too innocent an act to lead her to be “digging her own grave.”
Themes
One year, there is famine in the re-education camps. Swirl almost dies of hunger, only managing to stay alive thanks to Lady Dostoevsky stealing rations from the camp director. Only three of the seven people who originally shared Swirl’s bed survive the famine. Shortly after, Swirl and Lady Dostoevsky are transferred to another camp where they can receive mail and they are allowed visitors. It isn’t long before Swirl gets packages of letters from Big Mother Knife and Zhuli. What’s more, Sparrow comes to visit her, travelling five full days from Shanghai to bring biscuits, rice, cigarettes, vegetable preserves, and candies to the camp. He has also brought a picture of Zhuli, and upon seeing it, Swirl’s eyes fill with tears: she hasn’t seen her daughter’s face in four years.
During the famine, Lady Dostoevsky acts as a stand-in family member. In this way, although the re-education camp has successfully punished Swirl by isolating her from her family, it hasn’t destroyed her ability to form meaningful bonds with people and create a sense of community. What’s more, the fact that Sparrow went to the trouble of traveling five full days just to see her demonstrates her family’s dedication to each other, and that hardship and separation will not likely destroy their bonds.
Themes
Sparrow tells Swirl that Ba Lute thinks she should live with Big Mother Knife in Shanghai rather than returning to Bingpai. Although Big Mother Knife has been trying for years, she has been unable to locate Wen the Dreamer. As she watches Sparrow leave that day, Swirl wonders what it will be like to move back to the city and she finds herself unable to imagine anything beyond the empty desert landscape that she has grown used to. Eventually, Swirl leaves the camp, her conviction overturned “without warning.” Indeed, “like thousands of other surviving counter-revolutionaries, she would be informed, after years of prison labor, that she had never been a criminal.”
Here, Thien highlights the Communist Party’s inconsistent policies, and the way that this inconsistency creates great harm. Swirl endured tremendous trauma believing that she had committed a crime against her government only to discover that the government had, seemingly on a whim, changed its mind and decided otherwise. This inconsistency undermines the authority of the government and suggests that the force with which they impose their moral values isn’t upheld by a clear understanding of what those morals are.
Themes
