Niang's Angry Attitude Towards Adeline

This guidance is shown especially in the story of Lena St. Clair and her mother Ying-Ying. When Ying-Ying visits Lena and her husband at their new home, she senses the uneasy and precarious nature of their marriage, and tries to warn her daughter of this through subtle comments during her stay. One of these comments, “’You put something else on top, everything else fall down. Chunwang chihan” (163), leads Lena to recognize how fragile and superficial her relationship with Harold is, and that realization allows her finally stand up to him. Ying-Ying’s experiences in her first marriage taught her this lesson the hard way, when the buildup of her husband’s cruelty led her to an inability to carry his child. Although Lena’s circumstances are far less drastic than her mother’s, the same “last straw” mentality can be applied to both situations. Ying-Ying’s wisdom from her past helps Lena to save her future before that straw falls, in addition to showing her the cracks in a foundation that she thought was unflawed. In this action, Ying-Ying’s past in China aids her in guiding Lena towards a better life than she had, the ultimate goal of motherhood that is reinforced throughout the

Furthermore, the author explores the tone of the novel by providing specific details. In An-mei's childhood story, the author chooses to describe the pain An-mei feels as the soup pours over her by providing details of the twinge. She describes it as "the kind of pain [specially] terrible that a little child should never remember it" and how it still remains "in [An-mei's] skin's memory" (Tan 39). By depicting these details of the pain, Tan expresses the feeling of misery An-mei feels, which appends to the melancholy tone. Additionally, in the story of Ying-ying's first marriage, the author presents explicit details of the emptiness Ying-ying feels by portraying details of her as "a tiger that neither pounce[s] nor lay[s] waiting between the trees" and "an unseen spirit" (Tan 285). This emptiness Ying-ying feels seems to indicate the melancholy tone that appears noticeable in the novel. Clearly, the details Amy Tan chooses to describe in the novel seem to specify the somber tone.

Up to this point, the reader might think the young wife was an innocent youth, singing and dancing her way through life, wearing white dresses and driving her older husband crazy. But there is a dark side to her personality too.

So when Sourdi started dating the boy their family had hired to wash dishes at their restaurant, Duke, Nea never considered him to be a “fork in the road, dividing [Nea’s] life with Sourdi from Sourdi’s life with men” (Chai 84). Nea underestimated Sourdi and Duke’s relationship and overestimated her and Sourdi’s bond. Soon enough, their mother caught on and ended up firing Duke, but Duke and Sourdi continued to fall in love with each other. Nea wasn’t surprised that Duke, the “funny-looking white kid”, fell in love with her sister (Chai 84). Sourdi is so beautiful that she had some beauty to spare and Nea would sometimes pretend that she was beautiful too. Where Sourdi was smooth, Nea had angles; where Sourdi was soft, Nea had bone (Chai 84). Sourdi is reserved and calm in contrast to Nea who is quite outspoken and rigid. Regardless of their differences, Sourdi and Nea remained close; that was until Sourdi was arranged to be married to a much older gentleman, Mr. Chhay, at the tender age of eighteen.

What makes a child determine at such a young age to defy her mom on every hand for the rest of their life? The sad realization that Ni’Kan would rather see her mother angry at her than disappointed in her became her revelation.

Oftentimes when reading fictional texts with similar themes, readers will find themselves encountering similar characters. In the realm of modern literature, elderly Asian women are often portrayed with many similarities; they are seen as protective, caring people who possess great wisdom. Ayako Nakane, also known as Obasan, the title character of Joy Kogawa’s Obasan, and the character Poh-Poh in Wayson Choy’s novel The Jade Peony, are very similar in this regard. Both Obasan and Poh-Poh drive forwards their respective narratives with their strong personalities. They have each suffered through troublesome pasts and as a result have become very wise. Obasan and Poh-Poh share many similarities but they also have their differences. Both women

Jook-Liang looks at the mirror and tries to think that she is Shirley Temple after Poh-Poh reprimands that she is useless and ugly. Conversely, she finds that she is not that beautiful as Shirley Temple and it makes her feel uncomfortable. Actually, Grandmother’s rebuke makes her realize her inadequacies. Because of point of view, the traditional Chinese thinking that a girl is useless deeply affects Jook-Liang’s thought about the people around her and herself.

