57 pages • 1 hour read
Madeleine ThienDo Not Say We Have Nothing
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Revolution in China
In order to understand many of the incidents in this novel, it is important to have some background on the Communist Revolution in China. Chairman Mao Zedong, whose picture, slogans, and policies constantly appear in the novel, was the founding father of the People’s Republic of China, established in 1949. This was the communist regime in place during Sparrow, Zhuli, and Jiang Kai’s upbringing. Many of his ideas build on Marxism and Leninism, but his own theory of policy is Maoism.
Many of Chairman Mao’s policies directly affect the characters in this book. For example, Swirl, Wen, and many other supposed counter-revolutionaries end up in his re-education camps—internment camps meant to punish people through intensive labor. Sparrow and Jiang Kai lose their jobs at the Conservatory and hide their love for music during Mao’s Anti-Rightist Campaign of the late 1950s, which killed off anyone labeled an intellectual, capitalist, or critic of communism. During The Great Leap Forward, a horrifically failed economic policy started in 1958 that caused a massive famine, the novel’s characters must give up land. Later, they also endure Mao’s Cultural Revolution, a period from 1966 to 1976 that encouraged class warfare to weed the weak-minded out through so-called struggle sessions, or periods of torture and public shame.
The Gang of Four, who are mentioned a few times in the novel, were communist leaders who mired the country in violence during the Cultural Revolution and were eventually charged with treason.
The Cost of Censorship
While censorship is often implemented under the guise of protecting people, it’s clear from the pages of Do Not Say We Have Nothing that censorship does anything but provide protection. Instead, it instills fear and mistrust in the citizenry. China’s Communist Party used censorship to keep the population from education, the arts, entertainment, and deep attachments to anything except the government. Education and entertainment were frivolities that robbed humanity of much-needed manual labor.
Clinging to their last vestige of control, people eventually came to censor themselves, preferring to silence themselves before someone else did. For example, Sparrow burns Wen’s letter as soon as he receives it—by destroying the letter, he ensures their safety. He would rather sacrifice the joy Swirl would have felt reading it than sacrifice Swirl altogether. Self-censoring takes a hefty psychological toll: As soon as Sparrow finds out that the Union of Composers took issue with his music, his creativity stifles. Soon, Sparrow is constantly “paranoid,” burying his music long after necessity calls for it (331). While Sparrow learned to suppress his desire, Zhuli could not live under censorship, and so killed herself.
When Jiang Kai said to Sparrow, “I hear a gap between what you say and what you desire” he could have been speaking to any one of the characters in this book (160). The imposed censorship of Revolutionary China affected everyone, both in the short and long term.
The Importance of Storytelling
The novel focuses on the importance of storytelling. Big Mother Knife, Swirl, and Sparrow make a career out of storytelling amidst a gory war; the beloved and always morphing Book of Records brings together Swirl and Wen; and Marie makes a novel out of her family history.
Storytelling is beneficial to both society and the individual. For one thing, it is a record of history—a function made clear by the title of The Book of Records, a mysterious narrative that constantly evolves when Wen weaves the names of the forgotten dead counterrevolutionaries into the book, and when its details are altered to allow Wen safe passage as a fugitive.
Storytelling can also create intimate connections between people otherwise separated by time and place. For example, Wen’s storytelling connects him to Swirl even when he is gone; it also links Marie to Big Mother Knife, a relative who would have remained a stranger if Ai-Ming had not woven her into the tapestry of a story. Storytelling can also build a sense of community and provide pleasure in a world filled with pain. The stories that Big Mother Knife, Swirl, and Sparrow tell during times of war allow the community to come together and connect over something besides mutual horror. Storytelling allows readers “to know the times in which we are alive” (419)
Stories provide pleasure, distracting readers from their worries; they hold a mirror to society; they can even be a means of psychological survival and a means towards personal growth. For instance, when Marie starts to write down her memories of Ai-Ming, she finds herself able “to move forward, to take a further step” (197). Sometimes storytelling can also be a kind of letting go, putting something on paper so it doesn’t have to stay in the mind, as is often the case for Marie and for Sparrow. Whether the aim is to improve society, yourself, or both, Do Not Say We Have Nothing proves that storytelling is as elemental to life as healthcare or self-care.
