Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Leavers, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cultural Identity and Belonging
Migration, Change, and Happiness
Racism, Cultural Insensitivity, and Implicit Bias
Self-Deception and Rationalization
Parenthood, Support, and Expectations
Summary
Analysis
On the eve of her disappearance, Polly Guo picks Deming up from school. He has just gotten out of detention, but Polly doesn’t know this. Deming’s good friend Michael—who, along with his mother, Vivian, lives with Polly and Deming—covered for him by saying that he stayed late to work on an assignment. Deming is in fifth grade, and his academic performance is quite bad. “I don’t want you to be like me,” his mother tells him, reminding him that she didn’t finish eighth grade. Although he doesn’t say anything in response, Deming knows he’ll “barely” be able to make it through fifth grade, let alone eighth. As they walk home, Deming thinks about how his mother is a “restless” soul, and she complains about her day at the nail salon, saying she didn’t come to New York to “pick gao gao out of a stranger’s toe.”
Polly’s conversation with Deming about the importance of schoolwork highlights Ko’s interest in examining the expectations parents have of their children. Although Polly herself didn’t make it past the eighth grade, she expects her son to concentrate on his studies. This is because she wants him to have a better life than she’s had, knowing that a good education is a path to upward mobility. When she says she didn’t come to New York to “pick gao gao out of a stranger’s toe,” she also calls attention to the ways in which she has failed to live up to her own expectations. Having believed that immigrating to America would improve her life, she’s disappointed to find herself in an unrewarding job.
Themes
Polly insists that Deming has to work hard in school so he can have a better life than her. She asks him if he thinks Leon—her boyfriend—seems happy at his job at the slaughterhouse, and when Deming says Leon seems fine, she points out that his back hurts all the time because of the hard nature of his work. “You don’t finish school, you end up cutting meat like Leon, arthritis by the time you’re thirty-five,” she says.
Again, Polly commits herself to the idea that education will save Deming from a life of grueling work. As she urges him to take his studies seriously, readers see the extent to which she’s unhappy with her current existence. It’s clear that she made a significant change in her life by immigrating to New York City, but this change apparently has yet to bring her true contentment, which is why she’s so focused on helping her son ensure his own future success.
Themes
Winding through the snowy Bronx, Polly mumbles about how she was the first girl to leave her Chinese village. “I made it all the way to New York. I was supposed to travel the world,” she says, and as Deming anticipates her next sentence, she cuts him off, saying, “But then I had you. Then I met Leon. You’re my home now.” Letting this settle for a moment, she tells Deming that they’re moving to Florida, where she has found a job at a restaurant. Deming is taken aback and asks if Leon is coming, and when Polly assures him that he is, he asks if Michael and Vivian are also accompanying them. “They’ll join us later,” Polly says. Upset, Deming says he won’t leave, but Polly says he has to because she’s his mother and they must remain together.
When Polly speaks wistfully about her life before Deming, she frames parenthood as an obligation that gets in the way of a person’s ability to flourish. “I was supposed to travel the world,” she says, insinuating that getting pregnant thwarted this plan. In fact, her use of the phrase “supposed to” suggests that she saw her independent future as some sort of destiny—a destiny that Deming ruined. At the same time, she also appears to love her son, admitting that he’s her “home now.” As such, she sends Deming mixed messages, underhandedly blaming him for her shortcomings while simultaneously stating how much he means to her.
Themes
Deming reminds Polly that they weren’t together when he lived in China for several years with his grandfather. “I was working so I could save money to have you here,” she says. Still, Deming remains unconvinced. Switching from Fuzhounese—which they’ve been speaking for the entire conversation—Deming says in English, “I’m not going. Leave me alone.” Hearing this, his mother raises her hand, but when he flinches, she envelops him in a hug.
The complexity of Deming and Polly’s relationship comes to the forefront of the novel in this scene, as Polly’s aggression turns into a tender embrace. Although she’s focused on wanting to move to Florida—a sign that she’s hungry for change—she also understands Deming’s hesitations. Wanting to show him that she cares about him more than anything, then, she hugs him, overriding his request to be left alone.
