52 pages • 1 hour read
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
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.
Background
Historical Context: The Fictionalized History of Afong Moy
This novel clearly demonstrates the differences between history and historical fiction. Afong Moy was an actual person; however, the historical record on her is limited to a passenger list that records her leaving China, advertisements for her stage work with the Crane brothers, a record of her living in a “poorhouse” after her stage work concluded, and new advertisements of “Afong Moy Nanchoy” performing for a short while a few years later. Historian Nancy E. Davis has worked to understand her life by consulting these and additional sources about 19th-century Guangzhou (which the novel calls Canton) and Chinese Americans, but such sources are relatively scarce. Davis’s book The Chinese Lady: Afong Moy in Early America considers Afong’s life from multiple angles.
Though Ford stays true to the sources whenever possible, he is not limited in the same way. He gives Afong an entire family history based on the facts that her feet were bound and Canton was facing financial decline. The fact that Afong had bound feet—a painful process that involved bending back the toes and part of the metatarsals—meant that she was of relatively high status, which would also have meant any marriage would have required a bride price. That her father quickly spends this bride price suggests financial desperation and puts Afong in a position to be sent away.
Later, Ford takes Afong’s last name, “Nanchoy,” to construct Afong’s abuser. Ford uses the character of Nanchoy to create the epigenetic pattern of partner abuse and lost love that all of Afong Moy’s daughters inherit. Constructing this pattern is key to the novel’s overall plot and thematic meaning, giving Ford a very different objective than a historian.
Scientific Context: Epigenetics and the Healing of Intergenerational Trauma
The Daughters of Afong Moy explores the potential of future epigenetic treatments to heal intergenerational trauma. Epigenetics is an emerging line of scientific inquiry. The prefix “epi” means “upon,” referencing the fact that epigenetic markers rest upon a strand of DNA and either activate or suppress the expression of certain genes. Studies have shown that the lifestyle choices and circumstances of previous generations, including stressful and traumatic episodes, can trigger harmful epigenetic changes. Where scientists are excited about the prospect of healing the genome of inherited and environmental stress, literary scholars are interested in tracing trauma across generations.
The wounds Afong Moy endures are passed down through her family line until Dorothy receives epigenetic treatment for the intergenerational trauma. Drawing on science fiction tropes, Ford constructs a doctor, Shedhorn, and treatment plan, Epigenesis, to explore Dorothy’s ancestry. Instead of treating the epigenetic markers on DNA, Dr. Shedhorn helps her patients recover ancestral memories that they can then process, heal from, and eventually change. Dorothy’s first recovered memory is of Afong Moy: “As she held her knees and gritted her teeth, crying out, Dorothy realized that the woman’s dress, her many layers of fabric and petticoats, were soaked with the ruddy ochre of blood” (104). This is a vision of Afong giving birth alone on the street. It is not included in Afong’s story but the amount of blood and Afong’s isolation suggest that it is very traumatic. As Dorothy comes out of the vision, she asks Dr. Shedhorn, “Was that me?” (105), to which Dr. Shedhorn responds that “all” of these ancestral memories are her.
This proves true, as Dorothy continues to have epigenetic visions, culminating in her return to the scene of Afong’s birthing experience. This time Dorothy comes to the scene having changed a series of traumatic memories, and the scene she witnesses is entirely different. Afong is now accompanied by Yao Han: “[He] wasn’t a beggar, or a thief, or a monster preying on a helpless woman. He was Chinese. He held her hand. He spoke to the woman gently as he tenderly wiped her forehead with a damp cloth and attended to her tears” (334-35). Dorothy’s choices and epigenetic healing have rewritten history so that Afong no longer has to face this traumatic experience alone. She has been reunited with her lover Yao Han, and for the first time in the novel, her future is hopeful. The field of epigenetics is key to the resolution of the plot and the healing of the intergenerational pattern of trauma.
Unlock all 52 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Jamie Ford
