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Chinese Cinderella Essay

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Chinese Cinderella Essay
The author of Chinese Cinderella Adeline Yen Mah illustrates the relationship she experiences within her family which defines the impact in her life as an individual. Throughout the novel, Adeline uses characterisation, images, symbols and language to illustrate her journey from one who was abused and assaulted by her stepmother Niang, to one who loved and cherished by her Aunt Baba.

In her book, Adeline Yen Mah uses the characterisation of her stepmother Niang to describe the negative relationship and the characterisation of her Aunt baba to describe a positive relationship. Adeline provides us with evidence of how her step mother, Niang verbally and physically abuses her. For example Niang verbally abused her by saying “Nothing will ever come of you”, “The problem is you have bad blood from your mother”.

“You don’t deserve to be housed and fed here. “Girls like you should be sent away”. Niang physically abused her by hitting her, kicking her, slapping her. Adeline is left miserable and lonely. The account of the mistreatment that Adeline Yen Mah suffered through during her childhood was brutalising. One of the other main themes was that a person can always succeed, even if everyone tells them they’re useless.

No matter who you are, what you look like despite anything everyone can succeed if they believe in yourself and try your hardest. Her family always put her down and always told her things like “Your useless”- Big brother and “You want to become a write, haha stop making jokes, little one your dreams will never come true”- big sister. But the fact she got both physically and emotionally abuses, she had her own determination to achieve her dreams and to reach high.

Another main theme was the emotions portrayed in the book one of the emotions portrayed in the book was Happiness. When Adeline was happy, you could feel her joy and emotions through her words because they seemed to use words like “Joy, happiness, love, excitement”. When you read

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