The Peking opera
This style of entertainment is like a cross between colorful, exciting Chinese entertainment combined with a culture akin to a circus. For young Douzi, his talent is considerable, but he isn't allowed because he has a growth on his hand, a sixth finger. His mother cuts that finger off to make him acceptable, so he joins the opera. The novel explores the dysfunction of the opera culture, making a commentary on fate, on social caste, and on the nature of entertaining each other.
Youth and subjection
Because Douzi's mother is a prostitute, his options in life are limited. Instead of living a privileged, fun-filled childhood, his experience of youth is like him against the world. He sees his youth as a limit, because it is. When asked to fend off the threats of the world, his youth is a liability. He is subjected to the will of others, and the opera leadership easily exploits him, often abusing him. Indeed, one of his friends in the troupe, Laizi, hangs himself.
Gender and psychology
When Douzi starts playing women in the opera, his identity is confused. There is something deeply rewarding about stepping into a female identity. Having only ever known his mother, he already identifies closely with her, and having the ability to affect the 'wrong' gender puts a new knowledge of gender into his behavior, into his body. Although they asked him to play the girl, he gets in trouble for playing the girl too well. He is beaten ruthlessly for accidentally stating that in reality, he is a girl. The Freudian slip is an indication that in his psyche, he is experiencing a type of gender that might be called today "gender-fluid," or perhaps it is a transgender identity being repressed by fear of violence.
Horror and death
This is not a novel for the weak-hearted. An innocent child is beaten and left to suffer, abandoned by mother not by her own will, but for the child's own benefit. Life as the son of a prostitute is not the easy gift that life can sometimes be. The difference is that this child is made to experience suffering and death in a more direct way. Not every child sees his best friend's suicide. Not every child is beaten by capricious adults. In the end, the experience of horror and the experience of transgender identity culminate in a hopelessness that claims Douzi's life. He kills himself after claiming "I am by nature a girl."
