The Astonishing Color of After

Leigh’s Taiwanese mother changed her name to Dorothy when she moved to the United States, where went by the diminutive Dory. While alive, Dory was a “willowy, dark-haired woman with […] disjointed grammar and mixed-up idioms” (25). As a bird, she is large and magnificent, with red feathers and a long tail.

Dory was a musical genius who learned to play piano from a nun; she was not the obedient daughter her parents wished for. Dory’s conviction that she should be true to herself caused her to abandon them when they opposed her marriage to Brian. The hurt caused by this estrangement and the death of her sister Jingling led Dory to keep Leigh apart from her grandparents and their culture while she was alive. After her death, however, Dory becomes a bird and flies over the box that Leigh’s grandparents never intended to send her, implying that she knows that Leigh is meant to be reunited with her ancestors.

Dory was a quirky yet ingenious misfit prior to her depression. Her husband and daughter make fun of her failures to fit in, owing to her nonnative use of English, such as when she refers to waffles as “fence-cake” and mixes in Asian ingredients such as matcha powder and red bean paste. She is crotchety when Leigh asks her about her family but does her best to be happy where she is. However, during her depression, Dory becomes a misfit for life, as she experiences mood swings and irritability that lead to her eventual suicide. Leigh feels that her mother’s depression is a darkness that threatens to swallow her up too.

Leigh’s father Brian is an Irish American sinologist who travels extensively for work. His hair falls in “mousy waves,” and his hazel eyes and sharp nose are passed onto Leigh. While Brian was creative in his youth, belonging to a band called Coffee Grind, he insists that Leigh is wasting her time focusing on art and that she should build her skill-set to pursue a more lucrative profession. During Dory’s depression, he distances himself from the family and later admits that he was distracting himself with work because he knew that “something was broken” but “didn’t know how to make it better” (425).

Brian’s distaste for conflict and confrontation leads him to travel frequently during Dory’s depression and to leave Leigh in Taipei with her grandparents following a disagreement with his mother-in-law. However, he does play the instrumental role of peacemaker between Dory and her family, as he goes behind her back to visit them and bring them tidings of Leigh. Still, following the events in Taipei, Brian commits to scheduling therapy for himself and Leigh, and to supporting Leigh’s artistic aspirations.

Leigh’s maternal grandmother Yuanyang, whom Leigh calls Waipo, is a “hunched little woman” (47) who shares Dory’s delicate build, light touch, and strength of will. Yuanyang was born the superfluous daughter of a poor rural family and was sold off to another family, so that she might be raised as a fitting wife for their son. While Yuanyang’s intelligence and good fortune at being reclaimed by her birth family meant she was able to escape marriage to her unsuitable adopted brother, she held obedience and respect for elders as a staunch value throughout her life. For example, she continued to visit and care for her adoptive mother and was insistent that Dory should marry a Chinese man.

However, by the time of Leigh’s visit, Waipo has largely relinquished her resentment toward her daughter, as she treats both Brian and Leigh with affection and respect. Even though Leigh senses that Waipo and Brian sometimes have disagreements about Dory, they are able to put them in perspective, realizing that keeping the family together should take precedence.

The ghost of Dory’s sister Jingling, who died of an aneurism during Dory’s initial visit to the United States, appears to Leigh as Feng. Leigh remarks that “Feng looks like she should be the granddaughter, with her sleek black ponytail, her dark eyes, her delicate features” (83), and her close relationship with Waipo. Feng acts as translator between Waipo and Leigh, and as a tour guide around Taipei and Dory’s favorite haunts. Leigh becomes annoyed at Feng’s persistent presence and chatter, and on one occasion snaps at her for acting like she knew Dory. When Leigh summons Feng back because she needs her to translate, Feng becomes an important confidante who declares that Leigh’s visions of her mother as a bird are legitimate. It is Feng who encourages Leigh to let Dory go on the 49th day.

Meanwhile, the character of Jingling, Dory’s obedient, older sister who had a passion for Emily Dickinson and floral dresses, appears to Leigh first in a photograph and then in her night visions. When Leigh accompanies Waipo to Jiufen to meet Fred, the man who married Jingling’s ghost, she realizes that the dead elder daughter is still part of her grandmother’s life. However, it is not until after she has let her mother go and the vision of the bird disappears that Leigh realizes she is the only one who has seen Feng and that the apparition was in fact Jingling, the ghost Fred married. How Jingling metamorphosed into Feng, and whether Waipo continued to see Jingling when Feng visited, is left unexplained. For her part, Leigh fondly remembers Feng as being real, and she eats adventurous foods like pig’s blood in Feng’s honor.