In “The Paper Menagerie,” the paper animals that Jack’s mother makes for Jack symbolize his Chinese heritage. The paper animals are an artisanal specialty of Sigulu Village, where Jack’s mother grew up in China; she learned to make them and animate them with her breath from her own mother. When Jack is a child, he helps his mother write letters to her dead parents back in China. His mother then folds the letter into a crane, animates it, and sends it flying to her own parents’ graves. Thus, the paper animals literally travel between Jack in America and his ancestors in China.
Throughout “The Paper Menagerie,” Jack’s relationship to the paper animals tracks his relationship to his Chinese heritage. When he is young, he has an uncomplicated, positive relationship with both: he happily plays with the paper animals and speaks Chinese with his mother. As he grows older, Jack pushes his Chinese heritage away. A neighborhood boy, Mark, calls Jack’s paper animals “‘trash,’” insults his mother, and subjects him to racist bullying. In response, Jack demands his mother speak English and boxes up his paper animals. By boxing up his paper animals, Jack is figuratively “boxing up” his Chinese heritage to assimilate into American culture. At the end of the story, Jack reconnects with his Chinese heritage through the intervention of his childhood paper tiger, Laohu. Laohu contains a letter that Jack’s mother wrote to him before her death. It explains his mother’s childhood in China and how, after Jack’s birth, he made her feel connected to the homeland and family she had lost. The letter inside Laohu reconciles Jack to his mother and his Chinese heritage: he writes the Chinese character for ai, meaning love, all over the letter, refolds the letter into the shape of a tiger, and tenderly carries it home with him. Thus Jack’s love for, rejection of, and reunification with his paper animals mirrors his love for, rejection of, and reunification with his Chinese heritage.
Paper Animals Quotes in The Paper Menagerie
A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees.
[…]
“Zhe jiao zhezhi,” Mom said. This is called origami.
Mark, one of the neighborhood boys, came over with his Star Wars action figures. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsaber lit up and he could swing his arms and say, in a tinny voice, “Use the Force!” I didn’t think the figure looked much like the real Obi-Wan at all.
Together, we watched him repeat this performance five times on the coffee table. “Can he do anything else?” I asked.
Mark was annoyed by my question. “Look at all the details,” he said.
I looked at the details. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say.
Mark grabbed Laohu and his snarl was choked off as Mark crumpled him in his hand and tore him in half. He balled up the two pieces of paper and threw them at me. “Here’s your stupid cheap Chinese garbage.”
Dad bought me a full set of Star Wars action figures. I gave the Obi-Wan Kenobi to Mark.
I packed the paper menagerie in a large shoe box and put it under the bed.
“If I don’t make it, don’t be too sad and hurt your health. Focus on your life. Just keep that box you have in the attic with you, and every year, at Qingming, just take it out and think about me. I’ll be with you always.”
Qingming was the Chinese Festival for the Dead. When I was very young, Mom used to write a letter on Qingming to her dead parents back in China, telling them the good news about the past year of her life in America. She would read the letter out loud to me, and if I made a comment about something, she would write it down in the letter too. Then she would fold the letter into a paper crane and release it, facing west. We would then watch as the crane flapped its crisp wings on its long journal west, toward the Pacific, toward China, toward the graves of Mom’s family.
Susan found the shoe box in the attic. The paper menagerie, hidden in the uninsulated darkness of the attic for so long, had become brittle, and the bright wrapping paper patterns had faded.
“I’ve never seen origami like this,” Susan said. “Your mom was an amazing artist.”
The paper animals did not move. Perhaps whatever magic had animated them stopped when Mom died. Or perhaps I had only imagined that these paper constructions were once alive. The memory of children could not be trusted.
I took the letter with me downtown, where I knew the Chinese tour buses stopped. I stopped every tourist, asking, “Nin hui du zhongwen ma?” Can you read Chinese? I hadn’t spoken Chinese in so long that I wasn’t sure if they understood.
The young woman handed the paper back to me. I could not bear to look into her face.
Without looking up, I asked for her help in tracing out the character for ai on the paper below Mom’s letter. I wrote the character again and again on the paper, intertwining my pen strokes with her words.
The young woman reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. Then she got up and left, leaving me alone with my mother.
Following the creases, I refolded the paper back into Laohu. I cradled him in the crook of my arm, and as he purred, we began the walk home.
Paper Animals Symbol Timeline in The Paper Menagerie
