The Family Chao

The jade ring’s significance evolves over the course of the novel—initially representing Dagou’s commitment to Katherine—and Katherine’s wish to be integrated into the Chao family, which the novel suggests she equates with her own Chinese identity. Dagou describes the ring as a “big chunk of super-rare jade with a complex gold setting, some Asiatic panther with spots of diamonds wound around the jade” (48). The family lore is that Leo gave the ring to Winnie, and Winnie gave it to Dagou for Katherine. O-Lan reveals that Leo stole the treasure from O-Lan’s mother, along with the money he took from her to come to America, casting the former emblem of familial devotion as its opposite—familial abandonment, abuse and neglect. For O-Lan, the ring represents the family and heritage which has been taken from her, and she is willing to steal—and even kill—to get it back. Just as Leo left her mother to suffer, O-Lan feels no remorse in getting her wished-for revenge on her father. At the end of the novel, when O-Lan is free and in a new city, the jade ring signifies her vengeance and reclamation of what she feels belongs to her. Chang also uses the rare stone and its exotic setting to underscore the otherness or foreignness that Asian descent signals to the white population of the United States.

The carpetbag serves as plot device that Chang employs to drive the plot forward, create suspense and reveal insight into the characters. The circulation of the carpetbag points to the complexities of immigration and integration into a new culture. The novel implies the old man James meets in the train station in Chapter 1 is coming from China to join his children and grandchild, the Changs. In this way, the bag represents the man’s life as well as his hopes. Leo’s assumption that the bag contains the man’s life savings reinforces this idea and points to Leo’s ruthlessness and greed. Leo wants to find and claim this bag the way he took the jade ring from O-Lan’s mother. He feels no remorse at taking this man’s fortune even as Cecilia Chang, the man’s American-born granddaughter, is working hard to get the bag back as a way to reconnect with her grandfather and perhaps, in a sense, his Chinese life. Dagou confuses the carpetbag with his mother’s bag revealing the general heedlessness and impulsiveness of his character, while James’s losing track of it shows his naivete. In the end it is O-Lan who claims the money, seeing it as retribution for what Leo stole from her, completing the old man’s journey of immigration to the United States, living off his money, freeing herself from her old life in China.

The freezer room represents Leo’s greed and the secrets he hides from his family. Whereas O-Lan is vegetarian and Winnie has become vegetarian since moving to the Spiritual House, Leo adores eating meat and refuses to give it up, symbolizing his larger appetite for pleasure, including his appreciation for sex. Leo stores alcohol as well as meat in the freezer room, turning it into a private storage for his vices. The rest of the family views this particular room as Leo’s private kingdom, an extension of his secret self, which is why Ming believes Leo would have stored his life savings there. Dagou’s fantasies about locking his father in the freezer room to die provide a symbolic picture of Leo’s death as a result of his own bad behavior, foreshadowing his murder by O-Lan, the daughter he stole from and abandoned.

Leo’s refusal to make the room compliant to building codes indicates his larger unwillingness to completely assimilate to the customs and culture of Haven, his adopted city. He wants to have things his own way, even if his way is unethical or even illegal, an extension of his defiant personality. The key to the freezer room, which is meant to stay inside the room, indicates the control Leo exercises over his family. The cold of the freezer room parallels the coldness and cruelty with which Leo treats other people, including his own sons. Dagou only fantasizes about killing his father with his own greed and coldness, while O-Lan, who feels the same hostility, acts on this desire. Katherine produces the key at the end of the trial, showing her embedded attachment to the Chao family and her willingness, finally, to let go of Dagou to help Ming.