50 pages • 1 hour read
The Girl Who Wrote in Silk
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 19-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 19 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses racism.
Daniel finds Inara at the beach working on her business plan. He tells her he’s discovered Joseph likely died on a crashed steamer, and that the passengers’ bodies were all assumed lost at sea. Inara feels guilty for not telling Daniel more about her family’s likely involvement in the deaths of the Chinese passengers. She asks Daniel if they can leave Mei Lien and Joseph alone for the weekend. They head out to dinner.
Chapter 20 Summary
Inara surveys her hotel and is pleased with the progress of the renovations. She’s in the process of seeking out a secondary investor so she’s not reliant on her father. After being turned down multiple times, she calls her brother Nate and asks for his help reaching out to anyone he knows who might invest.
Olivia calls and they talk about all the updates in Inara’s life. Olivia reminds Inara about the statue commemoration for Duncan Campbell, and Inara almost tells Olivia the truth. The pressure of keeping the secret wears on Inara.
Chapter 21 Summary
Inara goes with Daniel to meet his mother, sister, and grandmother over dinner. On the way, he shows her a picture of Yan-Tao McElroy at about 13 years old. Yan-Tao left Orcas Island two months after his father’s death, accompanied by his aunt. Elizabeth’s husband was one of the key players in the violent eviction of the Chinese from Tacoma, so Elizabeth placed Yan-Tao in an orphanage.
Inara meets Daniel’s family and slowly becomes comfortable with the women. Over dinner, Daniel’s mother asks how they met, and Inara tells them the story of the sleeve. She shows them the picture of Yan-Tao, and Vera, Daniel’s grandmother, recognizes him as her father-in-law, Ken Chin. They go into the attic to look at pictures of Ken Chin to compare. Daniel finds a chest that belonged to his great-grandfather. In the chest is the robe Mei Lien embroidered for her son and a deed to the land on Orcas Island: Rothesay.
Inara realizes her ancestor murdered Daniel’s ancestors and she’s lied to him about it. She falls to the floor. Although Daniel’s sister Cassie, who is a lawyer, reassures Inara that the deed is no longer binding because of its age and the abandonment of the property, Inara knows it’s not rightfully hers.
Chapter 22 Summary
Daniel brings the robe down and lays it on the table, sending Cassie to his car to get pictures of the sleeve. They examine the embroidery and Inara sees more and more evidence of Rothesay—even the beach she visits regularly and the crops in what is now her kitchen garden. The embroidery depicts a happy life until the missing sleeve, with the figure of Mei Lien in the water looking triumphant over the demons.
Vera asks to see where the sleeve was found and Inara invites them to Rothesay. Inara is terrified of being found out and what it could mean for her family and for Daniel’s family.
Chapter 23 Summary
Ignoring the looming visit from Daniel’s family, Inara throws herself into the hotel renovation to have it ready for her father’s evaluation on Labor Day. However, when she calls him to confirm when he’ll be there, he tells her he’s pulling the loan and won’t come see it. He needs the money because of his recent merger. She sends the contractors home and sits alone, devastated, trying to find a new solution.
Daniel calls. He tells her how excited they are to come stay for the weekend. He says he has news about Yan-Tao. Inara decides to process everything before telling him about her father pulling the loan. She walks down to the beach to think.
Chapter 24 Summary
In mid-October, Mei Lien realizes her illness is so bad that she is going to die. She initially thinks she’ll take Yan-Tao to Port Townsend or Seattle and find a Chinese family to adopt him. Then she realizes she doesn’t have the strength. She finds their pigs and chickens slaughtered one morning and makes a new plan. She tells Yan-Tao that she’s sick and dying. She takes him with her to Campbell’s tiny plot of land, and makes an agreement with him to sell the land and buildings to him for $900. She and her son will vacate by January. He promises to bring her the money in five days.
Chapter 25 Summary
Campbell has brought the money and paperwork, but Mei Lien manages to use her illness to get him to leave without the paperwork. Elizabeth comes to Mei Lien’s home at her request. Mei Lien explains that Joseph has died and Mei Lien is dying. She asks Elizabeth to take Yan-Tao with her when she dies. Initially, Elizabeth refuses, arguing that her husband won’t allow it. After seeing how weak and sick Mei Lien is and the intricate embroidery including scenes of Joseph, Elizabeth relents.
Mei Lien says a heartbreaking goodbye to her son, giving him the embroidered robe with one sleeve removed. She tells Yan-Tao she will finish the sleeve and hide it in his hiding place so he can come get it when he grows up. They both weep as he drives away. Mei Lien closes the door, remembering her father’s pain when he pushed her into the water. Darkness closes over Mei Lien.
Chapters 19-25 Analysis
The novel’s climax is, as is the rest of the narrative, in two parts: Inara’s full understanding of the evil her ancestor perpetrated, and Mei Lien’s acceptance of her coming death. Most of this section is focused on Inara, which suggests that the real conflict awaiting resolution is in the present day: The conflict between Inara, her family, and those that have been harmed by her family’s past and The Generational Impact of Racism. Inara struggles with when—or even if—she should tell the full truth to Daniel’s family.
When Daniel unearths the trunk in his mother’s attic, the full implications of the property and its legacy overwhelm Inara: “The deed had been stashed with a little boy’s belongings all these years […] Inara gave into the force pulling her down. She sank to her knees on the floor, unable to do anything but watch the emotions of the family before her as her own strangled her” (279). This sinking to the floor mirrors her earlier realization that Campbell was responsible for dumping the Chinese passengers into the ocean, murdering them. As she realizes Campbell’s multiple crimes, she simultaneously confronts her own wrongdoing: She has hidden the truth from the man she loves and the people who deserve to know it. Her internal conflict mixes with the external conflict created by her family’s history, remaining unresolved until the end of the novel.
While Inara’s sections at the novel’s climax are focused largely on action, Mei Lien’s chapters are imbued with intensely emotional language as she struggles to make decisions regarding her son. She has experienced the sudden violent loss of her husband, father, and grandmother, but the slow loss of her son is even more intense and heartbreaking for her. The language describing this loss invokes how, as a child grows up, their infant and child selves disappear: “All but his face had already lost the roundness of childhood, and soon he’d grow long, and lanky, half boy, half man. She wouldn’t be there to see it. She’d never know the kind of man he would become” (300). Estes invites the reader to empathize with Mei Lien as the white people around her have refused to do, portraying Mei Lien as a woman who has now been robbed of her future and her chance to experience motherhood in full.
The end of the novel’s climax, with Yan-Tao’s departure, is accompanied by Mei Lien reliving the opening of the novel:
She saw herself, perched on the railing, ready to jump into the cold waters below. Standing behind her was her father, his face bruised and bloody, but twisted in pain, not from his injuries but from the good-bye he was saying to her. As Mei Lien watched, her younger self reached a hand up to her father, begging him to let her stay but he shook his head, schooling his features to hide his sorrow (320-21).
Mei Lien now understands, as the falling action begins, that her father was protecting her not just from the death on the ship, but from his own pain in parting from her. The new perspective she’s gained in having her own child connects her more strongly to her past and to her family. The narrative echo of the initial leap into the ocean both connects the narrative with a single thread of action and emotion, and deepens the reader’s understanding of the complexities of that moment. It also foreshadows how Mei Lien will return to the ocean before the end of the novel to hasten her own death.
Unlock all 50 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs