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Chapter 20
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
Back in New York City, Daniel starts playing small clubs as a solo act, finally presenting his own music. Although he hates baring himself so publicly, he continues to pursue his musical goals. In general, he’s rather happy—Angel is talking to him again, and he’s teaching guitar lessons. A month after his surprise party in Fuzhou, he returned to the United States, and he told Polly that it wasn’t because of her or about Peter and Kay. He watched her cry, but it felt “incredible to decide something” for himself, as he realized that he’d “never allowed himself to fully trust his choices before.”
Like his mother, Daniel comes to see the value of independence. For his entire life, he’s been trying to live up to his parents’ expectations, but now he gives himself permission to do what he wants. Having fully explored the multifaceted nature of his identity, he realizes that he doesn’t need to be just one thing. Rather, he can lead a life that draws upon the many different aspects of who he is, meaning that he can “allow himself to fully trust his [own] choices.”
Themes
Ko describes Daniel’s return to America. In Ridgeborough, Kay asks him about China and talks about how “brave” Polly must be to “have the kind of career she does,” saying that she recently read an article about “how women in China are still second-class citizens.” She tells Daniel that it’s “a shame” to think how many Chinese women “might have flourished” if they had more opportunities, adding that such women could “be doing so much better, so much more.” As she says this, Daniel insists that his mother is doing quite well, but Kay doesn’t pay attention. “He recalled how [Kay] and Peter had insisted on English, his new name, the right education,” Ko writes. “Mama, Chinese, the Bronx, Deming: they had never been enough.” Thinking about this, he realizes that his adoptive parents have always seen him as “someone who needed to be saved.”
Kay and Peter mean well, but they have they naïve ideas about success—ideas built upon the assumption that stereotypically American forms of prosperity are “better” than anything else. Kay talks about Polly as if she’s disenfranchised, and Daniel realizes that his adoptive parents have a narrow idea of what it means to lead a good and happy life. This, it seems, is why they place such rigorous and unyielding expectations upon him, unable to fathom that he might want to fashion his own way of moving through the world, one that doesn’t necessarily perfectly reflect their values.
Themes
Despite his frustration with Kay and Peter, Daniel likes being home, feeling comfortable in the house he’s spent so much time in. Still, he decides to go back to the city, where he moves in with Michael. “For now, this was where his life would be,” Ko writes. “This apartment with Michael. This city. His best home.”
Ko asserts that New York City is Daniel’s home “for now,” implying that he can move elsewhere whenever he wants. After all, he doesn’t have to commit to just one lifestyle. Like his mother, perhaps he will be happiest if he remains in motion, embracing change on a regular basis. For now, though, New York City is his “best home,” since the city itself brings all sorts of people, enabling him to stay in touch with both the Chinese and American elements of his identity. In turn, living in New York gives him a chance to explore his multicultural sense of self.
Themes
