The Land

The author uses this theme to explore different characters' relationships to the land, but particularly Ba's feelings of attachment to the hills, which he imparts to Lucy as an inheritance of sorts. From the beginning of the novel, the reader is told that Ba was a prospector, moving his family from one town to the next in the hopes of striking gold, but stymied by bad luck and forced to work in a coal mine instead. His faith in the land persists, and he does discover gold, enough to purchase a plot of land for his family. However, Ma convinces Ba to purchase tickets for a ship to return to her home country instead, and then the gold is stolen by miners.

Chapter 21, the flashback from the perspective of Ba's ghost, deepens the complexity of Ba's relationship to the land and also upends some of...