The story of The Unwanted Child Adeline Yen Mah was the author of Chinese Cinderella. She didn’t have the best of life as a young child, she was sent away to many different schools. It was especially hard because her stepmother was always imperiously. Adeline always felt chagrined, because no one really showed that they loved her except for some people. Aunt Baba, Ye Ye, and her cousin Victor were part of the few people who cared about her and who she could be herself around and feel like she belonged. Aunt Baba was like a Mother to her. She could always trust Aunt Baba and she knew that if she needed something Aunt Baba was endorsing and would help her. When Adeline got a reward Aunt Baba was sure to recognize her and congratulate her. “As …show more content…
Ye Ye taught Adeline the importance of being Chinese, and he gave her a reason to try harder each and every day. Adeline knew Ye Ye was going through a lot so she mad e it her mission to do better to please him. “You’ll always be expected to know Chinese, and if you don’t, I’m afraid they will not respect you as much.” Adeline could tell how Ye Ye felt even though he didn’t tell her. She felt as if they sort of felt the same way.” A tired old man with no one to turn to, imprisoned by his love for his only son, my father.” “It’s bound to get better. One day things will be different. Life won’t go on like this forever. I don’t know when, how or what, but I’ll come back and rescue you from this. I promise!” When Ye Ye died Adeline lost one of the people that cared about and looked after …show more content…
He wasn’t rude to his sister either and he stood up for what was right even when the adults of the situation wouldn’t say anything. “Victor did something my brothers would never have done. He took off his life jacket, slipped it on his sister…” Victor could have been selfish and kept the life jacket or he could have gone with the rest of the family but he wanted his sister to feel safe and Adeline to be kept company. “It’s so unfair,” Victor continued. “Why doesn’t she get to go anywhere with us?” “In that case,” Victor replied gallantly, “I think I’ll stay and keep Adeline company.” Adeline wasn’t surrounded by a whole bunch of people who were always kind and compassionate towards her. But the people who were there for her she was indelible to them. She made promises to them and made sure they knew how much she appreciated them. She didn’t have much but she gave Victor her Paper Magic book, she made sure she got good grades to please aunt Baba and Ye Ye and she promised them that it would get better and she would keep up the good work. Adeline may have thought she was an “Unwanted child” But the truth is people actually cared a lot about
The first aspect of Adela’s characteristics is that she is very proud of her family history, but in a negative way. She
The novel Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah is depressing. It is depressing because it tells about how she was abused by her parents.
Emma: My family was never perfect grace, we had our issues just as any other family. When my mom was diagnosed with cancer…. *Emma began to cry*
“Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (King James Proverbs 16:18), and fall he did. After the Creature found him and killed his youngest brother and framed his house servant, Justine, for the murder, Victor kept silent. He let Justine die when he could have tried to save her. His thought process was along the lines of, “They will only call me crazy and execute her anyway,” so he did not try. Really, he only did not want to risk his pride by telling of his crime of creating and abandoning a life.
Similarly, Wong also grew up in America with a traditional Chinese mother. In contrast, Wong’s upbringing involves her mother forcing her into attending two different schools. After her American school day, Wong continues on with Chinese school to learn both cultures. Her mother felt it was her duty to “[. . .] learn the language of [her] heritage” (Wong 144). This puts a burden on Wong as she starts to despise the Chinese culture.
...as made of different people, so he had different personalities, and therefore could not be expected to act as a normal person. Upon his creation, he was left not receiving the protection and guidance he desperately needed. His feelings were the same as any other humans: grief, and distress, anger. But, instead of calmly diffusing his anger, he chose to destroy that which made his “enemy” happy. There was never a good reason to bring the dead to life, despite all of Victor’s claims. Because of his arrogance, and lack of a functioning human heart, he disregarded everyone’s opinions and advice and sought to do what was right for himself and not even attempting to protect his family, regardless of how he claimed he did. His incompetence cost his entire family’s life, but fortunately, saved that of Walton and his crew mates. So, at least, he did one good.