Liang the family’s only daughter says, “Because of her age, the wiry ancient lady was the one person Father could never permit for any of us to defy” (Choy 147). Even though the Grandma in the novel was following her ancient rules and regulations the Father of the Family and the son of the grandma never, let his kids with any opportunity to disobey the olden ways. He did not stop them from trying to be modern but also wanted them to be aware of their background and their cultural values. In an article written by Citizen's Compendium it was said that the elder people in the family played an important role because they were considered as people who would guide the family, during their dark times. This article supports how the elderly people were given all the authority to order the family, the way they wanted to. Because the children knew the elderly had gained a lot of wisdom and experience in the past that they could drive the family in the right direction, during hard times, they were assumed to give full respect to them. The Chinese culture is very strict about the relationship expectation of the family. The first wife of a husband was irreplaceable. Even if the husband remarried, the second wife would not be treated with the same respect and honour as the first wife. In the novel, the elderly people were teaching the kids how Stepmother was an appropriate way to describe the second wife. “’ Stepmother’ was a ranking

Lindo was arranged to marry Tyan-yu. While the marriage was short-lived, Tyan-yu constantly lied to Lindo, and Tyan-yu’s mother treated Lindo like an object to be bartered between families. Lindo experiences depression being trapped in this lifestyle, so she decides to flee to America in order to escape it. When reminiscing on her marriage Lindo says, “I had no choice, now or later. That was how backward families in the country were. We were always the last to give up stupid old-fashioned customs” (Tan ). Similar to the mother in the beginning, Tan creates appeal to pathos, forcing the reader to sympathize with Lindo. The reader’s sympathy to Lindo allows Tan to expand on the larger issue of sexism, creating an emotional and educational tone in order to coax the reader into, again, understanding the true scale of sexism. Tan drilling this larger idea of sexism into readers changes the reader’s perspective. With new perspective, readers notice the need for change to establish equality between both sexes. Therefore, Tan is using her writing as a tool for a deeper subject: exciting change within the world, and thus, exemplifying Jong’s words.

In the novel A Daughter of Han by Ida Pruitt, the readers are taken through a journey of one woman through her life’s highs and lows. Through the eyes of Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai, readers can truly understand the life of a working woman during this time period. Although life may not have been easy at times, Ning Lao shows the determination and passion she had for her family and for their lives to be better. The life of a working woman is never an easy life but adding in the social rules and opium addiction that effected each part of Ning Lao’s life made it much more difficult.

Sex-role expectations were a very important issue in the relationship between An-Mei and her daughter. Throughout the mother's life, she was expected to

Ninh’s novel jumps between flashbacks of the war and Kien’s love affairs, in particular one with his childhood sweetheart Phuong. Ninh uses the reoccurring theme of Kien’s love, or loss of love, as a metaphor for the impact the war had on the Vietnamese people. The original title of the novel is actually The Destiny of Love. Kien likens the war to a soldiers love saying, “The sorrow of war inside a soldier’s heart was in a strange way similar to the sorrow of love. It was a kind of nostalgia…It was a sadness, a missing, a pain which could send one soaring back into the past” (Ninh, 94). Kien does find himself often reminiscing of his young innocent love with Phuong. The end of the novel focuses

In the book Chinese Cinderella it is apparent that Niang has had a positive and also a negative impact on Yen Mah. In the book Chinese Cinderella Niang makes the narrator feel a mixture of negative emotions such as neglect, foreignness, and also a feeling no one should feel, insignificance and humiliation. This is shown when the narrator writes “Niang predicted a hopeless future for me.” (Page 124). This had a very pronounced effect on Yen Mah. Therefore as a result of Niang suppressing her, the narrator was able to aim for something greater and also bring recognition to herself. Niang also affected the narrator’s mental stand point because Yen Mah was treated as a servant when compared to Niang’s own children. In which the way Adeline Yen Mah was treated was very immoral because it gave Yen Mah the feeling of being not as wanted as Niang’s own children. If Niang did not treat the narrator the way she did Adeline Yen Mah may not be the person she is – one that aspires to succeed and also one that sees something beyond her circumstances. In Chinese Cinderella,

Providing the two heroines with strong and engaging personalities, the novel portrays the life of two young Chinese girls, who because of historical events and family secrets, have to grow up faster than what they had planned. The book delivers emotional themes that are powerful yet familiar, and is written in a compelling manner.

The plot and structure in this autobiography makes the story of Adeline’s childhood flow better. The orientation started by Niang marrying Adeline’s father. At Adeline’s birth her mother died so Adeline was treated badly and unfairly. In the complication, Adeline was unwanted from the start. She was sent away to an orphanage because she was wanted by no one. In the resolution Adeline decided after winning the playwriting competition that she wanted to be a writer. She studied medicine at Oxford University with Third Brother. The reflection is that no matter what your conditions are you can achieve anything like Adeline did. In the story Adeline read a newspaper article that said “It was announced