Themes
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At dinner with Michael and Vivian, Deming and Polly say nothing about Florida. Later, Michael and Deming lounge on the couch, and Michael rehashes a scene from school, when Deming tripped a bully named Travis Bhopa, who constantly makes fun of him and Michael for being Chinese. “Badass, Deming!” Michael said in the moment. That night, Deming wakes up when Leon comes home from the slaughterhouse. Listening to his mother whisper to her boyfriend in the dark on their side of the room, he suddenly hears Polly say, “Go fuck yourself,” but he falls asleep before he can discern what they’re talking about. The next morning, he asks Polly when they’re moving, and she says, “We’re not. Now hurry or you’ll be late for school.”
Deming’s encounter with Travis Bhopa alerts readers to the discrimination, racism, and cultural insensitivity he’s forced to face on a daily basis. This is an important element of The Leavers, as Deming later encounters more entrenched forms of bigotry, meaning that he isn’t always capable of addressing it as straightforwardly as he does in this moment. Unfortunately for him, though, his home life is so mired in drama (surrounding the possibility of moving to Florida) that he isn’t able to look to his mother for emotional support in the aftermath of his incident with Travis.
Themes
That evening, Deming and Michael watch television and wait for Polly to come home, but she doesn’t return from work. When Leon comes back from the slaughterhouse, he’s puzzled by Polly’s absence. Eventually, he receives a call, and when he gets off the phone, he tells Deming that his mother has gone away for several days to see some friends. When Deming presses him for details, Leon ushers him to bed.
Given that Ko begins The Leavers by acknowledging that Polly is about to disappear, it’s not terribly surprising that she suddenly fails to come home after work. However, readers are left to guess why, exactly, she vanishes. It seems likely that she decided to move to Florida, but she’s also just told Deming that this isn’t happening. Plus, it would be rather surprising if she left Deming behind on purpose. On the one hand, it’s clear she misses her independence, but on the other hand, her love of her son seems to outweigh that yearning for personal freedom. As such, Ko puts readers in a state of confusion regarding her disappearance—one that mirrors Deming’s own perplexity.
Themes
A week goes by, and Polly doesn’t return. Deming looks through the apartment and finds her hand lotion and toothbrush, her socks, a pair of jeans, a sweater. Everything is in its normal place. He thinks about the last words he said to her: “When are we moving?” He also considers the fact that maybe she wouldn’t have disappeared if he hadn’t gotten detention or if he’d been willing to move to Florida. Day after day, he waits to hear her opening the apartment door. He even thinks about all the things he’d do if she came home, like study, complete his homework, or stop talking in English just to confuse her. One evening, Vivian comes home, and Deming yells, “You need to find her, she’s in danger.” Vivian assures him that she isn’t in danger, but when he asks where she is, she admits she doesn’t know.
In this section, Deming blames himself for his mother’s disappearance. Desperate to understand why she left, he overanalyzes his own actions, assuming that he failed to live up to her expectations and thus drove her away. Without a voice of reason, he holds himself accountable for something over which he clearly has no control. And though he still has Vivian and Leon, they are apparently too preoccupied to focus on his emotional health, as they make weak attempts to calm him down without actually stopping to queue him into what’s happening. As a result, he’s not only abandoned by his mother, but isolated from what the adults in his life know about her whereabouts.
Themes
Winter turns to spring, and still Polly is missing. Deming walks in on Vivian and Leon having a hushed conversation in the kitchen one night, and when they see him, they stop talking. At school, Deming apologizes to Travis Bhopa, thinking that “by sacrificing his pride,” he might be able to “guarantee” his mother’s wellbeing. “The worse he felt, the more it would make her return,” Ko writes. Thinking this way, he starts skipping meals and studying hard, hoping that getting an A in math will make his mother return. “She stayed gone,” Ko writes.
Deming’s self-critical behavior continues, as he blames himself for Polly’s disappearance. Worse, he exhibits self-destructive behavior, thinking that he must make sacrifices because of what’s happened to his mother. Again, this indicates that he feels responsible for what has taken place, and because none of the adults in his life are attuned to what he’s feeling, they fail to give him the emotional support he would need in order to understand that he’s not at fault.
Themes
