The Leavers

by

Lisa Ko

Themes and Colors
Cultural Identity and Belonging Theme Icon
Migration, Change, and Happiness Theme Icon
Racism, Cultural Insensitivity, and Implicit Bias Theme Icon
Self-Deception and Rationalization Theme Icon
Parenthood, Support, and Expectations Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Leavers, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Migration, Change, and Happiness Theme Icon

A novel about migration and relocation, The Leavers provides an in-depth look at the human tendency to associate change with happiness. At first, Polly has to emigrate from China to get what she wants, since she doesn’t make enough money in her rural hometown. In America, she makes better wages, but the journey requires her to borrow tens of thousands of dollars from loan sharks, plunging her into debt. Ko uses this situation to illustrate that although migration can lead to new opportunities, such changes often come with considerable personal costs. In fact, Polly’s debt makes it impossible for her to flourish in New York, so she fantasizes about leaving once more, seeing migration as the only way to find new opportunity and, thus, happiness. However, she never gets what she wants, even years later when she has lots of money, an expensive high-rise apartment with an ocean view, a good marriage, and a renewed relationship with Deming. In this manner, Ko highlights the grass-is-greener mentality that Polly has developed as a result of her original need to emigrate. Having grown used to coupling the idea of change with the possibility of happiness, she now lives a restless life. In keeping with this, Ko suggests that although change is sometimes necessary, it isn’t always a path to contentment.

As a young woman in rural China, Polly is eager to transition into a more active life. Right from the beginning, then, she has a strong thirst for change. Unable to secure official residency in a Chinese city (known as “urban hukou”), she decides to travel to nearby Fuzhou to work in a factory. “Villagers couldn’t get permanent urban hukou, but they could buy temporary resident permits and find better jobs than fishing and farming,” she notes. Motivated by the possibility of upward mobility, she migrates for the first time, revealing her willingness—her eagerness—to drastically alter her life in pursuit of a more satisfying existence. In this section of the novel, readers come to understand Polly’s relationship with change, as she opens herself up to new possibilities because she thinks this is the only way to improve her life.

It is this mentality that eventually encourages Polly to travel to the United States. In search of happiness and financial prosperity, she puts herself into debt in order to experience something new. Eleven years later, she is still struggling to pay off the loan sharks and feels just as stagnant as she felt in China. “Once I might have become this woman, free to move across the country because she heard a city was beautiful,” she thinks to herself one day after meeting a stranger who tells her she’s moving to San Francisco simply because she’s heard nice things about it. In this moment, readers see the extent to which Polly has romanticized the idea of change, seeing it as something that might magically make her happy and cause her problems to disappear.

Since Polly is so committed to the idea that change and migration are tied to happiness, her experience in an immigration detention camp is especially traumatic. Captured by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), she is detained for fourteen months without trial. Not only is she kept from her family, but she also loses her ability to decide for herself where to go. Since Polly places so much importance on where she lives, it’s easy to see that her detainment and eventual deportation is a massive blow to her sense of mobility and freedom. For someone who sees change (and, thus, migration) as an opportunity to improve her life, it’s quite torturous to suddenly have no say about where she’s allowed to live.

Roughly a decade after Polly is deported to China, she finally manages to obtain the upwardly mobile life she has always wanted. Married to a successful businessman, she lives in a flashy urban apartment in Fuzhou. She even rekindles her relationship with Deming when he tracks her down and lives with her for a short period. When he returns to the United States, though, she once again decides to completely change her life. Her decision to leave her husband and move to Hong Kong proves that the kind of happiness she’s searching for is more existential than material, since she abandons the trappings of a wealthy existence in exchange for the freedom of the unknown. As she approaches Hong Kong on a ferry, she moves through fog and is “breathless with laughter,” exhilarated by change. “How wrong I had been to assume this feeling had been lost forever. This lightheaded uncertainty, all my fear and joy—I could return here, punching the sky,” she notes. “Because I had found her: Polly Guo. Wherever I went next, I would never let her go again.” The fact that Polly (who also goes by Peilan) feels as if she has “found” herself simply by migrating once again indicates that sometimes upheaval can be satisfying in and of itself. Notably, Polly is happy while she’s in the midst of her travels, not once she’s settled into her new life. Given her track record, she’ll likely tire of her existence in Hong Kong, meaning she’ll have to move again. Once more, then, Ko suggests that change doesn’t always result in happiness. At the same time, though, she subtly implies that the very process of migration itself can give one a sense of fulfillment and existential contentment. Or, to quote a well-known adage, life’s a journey, not a destination.

