Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Crazy Rich Asians, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Wealth and Absurdity
Marriage and Money
Family vs. Individuality
Chinese vs. Western Culture
Summary
Analysis
In the lounge of the Shenzhen Ritz-Carlton, Eleanor haggles with Mr. Wong, Lorena’s informant, while Lorena translates. He insists on 30,000 yuan for his information, leading Eleanor to ask whether he thinks she’s “made of money.” She insists on 10,000 and when he refuses, leads her friends to the hotel entrance. Before they reach the doors, Mr. Wong runs after them and agrees to Eleanor’s price. They return to the lounge and Mr. Wong makes a phone call. Soon after, a man who’s clearly working class enters the hotel with a briefcase. He joins the table, looking nervous, and pulls out a manila envelope. The newspaper clipping and other documents inside are in Mandarin, which Eleanor can’t read. Lorena whispers to her what they say—and Eleanor says she’ll pay 30,000 yuan in cash if Mr. Wong can “take [her] right now.”
Readers know that Eleanor is, in a very real way, “made of money,” as she’s part of the ultrawealthy Young family. So her stinginess here reads as totally detached from reality and is also, perhaps, judgmental of lower-class people like Mr. Wong. In a broader sense, what Eleanor is doing here—paying for people to dig up info on Rachel so Eleanor can later scare Rachel off—speaks to Eleanor’s ruthlessness. She doesn’t see Rachel as a fellow person deserving of privacy or respect, and she has no interest in showing either of those things to Nick, either. Instead, her biggest goal is to protect the family fortune from Rachel, whom she sees as a poor “gold digger.”
Themes
