63 pages • 2 hours read
Yu HuaTo Live
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1992A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
Food and Clothing
Food and clothing are a motif that develops the theme of Political Systems and Class Divides by illustrating the differences between wealth and poverty. When Fugui is young and wealthy, he wears silk clothing, drinks excessive amounts of alcohol, and eats meat every night. However, after losing his family fortune and moving into a hut, he begins to wear durable sack clothing that can withstand work in the fields, and food becomes something that is worked for rather than given. In this way, food and clothing become symbolic of wealth, and the lack of these things symbolizes poverty.
Livestock
At the beginning of the novel, Fugui’s father tells him, “A long time ago, our Xu family ancestors raised but a single chicken. When that chicken grew up it turned into a goose, the goose in turn grew into a lamb, and the lamb became an ox. This is how our family became rich” (36). Like access to good food and clothing, the ability to have livestock is representative of wealth, which is largely out of Fugui’s reach; the family keeps lambs for a time but ultimately must sell them to buy rice. It is not until the end of the novel, after Fugui has lost everyone he has ever loved, that he finally buys an ox. This raises questions about what, exactly, defines wealth. According to Fugui’s father, having an ox is what brought about his family’s wealth in the first place. This is not true for Fugui, who has an ox but seems materially poorer than he has ever been. Nevertheless, the ox has great value to him, implying that wealth is something that can’t always be measured by material things and developing the theme of Perseverance in the Face of Hardship.
Burials
Burials and the link between the living and the dead play a large role throughout the novel. While alive, Fugui’s father constantly talks about how Fugui is a disappointment to their ancestors and how he has squandered everything they worked hard to attain. When Jiazhen contemplates her death, she asks Fugui to make her body clean for her journey ahead. Fugui feels bad that when his son dies, he is buried in the ground without even a cloth over him. These moments illustrate that for Fugui and his family, life is intimately connected with death and what happens beyond. It is particularly important that the deceased have a recognizable burial plot to ensure that the living can find the dead and vice versa. This is part of what makes Fugui’s time in the army so traumatic: Many of his fallen comrades die in an unknown land, far away from family, and Fugui’s biggest fear during this time is that his family won’t know where he is buried. Overall, the time characters dedicate to thinking about burial arrangements and what comes next is symbolic of their hope for something better after this world.
