Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah Literary Analysis Essay Example

In Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah, The theme of ,“loneliness and being unwanted is the most terrible poverty” is clear throughout the story.  

In the memoir Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah, being unwanted by her family leads to sadness and loneliness.

In the beginning of the text Adeline describes how she is disliked by her peers  and seen as an unwanted child. Adeline describes why she is unwanted by her family and how this creates sadness for her. Adeline is the youngest child of her blood siblings and is bad luck in her family’s eyes. This is because Adeline’s birth mother got sick while having her, and then died a couple of weeks later.  This theme is clear throughout the story as Adeline explains,  “They blamed me for causing Mama’s death and never forgave me.” (Yen Mah 4). Adeline is hated by her own family and the only person to comfort her is Aunt Baba. In this household most of the kids are either afraid to do anything or embarrassed. When somebody does something to Adeline, the family acts like they did not see anything or just does not care. Adeline says, “I turned around to see second brother glowring at me. He took my arm right under the table  and gave it a hard twist. As soon as Father, Niang, and big sister walk in he lets go of my arm while third brother does nothing to help me.”(Yen mah 9).  Adeline is being taken advantage of and nobody cares in the family except Aunt Baba and she cannot do anything about it.  

 In the middle of the text, Adeline is in a bad situation with Niang that causes Niang to do everything that she can to hurt Adeline. Adeline is deeply unfavored while her only hope in the family is constantly losing power. Anything Adeline does Niang finds out or she is all ready ahead of it. While Niang is trying to get at Fathers children, Adeline simply states “What Niang decided to do was divide our loyalty by recruiting big sister.” (Yen Mah). Niang is trying to manipulate big sister to gain leverage over Adeline and her step children. While this is happening Adeline is now controlled by Niang and gets shipped off to a boarding school in Tianjin. During this time in Tianjin, there is a conflict in the same area as the boarding school. Adeline is left alone and  has no visitors, she is also embarrassed how she can’t even learn with kids her age. 

Later in the story, Adeline starts to view herself as “not good enough”. Adeline is very doubtful and thinks she is a bad kid. Adeline loses hope in her family and is scared but also confused. As time passes Adelines aunt known as Reine, finds out about Adeline’s situation and then rescues her from the communist that will invade the school in only a matter of time. While Adeline spends a few days with Reine, she is worried because she does not know if aunt Reine will be like Niang. She is also confused how their family is so nice and filled with love while her family is filled with hatred resembling a theme of loneliness. While Adeline is still confused she notices that, “Victor did something that my brothers would never have done. He took off his life jacket, slipped it on his little sister and showed her how to adjust the straps” (Yen Mah 141). When Adeline got to her new home in Hong Kong, she felt like she was forgotten because Niang was ignoring her and not even looking in her direction as Adeline states, “In the hubbub they had forgotten me” (Yen Mah 146). While a time passes Adeline is at a school in Hong Kong and her classmates notice her talent and vote her as most likely to succeed. Although Adeline was praised she still felt like a failure, and when she won her writing competition she sais “Perhaps I was the only person determined enough to enter and there were no other competitors” (Yen Mah 192).  All in all, the theme of loneliness is expressed throughout the novel which leads to Adeline being unwanted by her family.