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Chapter 4: Life in Tianjin
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Chinese Cinderella, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Physical and Emotional Abuse
Coming of Age and Self-Worth
The Power of Stories
Toxic Family
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
Six weeks later, Father arrives suddenly and secretly in Tianjin to take his children south with him to Shanghai, where he has been in hiding in fear of the Japanese. The children receive no warning of their departure, taking only the clothes on their backs. Aunt Baba and Ye Ye will follow after they have finished mourning Nai Nai in the Buddhist tradition, along with Little Sister, who is still too young, and Third Brother, who is recovering from measles.
Although Father fears for his safety amid the Japanese, his handling of the situation once again shows very little regard for the emotional wellbeing of his children, typifying his own narcissism and lack of consideration for them. The children are simply yanked here or there, depending on Father’s whims. For such young children, such strange and rapid transitions must certainly exert quite a mental and emotional strain.
Themes
The family’s Shanghai home is also in a French concession. The house is impressive, with a gated garden guarded by a frightening German Shepherd named Jackie. Inside the house is a formal living room, lavishly and expensively decorated, that shocks the children in its luxury. Niang greets her stepchildren there.
Although Adeline has mentioned that her family has wealth, it has never truly been on display in the story. This demonstration of luxury is important in that it reinforces Father and Niang’s wealth to the reader, which will be sharply contrasted against the austere lifestyle the stepchildren will soon have to endure.
Themes
Niang explains that the stepchildren are only allowed to enter and exit through the back door of the house, near the servants’ quarters. Father, Niang, and her two children live on the second floor, each with their own rooms. The stepchildren are forbidden from entering any of the rooms on the second floor. The stepchildren will share rooms on the third floor. They are not allowed to invite friends to their house or visit anyone else’s house. The stepchildren are bitter at this new standard of living and Big Brother remarks that Niang does not even see the them as individual people, but merely as “all of you.”
This begins the most painful and physically abusive period of Adeline’s life, as well as the first major show of favoritism and discrimination from Niang, beginning her characterization as an utterly cruel and irredeemable figure. By making her stepchildren into second-class citizens, by treating them as “all of you” rather than as individuals, Niang begins her dehumanization of the stepchildren.
Themes
