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
Adeline returns to school a week before anyone else, spending her time reading and chatting with the school librarian. When she finds an announcement for an international English playwriting contest in a magazine, Adeline remembers Ye Ye’s encouragement and wish for her to succeed. The librarian encourages Adeline to send for more information and use the time before school begins to make an entry.
It is implied that Adeline would not have had the self-confidence or initiative to enter the playwriting contest without Ye Ye’s affirmation of her and his hope that she will make something of herself. This further suggests that Adeline has reached an important milestone in her coming-of-age; she is developing the boldness and confidence to truly extend herself and take risks in a way that she has been unable to before.
Themes
Adeline writes a play entitled Gone with the Locusts about a young African girl who is kidnapped by bandits, using her heroine to express her own grief built up through her childhood. “Into her lips I injected my loneliness, isolation and feelings of being unwanted. To my heroine I gave everything of myself.” When the play is complete, she dedicates it to Ye Ye and sends it to be judged.
This is perhaps the most powerful demonstration of the power of stories to overcome hardship. Adeline’s heroine becomes a cipher for herself, a way to tell her own long-repressed story under the protective blanket of fiction, offering her a symbolic escape from the repression and secrecy of the traumas of her childhood.
Themes
School resumes. Adeline writes several petitions to Father and Niang to send her to study in England, but they never reply. During the year, her parents move house but do not tell her and Adeline only discovers the move by chancing upon the change of address form Father filed with the school. Six months pass without Adeline hearing any news about the playwriting competition.
Despite the gains that Adeline has made in her coming-of-age journey and her ability to express her grief through story, the realities of her family life remain and her parents are as neglectful as ever. This demonstrates the manner in which overcoming such trials is a long and difficult process.
Themes
That March, in 1952, Adeline receives word that Ye Ye has died and she is taken by Father’s chauffer to attend his funeral at the Buddhist temple. Though Adeline is sobbing throughout the funeral, no one else in the family shows any emotion. She is grieved that Ye Ye never got the opportunity to see her succeed, not even in the playwriting competition, which he had inspired her to enter. As the family leaves the funeral, Niang remarks that Adeline is looking uglier than ever the older she gets. Niang also informs Adeline that she must find a job for the summer since Father will no longer be paying her tuition and board for school. Adeline is crushed.
That none of the family except for Adeline seems grieved by Ye Ye’s loss is revealing of how little they cared for him and how toxic the family has become. Even Father does not seem able to mourn the loss of his father. Ye Ye’s apparent defeat, which Adeline noticed as soon as she arrived in Hong Kong, thus seems merited. This reinforces how toxic the family has become, as well as demonstrating the way in which such a toxic family seems to stifle any emotions other than anger.
Themes
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When the chauffer brings Adeline back to school, she finds Rachel, Mary, and her friends playing a game in which they each compare what they believe are their own best attributes with what everyone else believes their best attribute to be. They invite Adeline to join, but when it is Adeline’s turn to name what she likes best about herself, she answers that she has no good attributes whatsoever. Rachel is surprised by this, and responds that, on the contrary, the whole group believes Adeline will be the most successful in life out of any of them.
The game reveals that, although Adeline is making some progress in building confidence and understanding her own self-worth, Niang’s demeaning messages still exert a powerful influence over her. Adeline’s friends thus play the critical role of contradicting those ideas and sharing with Adeline what the rest of the world sees: that she is powerfully intelligent and has a bright future ahead of her. This once again demonstrates the value of friends in helping one maintain contact with reality in the face of traumatic or demeaning experiences.
Themes
The death of Adeline’s grandfather and Niang’s declaration that her school would no longer be paid for sends Adeline into an anxious depression for weeks. She still dreams of going to college and sends her parents a number of petitioning letters to send her to college with Third Brother in England, describing her list of academic achievements, but receives no reply.
Although she is depressed and although Father and Niang give no reply, the fact that Adeline continues to ask to be sent to England suggests that she recognizes her own intelligence—and value, at least in that regard—and has developed the boldness to state her desires. Though painful and, for the moment, unsuccessful, this still represents growth in her coming-of-age journey.
Themes
One afternoon, while Adeline and her friends are playing Monopoly, one of the nuns calls for her and announces that Father’s chauffer has arrived to take her home. Adeline is filled with fear, unsure of what this could possibly mean. Arriving for the first time at her parents’ new home, Adeline is directed to see Father in his room. The rest of the family is away and the house is empty. When she enters his room, Father is sitting at his desk, seemingly happy, which fills Adeline with a mixture of relief and suspicion. Father shows her a city newspaper headline announcing that she has won the international playwriting competition and brought great honor to Hong Kong and to Father.
Although Father’s room is not the same Holy of Holies as in Shanghai, it has the same symbolic significance for Adeline, for whom it has only even been a place of fear and punishment. That Father seems happy to see her marks a major development and even a symbolic victory over the fear associated with that room. Adeline has moved, in her Father’s eyes, from a subject of punishment to a subject of praise. However, consistent with his character, Father’s pride in Adeline and his kind words to her are directly the result of her bringing him honor, feeding his own ego.
Themes
Adeline once more asks if she can be sent to England to study, and this time Father obliges. However, when she says that she would perhaps like to study literature, Father scoffs at this and insists she will become a medical doctor instead, a “foolproof profession” and guarantor of success. Adeline is happy to accept this fate, as it still means she gets to study in England. She thanks Father.
Demonstrating the power of stories, Adeline’s play now offers a literal escape from the abuse of her childhood as well as a symbolic one. She has been able to express her own feelings under the cover of fiction, and she will now be saved from the physical abuse of Father and Niang or the fate of an arranged marriage to a stranger. It is notable that, even here, Father exerts his control—however, this demonstrates the way in which real life rarely fits a perfect ending.
Themes
