Grandmother Nai Nai Character Analysis

Nai Nai is the wife of Ye Ye, mother of Adeline’s Father, and grandmother of all of the children. She lives with the family and is dependent on them to live. Nai Nai was born in a more traditional era of China, and thus had her feet bound as a young child to keep them small and feminine-looking, crushing the bones and permanently maiming her. Nai Nai resents this for the rest of her life, and she encourages Adeline multiple times to be thankful that times have changed and Adeline has healthy, regular feet that can run and jump and play. In this way, Nai Nai serves mainly to highlight the changing role of women in China as the country modernizes. Although Adeline still faces hardship and some limiting of possibilities as a girl, these obstacles are nothing compared to what Nai Nai experienced. Nai Nai dies of a stroke when Adeline is in primary school.