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Migration, Change, and Happiness ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Migration, Change, and Happiness appears in each chapter of The Leavers. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Migration, Change, and Happiness Quotes in The Leavers

Below you will find the important quotes in The Leavers related to the theme of Migration, Change, and Happiness.
Chapter 1 Quotes

There was a restlessness to her, an inability to be still or settled. She jiggled her legs, bounced her knees, cracked her knuckles, twirled her thumbs. She hated being cooped up in the apartment on a sunny day, paced the rooms from wall to wall to wall, a cigarette dangling from her mouth. “Who wants to go for a walk?” she would say. Her boyfriend Leon would tell her to relax, sit down. “Sit down? We’ve been sitting all day!” Deming would want to stay on the couch with Michael, but he couldn’t say no to her and they’d go out, no family but each other. He would have her to himself, an ambling walk in the park or along the river, making up stories about who lived in the apartments they saw from the outside.

Related Characters: Peilan Guo / Polly Guo (speaker), Deming Guo / Daniel Wilkinson, Michael, Leon
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:

“Did you think that when I was growing up, a small girl your age, I thought: hey, one day, I’m going to come all the way to New York so I can pick gao gao out of a stranger’s toe? That was not my plan.”

Always be prepared, she liked to say. Never rely on anyone else to give you things you could get yourself.

Related Characters: Peilan Guo / Polly Guo (speaker), Deming Guo / Daniel Wilkinson
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:

If he hadn’t gotten detention—if he had left school at the usual time—if he hadn’t resisted Florida—if he’d intercepted the fight she had with Leon—she would still be here. Like a detective inspecting the same five seconds of surveillance video, he replayed last Wednesday afternoon, walking the blocks from school to home.

Related Characters: Deming Guo / Daniel Wilkinson, Peilan Guo / Polly Guo, Vivian, Leon
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

My life felt like a confection, something I had once yearned for, but sometimes I still wanted to torch it all over again, change my name again, move to another city again, rent a room in a building where nobody knew me.

Related Characters: Peilan Guo / Polly Guo (speaker), Deming Guo / Daniel Wilkinson
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Once I might have become this woman, free to move across the country because she heard a city was beautiful. Instead I had become a woman like Vivian, watching TV, cooking for you and Leon, making sure the dumplings were fried and not steamed, unsure if I should marry my boyfriend but not wanting to lose him either. An uneasiness settled into me. This October would be followed by another winter, another spring, until it was time for October again.

Related Characters: Peilan Guo / Polly Guo (speaker), Deming Guo / Daniel Wilkinson, Vivian, Leon
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

In the end, he hadn’t been able to do what Peter and Kay wanted. Three more semesters of classes, followed by graduate school. Staying upstate. He hadn’t been able to do what Roland wanted either, play the music Roland wanted him to play.

Related Characters: Deming Guo / Daniel Wilkinson, Peilan Guo / Polly Guo, Roland Fuentes, Peter Wilkinson, Kay Wilkinson
Page Number: 270
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

“There wasn’t anything I could do,” I said. “I couldn’t go back to America after being deported. I couldn’t go anywhere. If I thought about you too much I wouldn’t be able to live.”

I knew how it must sound to you: I hadn’t tried hard enough, I didn’t love you enough. But I could have kept looking forever. I needed you to understand.

Related Characters: Peilan Guo / Polly Guo (speaker), Deming Guo / Daniel Wilkinson
Page Number: 310
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

There was a comfort in belonging that he’d never felt before, yet somehow, he still stood out. The bus driver eyed him for a beat too long when he bought the ticket, as did the woman in the seat across the aisle, a bag of groceries on her lap. Yong and his mother assured him his Chinese sounded close to normal now and not as freakish as it had when he first arrived, but Daniel figured it was his clothes, his bearing, or the way he looked or walked or held himself, something that revealed he wasn’t from here.

Related Characters: Deming Guo / Daniel Wilkinson, Peilan Guo / Polly Guo, Yong
Page Number: 315
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

At the ferry terminal I bought a ticket, then found a place on the upper deck. The boat rocked in the waves, and as I saw the lights of Kowloon come through the fog, I held the railing, breathless with laughter. How wrong I had been to assume this feeling had been lost forever. This lightheaded uncertainty, all my fear and joy—I could return here, punching the sky. Because I had found her: Polly Guo. Wherever I went next, I would never let her go again.

Related Characters: Peilan Guo / Polly Guo (speaker), Deming Guo / Daniel Wilkinson, Yong
Page Number: 326
Explanation and Analysis: