53 pages • 1 hour read
Lan Samantha ChangThe Family Chao
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Prologue-Chapter 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “The World Sees Them”
Part 2, Prologue Summary
In a brief Prologue to the second part of the novel, the omniscient narrator reflects that the Asian newcomers to Haven were always noticeable, because of their features: “Visible, but invisible” (149). Now, after the death of Leo Chao, others view them all with suspicion. The narrator suggests every family has its secrets.
Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary: “Three Months Later”
James sits at Skaer’s Diner in late March. After Winnie had a second, fatal stroke, James did not returned to university. He reads a magazine article sensationalizing Leo’s murder and Dagou’s upcoming trial, describing Leo and Dagou the “Dog Eater” as fighting over Brenda. Ming paid bail, so Dagou is not in jail.
The comments on the article focus mainly on perceptions of Asian Americans as a “model minority” as well as the rumor that Dagou cooked and served Alf. Joining James for dinner, Fang Wa reminds him that Gu Ling Zhu Chi told Leo he was in danger of a bad death. Fang tells James of a children’s book about five Chinese brothers with unnatural skills. Fang asks questions about the case, and James insists that Dagou is innocent. Fang wonders where Leo hid his money.
James visits the Spiritual House for Winnie’s memorial service. Guests talk about how Winnie came to the United States through a cousin and met Leo Chao in Chicago. She began working for him, and they married and came to Haven. James is still having sex with Alice and feels that his libido is his inheritance from Leo. Fang sees someone wearing dirty sneakers in the bathroom. Brenda wonders what Katherine was doing the night Leo died. Ming has been working too hard, and James recalls that Gu Ling Zhu Chi predicted he would become ill.
James collects his mother’s personal effects. He remembers that the carpetbag he took from the old man was blue. The police searched for the bag after Leo’s death and reported it stolen, but it has never been found. James meets with Alice, who is convinced that Alf is still alive.
Ming recalls arguing with O-Lan before he left before Christmas. O-Lan warned him of the storm and said he wouldn’t be able to come back. When his plane was rerouted, Ming learned from Katherine that his mother was in the hospital. He rented a car and started driving back to Wisconsin. He thought of white as a neutral color that would help him be invisible, innocent. He drove on, exhausted, and when he saw his reflection in a car window, Ming was shocked at how alien and frightening he looked, like an animal. He arrived home to find his father had died.
Ming has stopped sleeping, worries piling up about his job and the trial. When he returns to Haven, Katherine meets him to discuss their strategy for the case. Ming doesn’t understand why Katherine is devoting her time and resources to defending Dagou; he says she doesn’t have a Chinese identity and accuses her of being “as bad as the most racially deprived white person fetishizing Asian culture” (184). Ming, Katherine, and Brenda discuss Dagou’s case with Jerry Stern, his lawyer. None of them want Dagou to speak on his own behalf.
Ming makes Katherine dinner at the Chao home. Katherine takes off the jade ring to wash dishes, and when she leaves, she can’t find the ring. She accuses Ming of taking it, but though he helps her search, they don’t find it. Ming realizes he is attracted to Katherine.
Just before the trial, while they are both working at the restaurant, Ming realizes O-Lan was at his mother’s memorial service. He follows her to the old house, where she lives in the attic. O-Lan says Ming is responsible for Leo’s death because he left and did nothing to prevent it. She says Ming resented Leo “because he was an immigrant, a father who couldn’t help [him] accomplish what [he] wanted, who could give [him] nothing to bring [him] closer to what [he] wanted to be” (198). Ming thinks O-Lan smiles like the Cheshire Cat.
The night before the trial, Ming visits O-Lan again. He realizes she is Leo’s daughter, his half-sister. Ming says she must hate him, hate all of them, but O-Lan accuses Ming of hating his family and himself. O-Lan says Leo stole money and the jade ring from her mother and left them in China to starve. Her mother wrote him once, begging for him to send food. Ming thinks of Dagou’s story, of the food package Leo tried to send through the post office. O-Lan says that of all of Leo’s sons, Ming is the most like him.
Part 2, Prologue-Chapters 6 Analysis
Structurally, Chang skips forward in time in this section, past Leo’s murder itself, and deals directly with the consequences of the crime, centering the action on Dagou’s trial. The question of who killed Leo Chao sets up suspense that drives the narrative forward, but Chang’s Prologue to Part 2 emphasizes the impact of his death on the Chao family. The bird’s-eye view of the omniscient narrator introduces the themes of the nature of secrets, the contrast between truth and appearance, and how it is impossible for outsiders to know what is going on within a community, all of which are illustrated by the fall out in the wake of the murder.
Chang examines the definition of family from several angles, beginning with connections of genetics or blood, continuing the novel’s exploration of Loyalty, Filial Piety and Sacrifice for Family. Both from their own perspectives and in the magazine article that discusses the family, the Chao sons are defined by their emotional inheritance from their father. All three think they have, in some respect, inherited his cruelty, his avarice, his selfishness, and his appetite. These shared traits add to the resentment the brothers harbor toward their father and the legacy he has left. It is not just their genetics but also the complicated bonds of obligation and, in some cases affection, that structure the family connection.
Katherine provides a different perspective on these themes of loyalty and family through her commitment to helping out with Dagou’s trial. She sees herself as connected to them not just by Winnie’s kindness to her but also by what she once felt for Dagou and her attraction to Ming. Katherine’s life, defined by Being Both Insider and Outsider, makes her yearn to be with people who are like her. Her attempts to continually integrate herself into the Chao family among whom she finally feels a sense of community and safety, despite the fact that the Chaos themselves are subject to intense scrutiny and criticism from their community throughout Dagou’s trial.
Chang explores the obligations of family further through Ming’s realization that O-Lan is Leo’s daughter. The jade ring, which now binds Dagou and Katherine, once bound Leo and Winnie, but the reveal that the ring was stolen from its rightful possessor recasts it as a symbol not of devotion but of deceit and abandonment. The theft of the ring drives O-Lan’s resentment toward Leo, connecting her to the brothers, and giving her a motive for wanting to kill Leo every bit as strong as theirs. O-Lan provides an example of Being Both Insider and Outsider within her own family as well as within the community at large; she hides her proficiency in English, living on the outskirts of town, an undocumented immigrant instead of a citizen. While Ming accuses Katherine of trying to fabricate a Chinese identity, O-Lan provides a different reflection on Chinese identity, as she has the closest and most recent connections to the mainland.
The demeaning title of the article, “The Brothers Karamahjong” (152), that covers Dagou’s trial underscores the racism and xenophobia of Haven as well as referencing the classic novel that provided Chang’s inspiration for her own story. The article includes the stereotypes that Asian men are considered less attractive, and that Asians suffer under perceptions of being a “model minority.” The white attendees of the trial are more concerned about the fate of Alf than of the humans involved in the crime. Chang concludes the section with a women commenting on the attractiveness of the brothers, indicating that news about the trial is entertainment to many, instead of an example of human suffering and tragedy.
With the jump forward in time, Chang transitions her novel to a murder mystery in addition to a family drama. Suspense builds slowly in this section, with attention on the emotional conflicts, especially for James and Ming. The missing bag of money continues to be a red herring, but the predicted fortunes of the Chao men given at the lunch at the Spiritual House begin to come true: Leo has had a bad death, Ming begins to experience psychosis. James thought of Winnie as the heart of the Chao family, and now, with her death, things seem to be falling apart.
