Conversion : The book follows Madame Wu's conversion, finding purpose, personal development, and connection with spirituality. Contagiously, it has an effect on other people, where priorities are reordered to still respect traditions and ritual, but the rules and manners become background to purpose and identity for each member of the family. It creates a shock and upheaval in the heavily traditional Chinese cultural context. Freedom and happiness are found when they each discover a path that fits them and feel empowered to take it. This tends to make a positive difference for their community--the orphanage, the school, the villages, the farmlands. The next generation learn how to respect their proper place and pursue the work they discovered as the way they find fits them and brings them meaning.
Duty : Plot moves, character motive, and story development center around duty. Madame Wu fulfills her duties until her fortieth birthday when she is socially eligible to take freedom. Her sons marry the women she chooses. Everyone looks for the approval of their hierarchy, and family is the important priority.
Generations : The children continue their family line, they do what the previous generation did. The older generation has authority and freedom. Parents have children and find fulfillment through knowing they ensure their family continues. Generations don’t mix, don’t question the authority or rights of others. Everyone respects their place. The generations seem to continue indefinitely in either direction, past or future.
Feminine : The feminine is nurturing, soft power, strategic, loving, compassionate. The masculine is in the background—compulsive, appetitive, inconsiderate like Mr. Kang getting his wife pregnant again. Madame Wu acts in the best interest of her family, Ying is devoted to Madame Wu, Brother Andre is sensitive and cares for lost girls, the daughters-in-law plan to carry on the family line.
Timelessness : The story transcends time. There is a war, the story doesn’t specify, but people are always affected by some war. There is tension between the traditions of the generations and the rebellions of the youth, just as there always is. There is death and life, and grandsons resemble grandparents. There are books to read at the coming of age, there are duties appropriate to stages of life. The time setting is insignificant to these factors.
Passive power : It is through patience, silence, and waiting that Madame Wu finds the right moment to speak to her relatives, just as the religious authorities find the right moment to bury the dead, so that her power is greatest. Sometimes waiting means she need not do any of the work, sometimes it softens her children, and sometimes she discovers more by waiting. Her children believe she knows everything, nothing seems to be beyond her. She is more powerful because she is slow to exert her authority.
Meaning-seeking : The journey to find happiness begins when Madame Wu thinks she has fulfilled her life duties. But she is meaningless until she begins her religious journey. Brother Andre is a priest who has been rejected by his religion because of his meaning-seeking. The daughters-in-law are lazy until they find meaning in duty. Each of the sons want to pursue their own path and find happiness in doing so.
1. What is the religion of Brother Andre?
2. How does Madame Wu live differently in the second half of the book?
3. What is the story arch theme of the book, and what are its results?
4. What characteristics distinguish the feminine and the masculine?
5. What is the role of duty as the story develops?
6. What does living in freedom look like for the main characters?
7. What distinguishes religion and spirituality in the example of Brother Andre?
8. Are freedom and duty at odds in the lives of the sons’ generation?
9. What does loving someone mean for the main characters?
10. Is meaning essential for the happiness of the wives in the story?
11. Would the conversion plot be similar if the gender of the main characters were reversed?