# Individual Agency in Dismantling Authoritarian Systems in Our Missing Hearts
The Power of Bearing Witness: The Epigraph as a Model of Individual Agency
In the novel's opening epigraph, Celeste Ng places a scene from Anna Akhmatova's Requiem at the threshold of the story. A woman standing in a prison line, her lips blue from cold, asks the speaker whether she can describe the terror they are living through. The speaker's reply—I can—is a quiet but decisive act of defiance. In a system designed to erase individual experience, the willingness to testify becomes a form of resistance. This moment establishes the novel's central claim: authoritarian power depends on silence and fear, and ordinary people can begin to dismantle it by refusing to stay silent. The epigraph does not depict a dramatic protest or a mass movement; it shows a single person choosing to bear witness. That choice, the novel suggests, is the seed of all larger resistance.
The second epigraph, from the fictional Let's Learn About PACT: A Guide for Young Patriots, presents the state's perspective: PACT is a promise to protect American ideals, with consequences for those who weaken the country with un-American ideas. The contrast between the two epigraphs is deliberate. One voice is individual, human, and fragile; the other is institutional, abstract, and threatening. The novel will repeatedly return to this tension—the power of a single voice against the weight of a system that demands conformity. The epigraph thus functions as a thematic overture, introducing the idea that individual agency, even in its most minimal form, is the first crack in an authoritarian edifice.
From Real-World Movements to Fictional Acts: The Author's Note as a Blueprint
In the author's note, Ng explicitly connects the novel's fictional world to real historical and contemporary struggles. She cites the removal of children as a means of political control—enslaved families, Indigenous boarding schools, foster care inequities, and migrant family separations—and traces anti-Asian discrimination from Japanese internment to Vincent Chin's murder. These references ground the novel's authoritarian system in recognizable patterns of state violence. But the note also offers a counterpoint: a catalog of nonviolent resistance movements that inspired the novel's protests. Ng mentions the Serbian Otpor! movement, prodemocracy Hong Kongers, and the concept of guerrilla art, as well as specific acts like the cement block and crowbar in Austin, the ping-pong balls in Memphis, and Margaret's bottle caps.
Crucially, Ng writes that Václav Havel's essay The Power of the Powerless changed her thinking about the impact a single individual could have in dismantling a long-established system. This is a direct statement of the novel's thematic investment. Havel's essay argues that authoritarian systems are sustained not only by coercion but by the everyday compliance of ordinary people—and that individuals can resist by living in truth, by refusing to participate in the lie. Ng's acknowledgment of Havel signals that the novel is not merely a dystopian warning but a meditation on how ordinary people can reclaim agency. The author's note also references the knitted web in the Common, based on pacifist yarn-bombings, and the ice children in Nashville, inspired by installations that drew attention to migrant family separations. These examples show that the novel's fictional acts of defiance are modeled on real, small-scale, creative interventions.
The note's inclusion of real people—Anna Akhmatova, Sonia Lee Chun, Latasha Harlins, Akai Gurley—further emphasizes the theme. These are individuals who, through their lives or deaths, became symbols of resistance or injustice. By naming them, Ng insists that individual stories matter, that they can ripple outward and inspire others. The author's note thus functions as a second part of the plot's thematic architecture: it tells readers that the novel's world is not separate from ours, and that the tools of resistance are available to anyone.
Symbols of Creative Defiance: Yarn-Bombing, Bottle Caps, and Beacons of Hope
The novel's symbols are not abstract; they are concrete, handmade objects that ordinary people create and place in public spaces. The author's note mentions Margaret's bottle caps as a form of protest, and the knitted web in the Common as a pacifist yarn-bombing. These acts are small, anonymous, and cumulative. They do not confront the state directly; instead, they insert moments of beauty, irony, or memory into the everyday landscape. In doing so, they disrupt the state's monopoly on public narrative. A bottle cap left on a sidewalk, a web of yarn stretched across a park—these are not weapons, but they are signs that someone is watching, that someone refuses to forget.
