The Second Brother is the most physically abusive antagonists in Chinese Cinderella. Adelina Yen Mah uses specific literary devices in order to show us how malicious the Second Brother can be when it comes to the treatment towards Wu Mei. He is depicted through dialogue and action as being a very sneaky, hostile sibling in the family. In addition to the negative behavior that is shown the Second brother also goes into acts of physical violence towards Wu Mei. Besides physically attacking his sister by twisting her arm the Second also verbally abuses her severely. Since the author uses very descriptive dialogue in the excerpt the reader can form their own view of the character of the Second Brother. When the Second Brother thumps his sister …show more content…
in the head, she does not understand why he did it. He then begins to say, “Because I feel like it. That’s why you ugly little squirt! This’ll teach you to show off your medal!” The Second Brother not only insults his sister, but shames her for trying to feel proud of her accomplishments at school. However, the Second Brother not only goes after his sister verbally, but also physically Through the actions that the author establishes for us in her writing the physically abusive side of the Second Brother is revealed.
It is shown how he twists Wu Mei’s arm, thumps her on the head, and takes her things. These attacks on her by Second Brother are done in the form of sneak attacks in order to avoid the fear of getting in trouble with his father. That author shows us that when the Father walks in the Second Brother immediately lets go of Wu Mei’s arm. He did not let go because he just decided to let go out of boredom. The action that the author has written comes to the understanding that the Second Brother lets go out of pure panic as to the punishments his father could bestow onto him for picking on his little sister. In another instance where action is a key point of establishing the Second Brother’s characterization as a secondary antagonist is when all of Wu Mei’s siblings steal her dragon’s eyes. “Without a word, she reached over and snatched two dragon’s eyes from my bowl as she left the room. My three brothers followed her example.” The author specifically puts this action into her story for the sole purpose of showing that the Second Brother is not an independent tormentor. Instead he is shown to be a follower rather than a leader. Furthermore, this gives The Second Brother motivation to hurt his sister since there is a hidden rule among the siblings that being harsh to Wu Mei is perfectly
acceptable. Each of the siblings has their own form of motivation when it comes to dishing out hateful misdeeds to Wu Mei. But when it comes to the Second Brother there are obvious and underlying factors as to what motivates his abrasive nature. Some of the noticeable elements would evince that the Second Brother is a disciple in a group that is known for ignoring or abusing their younger sister and that they enjoy doing so. However, going deeper into the issues besides being influenced the Second Brother is actually jealous of Wu Mei and her medal. To him this meant that Wu Mei could have her time to shine and take his spot on the appreciated family group. For the purpose of the excerpt the author uses the devices to bring the character of the Second Brother from to the ground up to show that he can be antagonistic, but that he only is so out of fear that he could end up in Wu Mei’s position and be ignored by the siblings that he follows. Evidence is given numerous occasions in the excerpt showing that the Second Brother is characterized as being devious and spiteful when it comes to the treatment of Wu Mei. He outdoes her in weight and size which is shown by the way that he picks on his little sister and she is of no match to fight him back. The author uses specific literary devices including dialogue, action, and motivation in order to show how horrid and grisly the Second Brother’s character is.
The two characters come to the realization that they do share a brotherly bond, and that the narrator cares deeply for his brother even after all the time apart. The narrator says, “I don’t give a damn wh...
All siblings are cruel to one another in many different ways; but the story written by James Hurst called "The Scarlet Ibis" takes the idea to a whole new level.
The next brother is Chueh-min who we could describe as a radical. He is the middle brother of the three. He also falls in love with his cousin named Chin and runs away in order to defy his grandfather because he doesn’t want to be miserable like his older brother and narrowly escapes an arranged marriage...
Throughout the story, it has been Sister who has tried to persuade the reader to take her side in the debacle with her family. The truth is that it was Sister who caused the entire dispute that is going on with her obsession to compete with her sister that goes back to her childhood where she feels that Stella-Rondo is spoiled and continues to be spoiled up to the end following Sister’s desperate need for attention.
