Falling Leaves - Summarizer

Katherine Harrison

Mrs. Pasic

Language and Literature 7B

Monday, May 16, 2016

Falling Leaves - Summarizer

My group and I started reading Falling Leaves, by Adeline Yen Mah. My job is to prepare a summary and the key points of the reading. 

Summary: 

This is a story about Adeline Yen. Adeline is the author and youngest of the five children of Joseph and his first wife. The story is written in first person. It opens with a prologue that includes an introduction of the members of Adeline's family.

We meet Adeline as an adult, in the offices of a lawyer, waiting to hear her father's will, along with her four siblings. We learn that none of them will inherit anything and they all comply with their stepmother Jeanne’s orders without any argument.  At the very start we learn that Adeline’s life was not fair, nor easy, that it is ruled by a dominant stepmother who had no love or affection for them.

In the first two chapters, Adeline tells her past and her ancestry. We learn that she comes from a proud family, where female members rebelled and refused to accept old customs. We learn about her grandparents, her Aunt Baba and the life of opulence they had at the beginning.

Adeline is the fifth child born to Joseph Yen and his first wife. The older four children include 3 sons (Gregory, Edgar, James) and 1 daughter (Lydia). Following Adeline's birth, her mother dies as a result of an infection. 

Their family life crumbles, since neither Adeline’s father nor siblings can get over the death of Adeline’s mother. Adeline is considered an unlucky child because her birth caused her mother’s death. Ironically, we learn that it was her father’s reluctance to move his wife to hospital after the birth, which resulted in the infection and the death. The children were looked after by their Aunt Baba.

Her father remarries and has two more children with his second wife.

Adeline’s suffering starts from her earliest childhood. She is disliked by her siblings and her own father for something she had not done and had no control of. In addition to being disliked by her own family, Adeline is treated unfairly by her stepmother. 

All the five children from Joseph’s first marriage had different treatment compared to his two children from the second marriage. They had to fight for her and their own father’s affection, and bow to their stepmother’s demands. Adeline refuses to bow down and is left to suffer most.

Adeline's desire to have a close-knit family and unconditional love prevails over everything else in her life. This is a desire that is never fulfilled and that she never gets over.  She longs for affection but does not want to beg for one.  Aunt Baba is the only person who loves her unconditionally and supports her.

Adeline finds escape from her unhappy home life by making up stories and reading. Once the fortune of her father changes, he cannot provide for all, and he pushes his daughter Lydia to marry a man she does not love since he cannot provide for her. He then sends

In 1945, after the end of the war, Joseph moves his family to Hong Kong. He sends Adeline to a convent since he wanted to get rid of unwanted child. The boys stay with Aunt Baba until they finish school.

Adeline is taken to St. Joseph's, a boarding school in Tianjin. Then she changes school to Maryknoll Convent School. The bad treatment she receives from her stepmother continues. However, she becomes aware that education is the way out of her sufferings. Ironically, it will be her academic success that will win her the affection of her father.

Key Points: 

1.    Adeline’s birth results in her mother’s death -  Adeline is the fifth child in her family. Her mother dies as a result of an infection, following Adeline’s birth. This event will determine her childhood, her life, her anxieties.

2.    Adeline lives with her family but is rejected and disliked by the family - Adeline is considered an unlucky child by her own family because her birth caused her mother’s death. Adeline is disliked, abused and ignored by both her father and her siblings.

3.    Adeline's desire to have a close-knit family and unconditional love prevails over everything else in her life.  -  This desire is never fulfilled, which makes her anxious.  Aunt Baba that looks after them cannot make up for the loss of mother that Adeline never got to know.

4.    Adeline’s father Joseph remarries and their new circumstances further aggravate the life of Adeline and her siblings – The stepmother treats Adeline and her siblings less favorably than her own children. Siblings distance themselves from Adeline even more because Adeline is indirectly responsible for the family misfortune. Adeline is too proud to bow down to her stepmother, which makes her life harder.

5.    Her father’s fortune changes, he suffers financial loss and gets rid of Adeline and her elder sister Lydia – Her father forces his eldest daughter with physical disability to marry a man she does not love, while Adeline is sent away to convent and then to school. The boys are kept at home. The realization that she is treated like an object by her own father is the final blow.