Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Chinese Cinderella, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Physical and Emotional Abuse
Coming of Age and Self-Worth
The Power of Stories
Toxic Family
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
At school the next day, Wu Chun-mei is curious about what happened to Adeline the day before, and Adeline wonders if Niang left any visible marks on her face when she beat her. However, they are both distracted from this when the headmistress announces that, for sixth grade, the class president will be democratically elected in the manner of the United States. The election will be tomorrow, and they are allowed to spend part of the day campaigning. Although Chun-mei had earlier decided that she would be Adeline’s campaign manager, when Adeline makes her speech after school, she declares that her classmates should elect Chun-mei instead. Chun-mei is surprised by this, but Adeline insists that it is the right thing and that she must hurry home.
Once again, the contrast between Adeline’s life at home and life at school is stark, not the least because Wu Chun-mei and others actually care about Adeline’s well-being. Adeline is thus caught cycling between two worlds, one in which she is safe, successful, and cared for, and the other in which she is demeaned, despised, and always in danger of physical and emotional abuse. This duality adds to the strain of Adeline’s life, adding yet another level of turbulence on top of the hardships of home. Especially for a child, such a chaotic life is very damaging indeed, obliterating any sense of safety or dependability.
Themes
Adeline runs home and finds Aunt Baba sitting in an armchair, saying that she had just been talking about Adeline with Ye Ye. Aunt Baba tries to get Adeline to talk about what Father told her after he whipped her, but Adeline becomes unusually angry and insists that she only wants to do her homework and think about school, since at least there she is happy. Ye Ye enters and Adeline expects she will be reprimanded for her anger, but Ye Ye simply insists that Aunt Baba let her study, since she is strong and will turn out differently than Big Sister.
Adeline’s outburst of anger towards Aunt Baba is not due to anything Aunt Baba has done, but simply due to Adeline being overwhelmed by the emotional trauma of their looming separation. In this way, Adeline’s angry outburst is a microcosm of the anger that Father and the stepchildren have directed at her regarding their mother’s death. While this in no way excuses Adeline’s meanness towards Aunt Baba, it does shed some light on this odd behavior.
Themes
The next day, Adeline wins the class election with the help of Wu Chun-mei, whose popularity helps sway many students. Adeline is thrilled, feeling that they have both won it together. The teacher and her classmates are very proud of her. As she walks home that afternoon, Adeline reflects on how this proves Niang and Father wrong. How can she be worthless or have bad blood if she has been democratically elected to lead her peers?
This again highlights the contrast between Adeline’s life at school and life at home. At school, Adeline is a success and surrounded by friends who love her, while at home she is demeaned and called worthless. Although these conflicting messages create confusion for Adeline, they are critical in helping her to realize that she does not have to be what Father and Niang say she is, which is a critical step in her coming-of-age journey.
Themes
Adeline arrives home and goes up to her room, her happiness beginning to fade. The house feels tense, and she knows she is on thin ice after the birthday party. The maid comes up to Adeline’s room, looking worried, and announces that a group of Adeline’s friends have arrived and are waiting in the living room with gifts to throw a surprise party for her. Adeline is terrified but goes downstairs to meet her friends, who are “drunk with excitement,” chanting, singing, not realizing that Adeline is fearfully silent. The maid soon tells Adeline that Niang is demanding to see her in her room, and Adeline momentarily excuses herself from the group.
Although Adeline has thus far carefully managed to keep her private life separate from her public life, here they come face to face. Once again, the contrast between Adeline’s friends’ perception and treatment of her and Niang and Father’s perception and treatment of her are painfully apparent. This demonstrates the baselessness of Niang and Father’s cruelty towards Adeline, despite their claims that she deserves it, suggesting that such abuse is based in delusion.
