THEMES AND SIGNIFICANCE:
Unfair Traditions: Women in this
society must have had their feet bound. In addition, women were taught that
they were weak and if they were different to other girls then they were told
they would be dishonoured. Women were seen not as humans but as a social status
symbol.
Gender inequality: the first
chapter displays how gender roles have a big impact for women especially. For
example Alin is not allowed to go to school but to be taught at home by hired
teachers whereas her future fiancé can attend classes in a school. Later on
they get really close because he plans to teach her what he learns at school.
Another reason for this inequality is that women must have bound feet at an
early age in order to get married. If a woman did not get her feet bound then,
she would have less probability to get married. Girls as Ailin saw that it was
unfair not to be able to run just as boy do.
Cultural Conflict and Xenophobia:
the Warners were really mad at Ailin when she was trying to share her taught
values as Confucianism. Another example occured with Big Uncle who was seeing after Ailin, he did not like the idea about the Warners, neither the foreigners.
Discrimination: when Ailin was in the cabin and wanted to get a snack
for Billy, she was refused because she was a non-first class passenger.
Political Unrest: The Chinese goverment of the time was having a new
transitions and many things were changing includint this type of tradition.
Marriage: Without bound feet, Alin, the main character of the book, gets
to know how unfair that society is and how girls are powerless and just not
seen as humans in her country, but as contracts of trade that are conditioned
as wealth and high-class by altered-feet.
Courage: From an early age Ailin
always showed to be determined to fight for her own decisions. She did not want
to have bound feet after seeing a relative's feet bound. Then, in the end she
was happy to be the person she had become and she recognizes that if she had
not fought against feet binding she would not have been where she was.
The book itself:
This book by its name forshadows how
unfair a society can be just with simple things as ties. Chinese girls were obliged
to bind their feet up to the point, for some, to not be able to walk. Those
ties that bind anyone's feet also break their spirits and strength to be free
and live a life out of torturous traditions. For a similar point of view, those
ties that bind feet can also be broken and set free as a metaphor of whom is
oppressed.
