Adeline was advancing in her learning because she never gave up. In the book, Adeline does not give up even though her family (mostly Niang) tells her that she’s worthless. For example, “No matter what you consider yourself to be you are nothing without your father. Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!” (Yen Mah 117) This proves that even Niang her step mother thought she is worthless and yet Adeline didn’t let that stop her. This is important because even though a person in her family is putting her down, she became successful because of her determination and never giving up. Another example in the book is, “Niang turned to father and announcing in a loud voice that I was looking uglier and uglier as I grew older and taller.”(187) Therefore, even with …show more content…
An example of that is, “Now C.Y. himself has a few children about your age, but so far none of them has won an international prize as far as I know, so I was quite pleased to tell him that you are my daughter.” (192) This shows that she indeed did make her father proud because she won the play writing competition. Also another example that supports this theory is, “ I must study harder and keep wearing this medal so I can go on pleasing father.” (11) This proves that she wants to try to please her father because she wants to be at the top of her class to get to wear the medal at home. This is important because throughout the story all she wants to do is get her father’s approval and make him truly