Thousand Pieces of Gold

“There was another smell, one of hot gaoliang wine. The kind her father offered to his dead parents and grandparents on feast days. The kind disappointed gamblers used to forget what they had lost.”

When Nathoy’s winter harvest fails, he tries to ease the pain of failing his family by drinking. Interestingly, this is the same way he would celebrate his ancestors, which highlights the theme of The Burden and Pain of Family Betrayal throughout the novel.

“Lalu released her father and stared down at her feet. Every day for two years, her mother had wound long white bandages around each foot in ever tightening bands, twisting her toes under her feet and forcing them back until her feet had become two dainty arcs. They were not as small or as beautiful as those of a girl from a wealthy family who would not need to use them at all. But they were useless for heavy labor.”

Determined not to be sold, Polly insists on going to work in the fields with her father, even though doing so will require her to have her feet unbound. She does so fully knowing it will hurt her future marriage prospects, introducing the recurring motif of Polly’s feet and highlighting the theme of Gender Expectations and the Quest for Agency.

“I will, but they’re ruined. They’ll never have the same perfect shape or be as small. Besides, it’s not just your feet. You’re doing what no woman in this village, this district, has done, and your name is on every gossip’s tongue. What decent, modest woman will take you for a daughter-in-law now?”

Polly’s mother is never able to accept her daughter’s free will and independence and views her decision to go against social norms as embarrassing. Polly’s mother’s words haunt her as she gets older and continues to subvert gender expectations.

“He threw a bag in front of Lalu’s father. It burst, scattering soybeans.

Lalu stared at her father, willing him not to pick them up. He reached out, hesitated, then looked up at Lalu, his eyes pleading for understanding. She twisted her face away, a sob strangling in her throat. Behind her, she heard him snatch the bag and scoop up the spilled seed.

‘Two bags,’ her father begged. ‘She’s worth two bags of seed.’

Laughing scornfully, Chen tossed the other bag down, flung Lalu over his shoulder like a side of pork, and stalked out the door.”

When Chen forces Nathoy to sell Polly to him, he pays him with two bags of seeds. This is highly embarrassing for both Nathoy and Polly since Polly is his favorite child. This exchange highlights the fact that Polly has no rights as a woman and is treated as the property of her father. This foreshadows her future in Shanghai and the United States despite her optimism.

“His voice softened. ‘Lalu, I know your mother and father did not raise you to be sold to a house of leisure, just as my parents did not raise me to be a bandit, but we have no choice except to follow the paths Heaven has allotted us.’

Lalu, facing forward again, said nothing. But as they climbed up the steep trail to the ridge where Chen and the others waited, she vowed she would never accept the path Ding claimed Heaven had assigned her.”

As Polly rides toward Shanghai with the bandits, she befriends Ding. Ding believes that there is no use fighting against difficult or undesirable situations because you must accept your fate. However, Polly strongly disagrees, highlighting her fighting spirit and will to survive.

“She had been duped, she realized. By the soft voiced, gentle Madam, a cormorant who had nothing to give except to its master. By Li Ma, the foulmouthed procuress charged with Lalu’s delivery to the auction room. By the talk of freemen whose dreams could never be hers. For the Gold Mountains they had described was not the America she would know. This: the dingy basement room, the blank faces of women and girls stripped of hope, the splintered boards beneath her feet, the auction block. This was her America.”

When Polly is sent to the United States, it is pitched to her as a good opportunity. However, when she arrives, it is clear that she is in a dangerous situation, immediately clarifying The Shortcomings of the American Dream. She realizes that she will not have the same opportunities for advancement as others, leading her to be despondent.

“Lalu, I know the saloons gave you a bad shock. That what I said and the way I said it was brutal. But when you see a demon, you must confront it. Only then will the demon disappear.”

Jim serves as both Polly’s introduction to the United States and her first love. His advice that she must confront demons—or white people—encourages her to never stay complacent in her situation and to instead look for opportunities to improve her life.

“‘But I’m part of your goods.’

Jim’s face, strong as newly carved rock, darkened as though shadowed by a cloud. ‘You know you’re more than that.’

‘Then ride in with me now.’

‘I’m a packer,’ he reminded. ‘In camp for two, three days, gone for three weeks, a month. If you’re to survive, you must stand alone.’

So he couldn’t buy her. At least not yet.”

