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
Daniel flies to Fuzhou. Once he’s there, he tries to make his way through the city, but his Fuzhounese is bad and the commotion overwhelms him. Eventually, he makes his way to a low-quality hotel, getting scammed on his way by a man on a motorcycle who overcharges him for a ride. When he calls Polly, she doesn’t answer, so he leaves a message telling her that he’s in Fuzhou and wants to meet up. Venturing out again in the evening, he looks for a place to eat, feeling strange because the city—which he’s never visited—feels “familiar,” the sounds of Fuzhou whipping by him as he moves through the chaos.
Fuzhou feels familiar to Daniel because he’s now surrounded by Chinese people. Unlike in Ridgeborough, where he was the only Asian person around, he finds himself passing people who look like him and speak his first language. Even though he has never visited Fuzhou and his Fuzhounese is rusty, he experiences a sense of belonging that he’s never felt in Ridgeborough.
Themes
Daniel returns to the hotel and thinks about his departure from Ridgeborough two days ago. After Peter caught him playing poker, they argued all night. At one point, he found time to sneak away and withdraw the money he’d won playing poker, which he used to buy a ticket to Fuzhou. The next morning, he called Cody and asked for a ride to the airport. When Cody picked him up, he gave Daniel a bag of Vicodin as a “good-bye present.” In Fuzhou, Daniel looks up Polly Guo or Peilan Guo, but there are too many people with those names. Discouraged, he finally gets in touch with Leon, who picks him up from the hotel and insists that he stay with him while he’s in China.
Having run out of options, Daniel travels to Fuzhou in the aftermath of his fight with Peter and Kay. This decision resembles Polly’s habit of assuming that change and migration will bring happiness. At first, this seems to work for Daniel, who relishes the feeling of being in Fuzhou, where he experiences a sense of belonging. Before long, though, the thrill dissipates, and he sees how difficult it will be to track down his mother. As such, readers see that change doesn’t automatically bring contentment.
Themes
Daniel meets Leon’s wife and daughter, who are both happy to host him. Leon, for his part, is ecstatic to see him, insisting on helping him find Polly the following day. Knowing his mother lives in a wealthy development called West Lake Park, Daniel and Leon walk around a neighborhood of fancy high-rise apartments, asking security guards if they know her. They’re about to give up when Leon sees that one of the buildings has a view of the ocean. Knowing Polly would want to live in such a place, they ask the security guard if she’s a resident, and he says she is. The guard calls up to the apartment, and moments later Yong appears, explaining that Polly is travelling in Beijing for work and that her phone was stolen in transit. He then gives Daniel the information he needs to meet up with her.
The fact that Polly’s phone was stole is good news for Daniel, since it means she hasn’t been ignoring him on purpose. With the information Yong gives him, then, he finally knows how to reach his mother, making his journey to Fuzhou worth it in the end.
Themes
