Android Term Analysis

When Cinder returns from the market to find her stepsisters Pearl and Peony being fitted for custom dresses for the upcoming ball, Adri tells her that they can’t afford a dress for Cinder because they have to buy a magbelt (a magnetic part) for their hover (hovering vehicles that are the main, form of transportation in the novel). This passage introduces the power imbalance between Adri and Cinder, and how cruelly Adri treats Cinder as a result. Cinder legally belongs to Adri as her adoptive child—but where Adri’s power as the head of household should endow her with the responsibility to take care of Cinder, instead it enables her to take advantage of her by taking the money Cinder earns. It’s implied that, because Cinder is a cyborg (a human with robotic body parts), she has fewer legal rights than a non-cyborg person would, because cyborgs are discriminated against in the world of the novel. And this imbalance is why Adri is able to lay claim to everything Cinder owns: “her money, her new possessions, even the new foot she just attached.”

This dynamic illustrates how positions of power have the potential to make people greedy and even more power-hungry—even to the point of destroying the love and trust in a family, as Adri does. While Cinder thinks that since she “was the one doing the work, the money should have been hers to spend as she saw fit.” That is, because Cinder is the breadwinner of the family, she should be the one in charge of the finances. But instead, Adri takes advantage of Cinder’s low social status, forcing her to work and but not giving her access to the money she’s earned. At the same time, Adri pampers her other daughters at Cinder’s expense. The passage’s mention of the fact that Adri technically owns Adri’s foot also foreshadows the fact that Adri will take Cinder’s new prosthetic foot from her, forcing her to reattach her old, rusty mechanical foot instead. The latter will become a symbol of Cinder’s resourcefulness and perseverance in the face of Adri’s cruelty.