Polly hopes that Jim will buy her from Hong King and grant her freedom. Though Jim is unable to do that, he does remind her that she is not simply a man’s possession, but a woman with agency.

“‘A slave does not choose her own name,’ he snapped in Chinese. ‘From now on you are Polly. Is that understood?’

When Lalu arrives at Hong King’s saloon, one of the miners renames her Polly. By stripping her of her name, she loses a part of her identity and struggles to feel like she belongs. Instead of her optimistic view of the American Dream, Polly is immediately struck with the unfairness directed toward her due to racism and sexism.

“Jim walked over to Lalu and gripped her shoulders, forcing her to look him in the face. ‘Your father sold you.’

‘He had no choice,’ she defended.

He shook her, his voice hard and cold as the hoarfrost coating the ground outside. ‘Face it! You’re dead to them,’ he repeated.

‘No,’ she cried. ‘I’m their qianjin.’

He released her. ‘If you still believe that, you’re as much a slave to your own falsehoods as you are to Hong King.’”

Polly is hesitant to give up the dream of being reunited with her family and continues to defend her father for selling her to Chen, highlighting the complexities of The Burden and Pain of Family Betrayal. Jim criticizes her belief before he dies, leading her to reconsider how she defines family.

“All through her childhood she had believed what her mother had told her, that getting married and birthing children were a woman’s happiness. Even after she had begun working in the fields and doubts had seeped in like dust from a summer storm, she had not really questioned the truth of what her mother had said. Wasn’t marriage for a woman as inevitable as birth and death? That was why, when Chen had bought her, she had tried to offer herself to him, to be his wife, thinking that would make everything all right. And during the journey into Warrens she had hoped and even prayed that Jim would buy her for his wife. Now she was not sure. Her mother had said a woman belongs to the father of her sons. If she married, wouldn’t she be exchanging one master for another?”

Following Jim’s death and the beginning of her romance with Charlie, Polly resists marriage because she views it as another way for her to lose power and agency. She is determined to find her own way to independence without the help of a man, thematically supporting Gender Expectations and the Quest for Agency.

“He had come to the Gold Mountains more than twenty years ago when gold was more plentiful, the laws against Chinese less severe, and it had taken only seven years for him to mine enough to go home a rich man. But on his way back to San Francisco to buy his passage, he was persuaded to join a game of fan-tan, and he had lost everything. Twice more he had saved enough for a comfortable retirement, and twice more he had gambled it away, the last time on renting the saloon in Warrens and buying her.

His gamble had paid off. She had made him rich, more than rich enough to retire. Yet he never talked of going home. And why should he? Home meant a wife as old as himself, household responsibilities, a siege of requests for help from poor relatives. Warrens meant gold, an enviable life of self-indulgence. So long as he had his slave.”

Hong King’s tendency to partake in high-stake gambling is reminiscent of Nathoy’s decision to gamble his family’s meager fortune on the winter harvest. Additionally, this specific instance of Hong King’s passion for gambling foreshadows the fact that Charlie will win Polly’s freedom by gambling with Hong King.

“She laughed, a joyous peal clear as ringing bells. Hearing it, Charlie’s smile grew stronger, deepening into laughter that became one with Polly’s. And suddenly, within the circle of their laughter, she felt finally, wonderfully free.”

Charlie is initially surprised that Polly doesn’t profusely thank him for winning her freedom from Hong King and to learn she doesn’t feel free in their new arrangement. As a result, he offers to buy her a boarding house that she can run, allowing her agency for the first time in her life.

“In the fifteen years since he had won her freedom from Hong King, the barriers of misunderstanding which had been torn down that night had never again come between them, for they spoke openly of everything to each other. Neither had Charlie once wavered from the promise he had made, building her this boarding house beside his cabin and giving her the protection she needed while respecting her independence. And so, to Polly, these gold buttons which Charlie had made were special, tangible evidence of his love and understanding and she changed them from dress to dress.”

The recurring motif of gold reappears in this quote and highlights the theme of The Shortcomings of the American Dream. While Polly was once called her father’s gold, she now possesses gold of her own, showing her newfound independence and sense of self in her relationship with Charlie.