Themes
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Niang and Father are sitting together in the Holy of Holies, furious. Niang accuses Adeline of planning the party herself to show off their luxurious house and strikes her in the face so hard that Adeline nearly falls. Although Adeline insists she did not invite them, Niang strikes her again and demands that Adeline get rid of her guests, screaming. The house is silent and Adeline realizes her friends must have heard Niang screaming and beating her through the open door of the Holy of Holies. She returns to her friends, faced smeared with blood, and tells them that Father wants them to leave, feeling as if she is dying of shame. Wu Chun-mei offers Adeline a handkerchief, and as she leaves with the others, she shouts at Niang and Father’s doorway that they are “barbaric” and that she will inform her own father of their cruelty.
Niang’s carefully-controlled dominion over the household, in which Adeline is regarded as utterly worthless, is disrupted by the entrance of friends who love Adeline and see that she is intelligent, compassionate, and good. Niang’s fury and delusions that their arrival is some plot of Adeline’s thus seems to stem from the fact that her carefully-managed perception of Adeline has been contradicted. Since Niang believes Adeline to be worthless, any success that Adeline has seems a direct affront to Niang’s view of the world. This further indicates the way in which abuse, while stemming from a number of different factors, at least rests on delusional premises—in this case, that Adeline is worthless and unlovable.
Themes
When the friends have gone, Father and Niang order Adeline to throw all the gifts that were brought for her in the trash. Although Adeline tries to explain that these were merely congratulatory gifts for winning, Niang is enraged and accuses Adeline of believing she is some sort of conceited princess. Father tells Adeline that she has breached the family’s trust, since “family ugliness should never be revealed in public.” He tells Adeline that she can no longer live with them, though he does not know where she will go. Father declares that Adeline must never see Aunt Baba again and that she will be given to an orphanage as soon as possible.
Father’s statement that “family ugliness should never be revealed in public” is particularly despicable. Once again, Father places the blame for their abuse of Adeline on Adeline herself, mirroring the way that she is blamed for getting lost in Shanghai and for the death of her mother. Father’s inability to accept responsibility for his failures and his penchant for cruelly using Adeline as a scapegoat for all of his problems furthers his characterization as a cruel, ruthlessly narcissistic figure.
Themes
Adeline returns to school the next day filled with shame, but to her surprise all her classmates salute her and no one brings up what happened the day before. The pain of yesterday fades as Adeline spends a happy day at school, and she reflects on the dichotomy between the version of herself that her classmates recognize and the version of herself that Father and Niang see, wondering also if Father will love her again if she can bring him just “a few more honors.”
The loyalty of Adeline’s friends once again compensates for the lack of love and loyalty she receives from her parents—Adeline’s family should be the source of comfort, the individuals who accept and support her regardless of what happens. The fact that, despite their horrific physical and emotional abuse, Adeline wonders if she can earn Father’s love with “honors” suggests that a child’s need for love from their parents is implicit, independent of whether those parents are worth loving themselves.
Themes
However, when Adeline returns home she discovers the maid packing her clothes in a suitcase. Ye Ye looks saddened and the maid informs Adeline that tomorrow Father and Niang will fly with her to Tianjin, where they will leave her in an orphanage. Adeline, heartbroken, waits for Aunt Baba to return from work and despairs at the thought of never seeing her friends from school again. Aunt Baba returns and as they spend their last moments together, Aunt Baba reflects on how exceptional a student Adeline is and how that will give her the power to do anything she wants in life. They promise to write each other twice a week and Aunt Baba promises Adeline that she will always be there to support her for as long as she is alive. She makes Adeline promise that she will prove Niang and Father wrong, and she affirms that Adeline is special and valuable.
It is telling of both Niang’s power and the powerlessness of Aunt Baba and Ye Ye that, even now, they will not put up resistance to Father and Niang’s intention to abandon Adeline. The financial dependency of Aunt Baba and Ye Ye on Father and Niang seems to put them in a position in which they are unable to fight the decision, and yet, at the same time, their silence almost suggests a level of cowardice. This complicates the characters of both adults, who, though they dearly love Adeline, also demonstrate a confusing level of impotence, even when Adeline’s safety is at risk.
Themes
