Theme

                                      Theme of the Jade Peony

   Theme of the novel is how Chinese people’s life in Canada between early 1930s and 1940s. They have different culture and lots of conflicts, the life is full of difficulties. That thing conflicting them is making lots of choices between Chinese culture and Canada’s.

In the novel, for the first child, Jook-Liang who hates Chinese culture and wants to be a Canadian is a good example to discuss with the theme. Chinese culture is so unacceptable in some ways, like in the novel when Jook’s little brother had born, everyone paid their attentions to the brother and no one cared about Jook. The reason why they ignored Jook was because she was a girl. Traditional Chinese opinions made Jook argue with her grandma for several times and finally she gave up and wanted to find her own value by joining the Canadian culture.

   In part three, the theme becomes clear and clear. Sek-lung, the third son in the family, he always confused about whether he was a Canadian or Chinese. When he realized he was a Chinese, he tried his best to refuse it, like arguing with his mom and said he won’t speak Chinese anymore. He wanted to be Canadian and everyone around him like his teachers or friends will accept him. The racism from his teachers and classmates would be disappeared. He would live with happiness and wealthy. That’s what Sek believed but the family didn’t allow Sek to abandon the Chinese culture and Sek began to fight in his way to make his dream possible.

   Confusion, angriness, thirst and self-confidence created the characters in the novel and that’s the theme for this novel.