“The Chinatown in Warrens was as large as her home village, and the sounds and smells were the same. There was even a small temple. But without any women or children, the men drifted in and out, always hoping that the next camp, the next job would be able to satisfy the false promises that had brought them to the Gold Mountains, and the Chinatown they created was an echo of their loneliness and disappointment, a hollow imitation of the villages they had left behind.”

In Warrens, Polly is constantly reminded of her otherness and her lack of a home. This description of the town foreshadows the fact that she will only find a sense of belonging when she leaves Warrens to live at Polly’s Place with Charlie.

“Polly stared unseeing out of the window. ‘I know what people call men with Indian wives. Squaw men. They do not live in town and not with the Indians. They belong nowhere. Their children too. Strangers to their father’s people and their mother’s.’”

Polly resists marrying Charlie because she is convinced it will take away her agency. Additionally, she knows that her marriage to a white man will alienate both of them from the people in town, and she does not want Charlie to feel the lack of belonging she struggles with every day.

“The dream, when it came, was always the same. The tightrope stretched taut. Herself edging forward. Tired. Anxious to reach the end.

She could not see the place she was struggling to reach. But she could feel its contentment, a sense of repletion. And then, without warning, a branch snapped, knocking her off balance. She fell. The bark peeled off the branch, and she found herself staring into eyes, red and bulging, in a face swollen black, the tongue, distended, choking off a silent scream.”

When a fellow Chinese man is accused of stealing a pair of boots, the townspeople hang him and Polly finds his body. She continues to dream of him, wondering if she is destined for a similar fate in the United States. Her experiences with racism in the US highlight The Shortcomings of the American Dream, which Polly now realizes is unrealistic and only truly benefits upper-class white men.

“Charlie waved his hat at her, laughing. ‘Don’t you see? That’s why I’m going back to mining. You can’t be a partner in a homestead, and you can’t own land, but plenty of Chinamen hold claims. So I’ll stake out the ranch as a mining claim and file it the next time I go to Warrens.’”

Because she is Chinese, Polly cannot legally own land, leading her to rely on Charlie. However, she can hold claims to mining land, and, by giving her the claims, Charlie is giving her financial security, freedom, and a way to protect her beloved land in Salmon Canyon.

“Polly had seen the same scene reenacted many times, and it always made her laugh because she knew Teddy saw Amber long before she jumped. But she did not laugh now. For like Amber, she had allowed herself to be fooled. Refusing to acknowledge what her eyes, her years of nursing the sick had told her.”

When Polly watches Teddy the dog play with Amber the cougar, she realizes how old and fragile Charlie is becoming in his old age. She has refused to accept his weakening state, but now realizes they must install a telephone in the house to protect Charlie.

“It was her wedding picture. She stood, stiffly corseted, dress dark and sober, face serious, sad almost, right hand resting awkwardly on Charlie’s thick family bible. But underneath, where no one except Charlie and herself would see, she had been afire in scarlet. From her long crimson petticoats to her embroidered corset cover and ruffled drawers.

Polly smiled, remembering. ‘I dare not wear red outside or everyone think I am shameful, but in China, red is a happy color, a wedding color, so I want to wear it. That’s why I look so serious. I’m trying not to laugh and give away our secret.’”

This quote highlights the fact that while it appears that Polly has assimilated into American culture, she still holds onto Chinese traditions. Additionally, this moment shows that with Charlie, she can be her authentic, full self and embrace the traditions that make her feel happy and seen.

“I plow. I dig the garden. I can bury my man.”

Given her fierce protectiveness over Charlie and independence, Polly insists on burying him herself. She compares it to farm labor, reminding the reader of the long road she has been on since the beginning of the book when she worked in the fields with her father. Her experiences with Gender Expectations and the Quest for Agency continues even in the security of her relationship with Charlie and after his death.

“With the children, Polly found even the most ordinary tasks took on new color and life.”

Following Charlie’s death, Polly finds a newfound joy in life by allowing schoolchildren to board with her during the school year. While she never had biological children, these children allow her to experience a new sense of belonging outside of her relationship with Charlie.

“‘And where is my home?’ Polly had whispered. Not in China, a faded memory. Or Warrens. Or Grangeville. Or Boise. Then where?”

As she gets older, Polly wonders where she belongs. She ultimately realizes that she belongs with Charlie at Polly’s Place, the one place that belongs to her legally. Polly finds peace in this sense of belonging, concluding the long chapter of her life in which she sought “home” and struggled to feel secure.