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Part 1, Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Our Missing Hearts, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Free Speech, Patriotism, and the Corruption of Truth
Surveillance, Fear, and Discrimination
The Power of Art and Imagination
Parental Responsibility, Rights, and Experience
Privilege, Silence, and Complicity
Summary
Analysis
Bird decides that he will ask Ethan to check the university library for the book about the cats. Despite attempts to purge all Asian texts from circulation, the university manages to keep several in the collection, citing the importance of research. But Bird’s father does not arrive home at his normal time, and Bird begins to worry that his snooping has somehow cast suspicion on his father. Finally, he returns, albeit several hours late. The FBI were investigating a professor writing an article about PACT, and they demanded to see every book the professor had ever borrowed.
The university’s ability to keep texts that are suppressed in other libraries points to the ways in which censorship is antithetical to education. Despite the diversity of the university library’s collection, they are still required to justify the presence of Asian texts, and access to those sources are restricted; in this way, censorship is still taking place, even when these books have not been destroyed. Emphasizing this point, the FBI’s investigation into a professor—who is ostensibly doing the kind of research that allows questionable texts to remain in circulation—shows that free speech in the name of academic research is also under attack.
Themes
Bird and Ethan go to a pizza place for dinner. While they wait for their order, another customer enters. He has Asian features, and even though it is not yet nine o’clock, the man behind the counter refuses to serve him. The customer says he is hungry, and the pizza guy asks if he understands English, telling him to go to the Chinese restaurant instead. Eventually, the Asian man leaves, but not before saying something to Bird’s father in a language Bird cannot understand. At home, his father tells Bird the man was speaking Cantonese, and he reminds Bird to stay away from anything related to China. Bird knows then that his father will not help him get the book he wants.
The interaction between the pizza guy and the Asian man is an example of normalized discrimination of a group based on generalizations; in this case, the employee feels he has the right to refuse service because the Asian man’s presumed country of origin allegedly contributed to the Crisis. While Bird cannot understand Cantonese, his own Asian features align him with the man and separate him from his father, who does not face the same discrimination. In warning Bird away from anything related to China, then, Ethan urges Bird to abandon a part of himself.
Themes
Bird makes a plan to sneak into the university library. Years ago, he would go there with Ethan on the weekends and help him shelve books. Now, while his father brushes his teeth, Bird snatches his keycard, knowing Ethan will think he simply misplaced it. The next day, after school, Bird uses the card to enter the library. Thanks to PACT, the stacks are off limits to all but those who work at the library, so Bird waits until a staff member on a smoke break leaves the door propped before slipping inside.
Based on Ethan’s silence in the pizza place, Bird likely assumes his father will continue to hide behind his white privilege rather than make trouble. In betraying Ethan’s trust, Bird shows how distant he feels from his father, as he presumes that Ethan will not understand his need to uncover Margaret’s message. Again, the library’s restricted access demonstrates how information is selectively censored in this world.
Themes
Bird uses a search terminal to find the location of The Boy Who Drew Cats. He also searches for Our Missing Hearts, only to find it marked “DISCARDED.” He heads deep into the stacks, noting again the gaps where removed books once stood. At last, he finds the book, knowing in an instant that this is the story Margaret once told him. The details come back to him: a lonely boy, cats springing from his paintbrush. Bird is about to open the book when a hand falls on his shoulder, and he turns to see Ethan.
That Margaret’s book has been discarded from the one place where texts labeled “unpatriotic” have been preserved shows how thoroughly it has been eradicated. Bird’s experience of the story’s details returning to him points to the longevity of art and literature.
Themes
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Ethan tells library security Bird was just trying to return the lost keycard. Before they leave, he tells Bird to leave the book he found on a cart. This reminds Bird of the only other time he has been in trouble, when he stood by as Sadie used a Sharpie to deface PACT public-safety posters reminding everyone to watch over one another and report the smallest sign of trouble. The police came to their apartment, and Ethan had to denounce Margaret and Sadie to reassure the officers that nothing unpatriotic was happening in their household. Afterward, Ethan urged Bird to stay away from Sadie, and so the two friends were not talking when she disappeared.
Bird realizes that Ethan is lying to protect him, highlighting his father’s deep fear of the authorities. Despite the fact that Bird did not deface the posters himself, he still gets into trouble for Sadie’s actions, showing how the government views anyone in proximity to “dangerous” activities as complicit and deserving of scrutiny. In this context, Ethan’s paranoia and caution make sense, as the tiniest infraction can result in severe consequences.
Themes
Bird follows Ethan across campus toward their apartment, knowing his father is furious but also noting the fear in his voice as he talked to the security guards. Bird bumps into a man who calls him a slur before shoving him to the ground. The man runs off with a bloody nose, and Bird realizes, as his father helps him stand, that Ethan punched his assailant in the face. Back in the apartment, Ethan tells Bird he must be careful: there are many people who think like this man and will use Bird’s Asian features as an excuse to harm him.
Ethan’s fear for his son is rooted, not just in the culture of surveillance, but in Bird’s increased risk of discrimination because of his Asian heritage. That Ethan meets the stranger’s aggression with violence shows Bird how far his father will go to protect him. Through these combined realizations, Bird begins to understand the reasons behind his father’s extreme paranoia and caution.
Themes
Ethan lectures Bird on what might have happened if he had been caught with the book in the library. Ethan could have gotten fired, meaning they would lose their apartment. On top of this, attracting the attention of the authorities could endanger Bird, who resembles his Asian mother. As his father embraces him, Bird realizes that Ethan’s caution stems from fear for his son, for whom the world is inherently dangerous. Bird asks his father again what the man in the pizza shop said, and Ethan tells him: He’s one of us.
Ethan confirms what Bird has suspected: that Bird is in greater danger of scrutiny because of his relation to Margaret and his Asian features. That Bird’s home and family can be threatened based on the theft of a single book exhibits how this imagined government exerts control over its citizens through authoritarian censorship and surveillance. The man in the pizza shop’s classification of Bird as “one of us” simultaneously confronts Ethan’s silent complicity in anti-Asian discrimination and points out the fact that Bird will inevitably be subject to that same discrimination.
Themes
Taking a chance, Bird asks Ethan if Margaret liked cats. After a moment, his father says that she did, because of her surname—Miu—which sounded like a cat’s meow. He draws Chinese characters in the dust on the bookshelf, showing Bird the evolution of the word for domesticated cat. Bird’s parents used to discuss such things long ago. Bird’s father asks him about the book he was taking from the library, then he begins to recite from memory the story his wife told. As his father speaks, the story comes back to Bird—and so does his mother’s voice.
In discussing his past with Margaret, Ethan becomes open and vulnerable in a way he has not been with Bird in a long time. His knowledge of language evolution not only signifies the beautiful changeability of words, but also emphasizes the loss of such knowledge under laws that restrict information access; it is no longer safe to know such things and read such stories. Ethan’s own memory of the cat story brings it back for Bird as well, demonstrating again the staying power of storytelling.
Themes
