54 pages • 1 hour read
Emily X. R. PanThe Astonishing Color of After
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaSymbols & Motifs
The Bird-Mother
The bird-mother who raps on Leigh’s door the night before Dory’s funeral is a symbol that recurs throughout the novel, a triumphant substitute for the bloody stain on the bedroom floor where Dory killed herself and left Leigh with a “mother-shaped hole” (1). The bird towers over Dory’s petite stature while living, and she counters Dory’s “grayer than a sketch” corpse with “sharp and gleaming” red feathers (11; 9). The bird-mother is initially a compensatory figure who distracts Leigh from her grief by leading her to Taiwan, where Leigh learns about the past and family that Dory kept hidden. The bird’s persistent appearance, whether in the form of red feathers that appear in boxes and dressers or in sightings around Taipei and in Leigh’s dreams, affirms to Leigh that her mother is still on earth. The failure of Leigh’s father to specifically acknowledge the bird cements the rift between them, as Leigh subconsciously sees her father as an adversary to her pursuit of the truth about her mother.
However, the bird is not an entirely benign entity. She can only call Leigh’s name, and despite Leigh’s elaborate attempts to make a net to catch her, the bird resists all tactile contact. Additionally, as the 49th day after Dory’s death draws closer, the bird gives Leigh many sleepless nights, as she fades and weakens before Leigh’s eyes. As much as she wishes to, Leigh cannot peacefully coexist with the bird; she must accept the parting goodbye in the dream where she encounters her mother on the moon.
When Leigh finally accepts her mother’s death and the bird’s loss, the “mother-shaped hole” created by Dory’s suicide, which Leigh previously envisioned as an abyss, becomes “a vessel […] Something to hold memories and colors, and to hold space for Dad and Waipo and Waigong” (438). Although the vessel is still an abscess, it becomes a positive channel that connects Leigh to her family rather than remaining an isolating pit of darkness.
Mandarin
Mandarin, the most widely spoken dialect of Chinese, becomes symbolic as a language that all Leigh’s immediate family members speak, but one that she is excluded from. On a deeper level, Leigh’s ignorance of her maternal family’s language parallels her ignorance of the family secrets that are hidden from her.
Dory’s refusal to speak Mandarin or the Taiwanese dialect that she likely spoke growing up symbolizes her desire for a complete break with her past. Her refusal to become involved with Leigh’s learning of Mandarin indicates that she does not want Leigh to learn the language or culture of her ancestors, or to communicate with her grandparents. Still, Dory retains the structures and habits of her original language, evidenced by her tendency to speak English with “disjointed grammar and mixed-up idioms” (25). While Dory occupies a liminal space between English and Chinese, she prefers that Leigh to be decisively American, even if she does treat Leigh to Asian tastes like matcha and bean paste. Leigh’s inability to share her mother’s native language or learn about her roots alienates her from an important aspect of Dory’s identity. In turn, this contributes to Leigh’s own confusion about the Asian part of her mixed-race identity.
Leigh learns what little Mandarin she knows from her father, a passionate sinologist who displays Chinese characters all over his office. Mandarin becomes “like a secret language between” them (32), used not for deciphering Dory’s family secrets but for transmitting secret messages about their current environment. Following Brian’s lead, Leigh learns her maternal language and culture as an interested stranger rather than a native, and even then, she does not speak it nearly so well and so frequently as her father. Brian’s learned grasp of Mandarin represents his acquired knowledge of Dory’s family history. He teaches a limited amount of Mandarin to his daughter, just as his wife only permits him to grant Leigh limited information about her family.
Having learned rudimentary Mandarin from Brian, the Irish American parent whom she most resembles, Leigh feels even more of an outsider when Feng enters the scene speaking a Taiwanese dialect that is even more intimate and personal to her grandparents. Leigh’s truncated Mandarin, combined with her mixed-race appearance, marks her as an outsider in Taiwan, while Feng’s conventionally Taiwanese appearance and dialect make her seem like one of Leigh’s family. Leigh resents Feng for speaking the native dialect that was not granted her, and she must display humility when she admits that she needs Feng to translate.
As the narrative progresses, however, Leigh manages to complete her mission of tracking the bird and getting close to her mother’s family without speaking their verbal language. While she intends to take Mandarin classes on returning to America, Leigh fosters familiarity with her grandparents through nonverbal encounters, such as watching her grandmother in the kitchen and observing “the careful way she has with each ingredient, like it’s something precious” (438). As Leigh witnesses such details, she feels more fluent in the culture of her mother’s family, and this compensates for her inability to communicate with them verbally.
Art
From the outset of the novel, Pan makes the reader aware that Leigh is a serious visual artist. Her artistry is a constant motif throughout the narrative and the manner through which she processes emotions, expresses herself, and communicates and bonds with others.
In the years preceding her mother’s suicide, Leigh spends copious amounts of time on her art. She and Axel bond through rituals of sketching each other, and art becomes a means of processing uncomfortable feelings, such as her nervousness about Dory’s moods or her uncertainty about how to act at the winter formal. Drawing thus becomes a crutch and coping mechanism as well as a means of expression. Brian criticizes Leigh’s devotion to art above other pursuits like academics or socializing, saying that “it’s not good to always be so internally focused” (361). Here, Brian accuses Leigh of retreating into her own world rather than being part of the wider social world. Leigh’s insistence that her life’s purpose is art echoes Dory’s devotion to music despite her parents’ demand that she should do something more practical. This pursuit of the artist’s path bonds Leigh to her mother, even as she is estranged from her maternal culture.
Leigh’s artistic manner of seeing the world is witnessed through her sensitivity to color. The colors that she perceives and attributes to emotions are precise, as if judged by an artist practiced in making clear distinctions. When the romantic feelings between Leigh and Axel come to a satisfying resolution at the end of the novel, for example, she feels her “heart bursting with manganese blue and a new gamboge yellow and quinacridone rose” (454). The vividness and specificity of the colors are a testament to the excitement and novelty Leigh feels when she and Axel transition from friendship to romance.
However, despite Leigh’s ability to identify color and associate it with emotion, she initially struggles to apply both to her life. Although she can identify that the colors she feels around Axel lean romantic, she finds it difficult to express these emotions to him, an action that temporarily stunts their relationship. Similarly, her lack of confidence using actual color, such as when she is traumatized by her mother’s wild mood swings, means that she sticks to black-and-white charcoal in her artwork, causing Dr. Nagori to say her work lacks emotion. When Leigh returns from Taiwan and is ready to prepare her Kreis portfolio, Axel insists that she should use color. Where charcoal is logical and precise, color is loose and expressive. After her journey to Taiwan, and the richness of her experience there, Leigh comes fully into her own as an artist and paints in a colorful manner that evokes multiple layers of consciousness.
