Chinese Cinderella Response to Lit.: Big Brother and Second Brother

Response to Literature: Big Brother and Second Brother

Two of Adeline’s brothers are malicious and mischievous. Why you say? Well, because clues in the context of Chinese Cinderella tell me so. I can tell you that Adeline’s eldest brother is mischievous from just two quotes of the book. One is, “Silently but swiftly, Big Brother suddenly approached Ye Ye and carefully pinched the nasal hair between his forefinger and thumb.” This illustrates that Big Brother thinks it’s funny to pull out one of his grandfather’s nose hairs while his senior is sleeping. Another quote is, “Laughing hysterically, Big Brother rushed out of the room, slid down the banister and made a clean getaway into the garden, all the time holding Ye Ye’s hair aloft like a trophy.” This quote shows that Big Brother is so mischievous that he would even pluck out a nasal hair of his grandpa’s and even evade his old man’s anger for the fun of it!

Second Brother also has a very distinct personality. He is malicious to Adeline because of jealousy and everything that goes wrong for him. To support my claim, here are two quotes and why I chose these quotes. “Deliberately he took my right arm under the table and gave it a quick, hard twist while no one was looking.” Second Brother is so cruel that he hurts Adeline right at the dinner table where anyone may see him. “… you ugly little squirt! This’ll teach you to show off your medal!” Adeline’s brother openly shows that he acts maliciously not just for no reason, but also because he is jealous of the attention that Adeline is getting because of an award she received.