50 pages • 1-hour read
Homeseeking
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Symbols & Motifs
Violin
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of suicidal ideation.
In Homeseeking, the violin is a symbol of love and emotional expression. As a child, Haiwen is shy and introverted. He can best express his emotions through his violin playing. The first time Suchi sees him, she is drawn in by the way he plays a folk song, “Jasmine.” As a teenager, Haiwen’s playing reflects his turbulent emotions. For instance, he learns a caprice to perform for his conservatory audition. A caprice, or capriccio, is a fast, intense, technically difficult piece of music; it reflects Haiwen’s unhappiness and uncertainty about his family’s situation and connects to The Impact of Geopolitical Events on Individual Lives. His violin instructor, Mr. Reyes, recognizes that Haiwen is using the music “to express [his] anger” (438). Suchi recognizes this quality in him, stating, “[Y]ou were terrible at expressing your emotions directly, except when you played violin” (355).
When Haiwen leaves Shanghai to join the army, he symbolically leaves his emotions behind by giving his violin to Suchi for safekeeping. He needs to shut down his emotional expression to survive while in combat and afterward. The text represents this by the fact that after the war, he no longer has music in his head. These feelings are only released when he begins to play the violin again.
For Suchi, the violin is an expression of love and hope. She takes it with her to Hong Kong to show how she remains dedicated to Haiwen despite not having seen him in years. She “clutch[es]” it and lugs it around Hong Kong while they look for housing. Even after she marries, she holds onto it as a symbol of hope for Haiwen’s return. When they reunite in Shanghai, she returns it to him. Haiwen is stunned to once again have “a sense of completeness” (360). Symbolically, Suchi reconnects Haiwen with his emotions in an act of love and dedication.
The Gold Ring
The gold ring is a motif woven throughout the novel that expresses the theme of The Enduring Nature of Love. The ring is a gold band made of two strands twisted together. These twisted strands are reflected in the structure of the novel, which weaves together the stories of Suchi and Haiwen. Within the text, is a representation of the love and affection that connects the characters as it travels from one to the other over time.
The ring first appears in the novel in Chapter 1 when Suchi’s father, Li’oe, feels “regret [for] pawning that little ring he purchased the day Suchi was born […] something he’d saved for her dowry” (2). The money he received is used to buy fabric that Sulan makes into a dress for Suchi. This shows Li’oe’s love for his daughter and his hopes for her future. Haiwen’s mother then purchases the ring at the pawnshop and gives it to Haiwen so that he can offer it to Suchi when he proposes. When Haiwen thinks about it, he imagines “her joy” when he puts the ring on her finger. However, Haiwen never proposes, but he does give the ring to her when he leaves her his violin.
Years later, Suchi finds the ring on the day she resolves to die by suicide and instead meets Haiwen on the ferry. She notes that it “fit[s] perfectly.” Soon after, she returns the ring to him. He later sends it back to his mother. On her deathbed, Haiwen’s mother, Yuping, gives the ring to Suchi’s mother, Sieu’in, thinking, “This belongs to your daughter. You must return it to her” (485). At the end of the novel, Suchi travels to see Sieu’in, where, symbolically and literally, the circle will be completed; she will get the ring back, at least metaphorically. In this transfer from one character to another, the ring shows how these people are tied together over space and time by the love they have for one another and the hopes for their futures.
“Lovesick Dream” by Yao Lee
“Lovesick Dream” is a song by Yao Lee, a Mandarin pop musician, and a motif in the novel. As the title implies, it is a song about loving and missing someone. This song is representative of Suchi and Haiwen’s relationship overall: They are often “lovesick” thinking about and missing one another. In the novel, it appears at moments that show either their affection or their longing. The song first is mentioned when Suchi tells Haiwen that she “absolutely adore[s]” it. Later, Haiwen plays it for her on his violin. He transforms the song “into something elegiac and romantic, more beautiful than the original had been” (192). Suchi is deeply moved at that moment and realizes that “[h]e love[s] her […] He [i]s bad at expressing emotions through words, but his music never lie[s]” (192). This moment is significant because Haiwen is not a big fan of pop music, but he knows how much the song means to Suchi and learns to play it.
Later, Suchi hears a singer at a club in Hong Kong perform “Lovesick Dream,” and she is so shocked that she almost drops her tray, indicating how much the song reminds her of Suchi. When she performs it, she imagines that she is singing it to Haiwen’s accompaniment: “She pictured him, his violin cradled between his chin and shoulder […] he would launch his bow upon the strings and play with her” (298). This is representative of the theme of the song itself, two lovers who are longing for each other.
Finally, when Haiwen plays a medley to express his sadness upon realizing that he will not be able to return to mainland China, he includes “Lovesick Dream” and other “popular songs Suchi had loved” (316). This is a reprisal of the “elegiac” quality he had given the song when he first performed it for Suchi. The song ties them together and reminds them of one another even when they are apart.
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