The archetypal pattern that dominates The Hundred Secret Senses and structures the plot is the cycle of birth and death and rebirth, a pattern that is mirrored by the constant renewal in the natural world as winter gives way to spring and then summer, or the wet season succumbs to the dry months, year after year, century after century. Throughout the novel, birth and death are juxtaposed, linked in ways that suggest the clear relationship between the two events in Kwan’s stories as well as in the grand cycle of the universe. As a result of Jack Yee’s death, Kwan is ‘born’ into the Laguni family to become Olivia’s loyal sister and friend, as well as her guide to a previous life. Years before that, Buncake must die so that Kwan can return to life, ‘reborn’ in her friend’s body-again, so that eventually she can become a part of Olivia’s life. And a century earlier, before Kwan’s story begins, Yiban Johnson, born immediately after his mother’s suicide by hanging, grows to manhood and falls in love with Nelly Banner, only to lose her because Nunumu fails to realize how well Yiban can deduce Miss Banner’s thoughts. That mistake so haunts Nunumu that her primary mission in life after she becomes Kwan is to put things right by reuniting Nelly and Yiban, who are now Olivia and Simon.
Death is a pervasive motif in The Hundred Secret Senses, which begins when Olivia’s farther dies and ends with Big Ma’s funeral and the suggestion that Kwan is dead. With the exception of Jack Yee’s