The Paper Menagerie: Genre 1 key example

At the same time, there is an overarching fantastical element in the story: the menagerie of animals made out of wrapping paper that Jack’s mother breathes life into (such that they become living, breathing creatures). Jack and his mother both know that the animals are alive, even as no other character seems to be able to see them. Even in Jack’s mother’s final letter to her son before she dies—in which she references the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution—she treats the existence of the animals as unequivocally real, as seen in this section of her letter:

Sigulu is famous for its zhezhi papercraft, and my mother taught me how to make paper animals and give them life. This was practical magic in the life of the village. We made paper birds to chase grasshoppers away from the fields, and paper tigers to keep away the mice. For Chinese New Year my friends and I made red paper dragons. I’ll never forget the sight of all those little dragons zooming across the sky overhead, holding up strings of exploding firecrackers to scare away all the bad memories of the past year.

Cite this Quote

Here, in the midst of an earnest letter full of harsh truths, Jack’s mother reiterates the reality of the paper animals (made of zhezhi, a form of origami), describing how they “chase grasshoppers away from the fields,” “keep away the mice,” and even “zoom across the sky overhead” as part of Chinese New Year celebrations. Liu’s inclusion of this fantastical element in the story communicates that there are certain elements of Chinese culture that the oftentimes rigid American culture does not (yet should) make room for, and that embracing such magic is important for Jack in coming to embrace his ethnic identity and heritage.