The sister's fights are usually underlined with their desires to make each other into better people. The sisters are connected by their pursuit a better life causing them to push each other towards their goals. When Emily gets herself
Most children experience agony and hope as they face the struggles of sibling rivalry throughout their childhood. This situation has been experienced by children, of whom may or may not have siblings, for hundreds of years. Several stories represent this crisis, including the Biblical story of Abel and Cain which was written over 3000 years ago. Abel of whom was forced to be Cain’s ash-brother. Cain had developed an intense feeling of jealousy of Abel when his offering to the Lord was rejected while Abel’s was accepted. This caused him great agony, but he wasn’t the only one. The fairytale “Cinderella” encompasses the ideas of sibling rivalry as well as the agonies and hopes that correspond with it.
Linda Bass, D. H.-M. (2006). Making Sense of Abuse: Case studies in sibling incest. Contemporary Family Therapy, 87-108.
Chinese Cinderella is an Autobiography about Adeline Yen Mah. In the story, it talks about how she suffers under the care of her stepmother Niang. She is over emotional as she over exaggerates all her situations. She is also very intelligent as she makes her life seem so much easier. Thanks to her stubbornness she succeeds as an individual. So is she a good person or is she a bad person.
“Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”(Mother Teresa.) Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah is tale of an unwanted daughter, and how she ends up pulling through in the end of the memoir and being successful. She has been living in fear and neglect her whole life. But even though she suffers many hardships in her life, she takes the pain. Adeline has done many inspirational actions in this book. These are some of those inspirational actions: she tries her best at everything, she pulled through even though her friends were taken away from her, finally her hard work payed off in the end. That is why this story is truly the epitome of inspiration.
...ith Jing Mei and her mother, it is compounded by the fact that there are dual nationalities involved as well. Not only did the mother’s good intentions bring about failure and disappointment from Jing Mei, but rooted in her mother’s culture was the belief that children are to be obedient and give respect to their elders. "Only two kinds of daughters.....those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!" (Tan1) is the comment made by her mother when Jing Mei refuses to continue with piano lessons. In the end, this story shows that not only is the mother-daughter relationship intricately complex but is made even more so with cultural and generational differences added to the mix.
Since Sister was affected the most by certain actions of the family, Welty narrated this short story through Sister’s point of view to show how the function of the family declined through these actions. Sister was greatly affected when her sister broke the bonds of sisterhood by stealing her boyfriend and marrying him. Secondly, Sister was affected by the favoritism shown by her family towards her younger sister. Since her sister was favored more than her, this caused her to be jealous of her sister. For example, Sister shows a lot of jealousy by the tone she uses when describing what Stella-Rondo did with the bracelet that their grandfather gave her. Sister’s description was, “She’d always had anything in the world she wanted and then she’d throw it away. Papa-Daddy gave her this gorgeous Add-a-Pearl necklace when sh...
In the beginning of the story, Kambili is a fifteen year old girl who is painfully shy, her brother, Jaja, is a seventeen year old whom is beginning to rebel against his devout, abusive and perfectionist father. The first sentence of the story is the beginning of the coming of age. " Things started to fall apart at home when my brother, Jaja, did not go to communion and papa flung his heaven missal across the room and broke the figurines in etagere"(PAGE 3) The commencement of the their coming of age story is followed by an eruption of violence in the opening paragraph.
The girl when confronted not only by the death of her siblings but by this man telling her that she only has four siblings because two are dead, she remains calm and innocent to the man's rational words. However, when the boy doesn't get what he wants, the bazaar gift, he becomes angry and loses his sense of childlike behavior.
Teicher, M. H., & Vitaliano, G. D. (2011). Witnessing Violence Toward Siblings: An Understudied but Potent Form of Early Adversity. Plos ONE, 6(12), 1-10. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0028852
I grew up as the youngest of three sisters and one brother. I learned at a young age that if one of my siblings was being nice to me, they probably had ulterior motives. Luckily, my four year old nephew doesn’t