What is the theme in Dreams of Joy: A Novel by Lisa See?

Art is an important theme in Dreams of Joy for many reasons. First, as her birth father is an artist, art greatly impacted many of the events in Joy's life. Her biological parents met when her father painted posters of his mother to hang throughout the city. Z.G.'s punishment for creating "black" art was to be sentenced to thought reform in the countryside. Joy accompanies her father there where she meets Tao, the man she later marries. Joy uses art in the form of the mural to save herself and her young daughter from starvation on the commune. Most importantly however, art is one of the final ways that both Z.G. and Joy can rebel against the all-controlling government.