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
As Eleanor sits down to breakfast, a servant brings her the phone. It’s Daisy with breaking news: Nadine’s father-in-law just woke up from a coma. Nick enters the kitchen, so Eleanor hangs up and tells him the news. He doesn’t care much, and he says that he and Rachel are going away so he can propose. Eleanor is horrified, but Nick assures her Rachel will be a great daughter-in-law. He continues that he was going to propose in October, but he has to show her she’s important now after Francesca treated her so badly.
Nick suspects Rachel is moving away from him, so his solution is to take their relationship to the next level. This, he believes, will show her that he doesn’t care that she comes from a middle-class American family and that he doesn’t condone Francesca and Mandy’s actions. This is horrendous news for Eleanor, as this means that all her hard work to keep Nick’s future fortune in their elite circle has failed.
Themes
Trying to speak calmly, Eleanor says Nick can’t marry Rachel. Rachel isn’t good enough; everyone thinks so, and Rachel’s family is from Mainland China. Nick insists Eleanor and her friends are being rude and snobbish. They’re all Chinese, whether they live in Singapore or China. But Eleanor says Ah Ma and the rest of the family are just being polite to Rachel. None of them will accept her; they’ll shun her like Kitty Pong. Nick laughs and insists Ah Ma isn’t so traditional anymore, but Eleanor says Nick doesn’t know everything about Rachel’s family and warns that Ah Ma will disinherit him. He can keep Rachel as a mistress, but he can’t marry her. Disgusted, Nick leaves. Eleanor knows she only has one option, so she asks the servant to get the car ready to drive to Tyersall Park.
Readers know that to some degree, Eleanor is right: Ah Ma will not be happy if Nick proposes to Rachel. Nick, however, doesn’t, and so he doesn’t take Eleanor’s warning seriously. Instead, he insists Eleanor is just being snobby and classist and that acting this way is inappropriate in today’s day and age. Eleanor is being classist, of course, but she also knows that nobody in their wealthy circle is going to welcome Rachel with open arms—at best, she’ll be treated like Michael: that is, as a curiosity. Eleanor decides that it’s time to loop in Ah Ma, reinforcing how much power Nick’s grandmother has over the family.
Themes