Adeline, from the novel Chinese Cinderella, has many hardships and difficulties in her life, particularly abuse, neglect and loss. It’s clear that she never gives in and is always able to overcome these difficulties, with her determination and resilience, her optimistic and hopeful attitude, the support from loved ones and her imagination. By using these strategies, Adeline is able to push through her troubles and eventually win in the end.
The setting of the story creates a better grasp on the intelligence of each character. The narrator of the story goes from her belief that there is no way she is Chinese to understanding her heritage and that she is really Chinese. The narrator states that she doesn’t really know what it means to be Chinese (Tan 133). She progressively learns throughout the story what it means to be Chinese. She mentions of Aiyi and her father knowing Mandarin only while the rest of Aiyi’s family only knows Cantonese (Tan 137). This relates to setting due to the time and areas that Mandarin was spoken compared to where Cantonese is spoken now. The narrator was shocked to see the elegance of the hotel they were scheduled to stay in and the pricing (Tan 138). This can be interpreted as her being inexperienced while the rest of her family were either used to this kind of service or had no outstanding opinions upon it. The narrator starts to see her father in a different manner once he and Aiyi start conversing and onc...
Chinese Cinderella is a compelling autobiography by Adeline Yen Mah, a struggling child, yearning for acceptance and love in her dysfunctional family. In this novel of “a ‘secret story of an unwanted daughter”, Adeline presents her stepmother Niang, as a violent, impatient, biased, domineering and manipulative demon. Analysing the language used by the author, we can discover how effectively she does this.
The scene is always the same: the three of us sitting in a room together, talking. I see her from the corner of my eye, glancing for only a second or two, but always long enough to notice the look on her face, the expression I’ve become so painfully familiar with over the years. I am forced to turn away; the conversation resumes. She is a few feet from us. She hears everything, and understands nothing except what she can gather from the expressions on our faces, the tone of our voices. She pretends not to be bothered, smiling at us and interjecting random questions or comments in Chinese—a language I was raised to speak, a language I’ve slowly forgotten over the years, a language that is now mine only by blood. It is an earnest but usually futile attempt to break through the invisible barrier that separates her from us, and in spite of all her efforts to hide it, that sad, contem...
Emelie's childhood had an affect on her sense of happiness. "I had a dear mother who had multiple sclerosis, but that never got me down. I also had three brothers. There were difficulties in my childhood, but I was fortunate to h...
Adeline doesn’t get much support from her family, except for two, Aunt Baba and Yeye. With the constant depressing situations in the book, Adeline has been blessed with two people who actually care. Aunt Baba and Yeye actually want to encourage Adeline to do her best because unlike the other members in her family, they do not treat her as just an unwanted child. In the novel, Chinese Cinderella, by Adeline Yen Mah, Adeline is greatly supported by Ye Ye and Aunt Baba although out the book and I do not believe that she would've succeeded without them.
Cinderella is a fairytale for children that displayed love, loss and miracles; however, when it is further analyzed, it has a deeper meaning. Cinderella is a story about a young girl who became a servant in her own home after her father remarried a malicious woman with two spoiled daughters. She was humiliated and abused yet she remained gentle and kind. She received help from her fairy godmother to go to the prince’s ball after her stepmother rejected her proposal. Cinderella and the Prince fell madly in love but she had to leave at twelve o’clock and forgot to tell him her name but she left her glass slipper behind. He sent his servants to find her and Cinderella was the only maiden in the kingdom to fit into the shoes. She was then free from her Stepmother and married the Prince. This report will examine the key events and the main character through an anthological, psychological and sociological perspective. The story of Cinderella demonstrated gender roles and family and marriage roles, Conformity and obedience and Erick Erickson’s theory and feminist theory.
Lindo Jong provides the reader with a summary of her difficulty in passing along the Chinese culture to her daughter: “I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix? I taught her how American circumstances work. If you are born poor here, it's no lasting shame . . . You do not have to sit like a Buddha under a tree letting pigeons drop their dirty business on your head . . . In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you. . . . but I couldn't teach her about Chinese character . . . How to know your own worth and polish it, never flashing it around like a cheap ring. Why Chinese thinking is best”(Tan 289).
Ying-Ying learned everything, all of the lessons and life’s meanings, from her mother. Her mother learned everything that she knew from her own mother, as well as through experiences from her own...