Chinese Cinderella - Perseverance and Resilience Theme Paragraph

In the exposition of her autobiographical novel, Chinese Cinderella, Adeline Yen Mah explores the theme of resilience suggesting that through self-belief one can overcome challenges and difficult times in their life. Clearly, her representation of this idea is influenced by the circumstances of her personal context when she had to overcome rejection from her family with the Chinese superstition of being ‘bad luck’. She highlights the impact of resilience through the use of imagery in ‘…the steps leading up to the monsignor were too high and steep for my short little legs (…) I had no choice but to climb up on my hands and knees.’ (p.17) when Adeline is in front of her school, going onto the stage to receive an award for being the most outstanding student. This suggests how difficult for her to achieve success and how difficult life is for Adeline. The steps symbolise how large the obstacles are in her journey. This idea is further developed through her use metaphoric language in ‘…leaving me quite alone with my silver medal, staring at my empty bowl.’ (p. 12) when she is noticed by her father about her silver medal, her siblings are jealous and intimidated and steal her dragon eyes out of her bowl. This reveals that despite Adeline try’s her best and extremally hard academically to get the attention of her father her siblings still envy Adeline and want her attention for themselves. Yen Mah’s intention is to highlight the importance of the value of self-worth because it is crucial to value yourself to be able to overcome challenges you face.