Literary Devices In Chinese Cinderella

Chinese Cinderella is a modern take on the classic Cinderella fairytale, written by Adeline Yen Mah, who writes about her story growing up about her neglectful family similar to the classic fairytale.

From the beginning of the story we get a sense of the tone of the story, despair. We start of with a hyperbolic feeling of leaving school, “relentlessly” and “end of school forever”. This shows how Yen Mah 's dreads the thought and possibility of going back to her family. We are also shown, with a great description, about how the thought of returning to her family literally caused her physical pain; “throbbed at the back of my mind like a persistent toothache”, this also makes the reader sympathize with her, we 've all experienced a pain

The question finally comes to play here where we begin to understand the basis of the relationship between father and Adeline. When the chauffeur picks her up, all her thoughts towards home are negative. That every time she goes home there is something tragic that just happened, like the death of someone. The fact that the chauffeur is sent to pick her up shows the distant relationship with her family, it also shows that the chauffeur is more aware of the situation than she is, when it is supposed to be the other way round.

The way that the chauffeur is addressing her, in cold, emotionless, short sentences and uncaring/offended tone foreshadows the relationship with father. This also shows a good example of the traditional roles and the hierarchy of power and control within the household, servant is given instructions and is set to carry them out.

Yen Mah doesn’t associate home with a warm, loving environment, in fact it is the exact opposite. Home is cold, isolated place where even her family- who were just lounging around, couldn’t even bother greeting her in the door let alone picking her up fro school, despite the fact that they were doing nothing and that it was a short drive. This atmosphere corresponds with her relationship with her family, that home is not really her home, it is merely a house where people exist