The symbol of the missing heart, which appears in the novel's title and in Margaret's art, carries a similar weight. The state's PACT law removes children from families deemed un-American, leaving literal and metaphorical gaps in the community. Margaret's art—whether bottle caps or other installations—fills those gaps with reminders of what has been lost. The act of creating art becomes an act of resistance because it insists on the value of individual lives that the state has tried to erase. The novel's beacons of hope, mentioned in the author's note, are the real-world counterparts to these fictional gestures: moments of solidarity, like the work of Immigrant Families Together, that show how individual actions can coalesce into networks of support.
These symbols are not grandiose. They are the opposite of state power—fragile, temporary, and easily overlooked. Yet the novel suggests that their power lies precisely in their ordinariness. They are accessible to anyone. A person does not need to be a leader or a hero to participate; they only need to be willing to make something, to leave it in the world, and to let it speak. This democratization of resistance is central to the theme of individual agency. The novel does not offer a single charismatic protagonist who topples the regime; instead, it presents a mosaic of small acts, each one a thread in a larger web.
Complexity and Contradiction: The Limits of Individual Agency
The novel does not romanticize individual resistance. The author's note acknowledges the difficulty of analyzing one's own era and references McCarthyism as a historical example of how pervasive fear can become. The epigraph's setting—a prison line during the Yezhov terror—reminds us that speaking out can have deadly consequences. The woman who asks Can you describe this? is herself a victim of the system; her blue lips suggest she has been waiting in the cold for hours, perhaps days. The speaker's affirmation is powerful, but it does not free anyone. The novel is honest about the limits of individual agency: a single act of testimony or a single piece of art will not dismantle an authoritarian system overnight.
Yet the novel also suggests that these acts are not futile. The author's note cites Havel's belief that living in truth can have a cumulative effect, and the real-world examples of Otpor! and Hong Kong protests show that small acts can grow into movements. The tension between individual and collective action is central to the theme. Margaret's bottle caps are individual gestures, but they are part of a larger pattern of protest that includes the knitted web, the ice children, and other acts. The novel implies that individual agency is most effective when it connects with others—when a single voice becomes a chorus.
Another contradiction lies in the risk of co-optation. The state may absorb or trivialize acts of resistance, turning them into symbols of its own tolerance. The author's note's reference to the Facebook group #ourmissinghearts, which raises awareness about missing persons, suggests that even well-intentioned gestures can be repurposed. The novel does not resolve this tension; instead, it leaves it open. Individual agency is both necessary and insufficient. It is a starting point, not a solution.
Study Questions and Answers
1. How does the epigraph from Akhmatova's Requiem establish the theme of individual agency?
The epigraph shows a woman asking the speaker if she can describe the terror of the prison line. The speaker's reply—I can—is an act of defiance because it refuses to let the state erase individual experience. The novel uses this moment to argue that bearing witness is a form of resistance, even when it does not change the immediate situation.
2. What role does the author's note play in shaping the reader's understanding of the theme?
The author's note explicitly connects the novel's fictional protests to real-world nonviolent movements and to Václav Havel's idea that a single individual can have an impact. It also lists real people who inspired characters and symbols, grounding the theme in historical reality and suggesting that individual agency is not just a fictional concept but a practical tool.
3. How do symbols like yarn-bombing and bottle caps function as acts of resistance?
These symbols are small, handmade, and anonymous. They disrupt the state's narrative by inserting moments of beauty or memory into public spaces. They are accessible to anyone, democratizing resistance and showing that ordinary people can participate in challenging authoritarian systems without needing to be leaders or heroes.
4. What are the limits of individual agency as presented in the novel?
The novel acknowledges that individual acts are often dangerous and may not produce immediate change. The epigraph's prison setting and the author's note's references to McCarthyism highlight the risks of speaking out. The novel also suggests that individual acts are most effective when they connect with others, and that they can be co-opted by the state.
5. How does the novel balance the power of individual action with the need for collective movement?
The novel presents individual acts as seeds of larger movements. Margaret's bottle caps are part of a pattern that includes other protests, and the author's note cites real movements like Otpor! that grew from small acts. The theme suggests that individual agency is necessary but not sufficient; it must be multiplied and connected to create systemic change.
For further exploration, see the book overview, character analyses of Bird, Margaret, and Ethan, and symbol guides for yarn-bombing, beacons of hope, and missing hearts.