Essay Questions

Why is Jun-Ling’s mother in law changing her name to Adeline?

Adeline is the main narrator in the story The Falling Leaves. Her mother dies when she is still a young girl but her father remarries another woman. Her stepmother is not a good woman because she changes her name from Jun-Ling to Adeline just to take away her identity. Adeline is struggling with this new identity and this affects most aspects of her life. Similarly, the love she has been receiving from her father starts to fade. The step mother's primary objective of changing Jun-Ling's name to Adeline is to confuse her so that she can lose focus and struggle with self-identity for the rest of her life.

Does Jun-Jing’s father remarry out of love?

The predicaments that later befall Adeline are due to her father’s choice of remarrying out of grief. Joseph Yen Tse-Rung, Adeline’s father was deeply in love with his first wife Carol Brady who is Adeline’s biological mother. The second wife knows that her husband is not in love with her and she directs her anger to Adeline. She first starts by changing her name and later subjecting her to self-identity crisis. She also ensures that Joseph rarely visits Adeline in school. The stepmother is also obsessive about controlling everything in the house to ensure that Adeline continues to suffer.

Adeline is depicted as a character who goes through many glitches in life. What are the three quandaries she goes through in her life?

Adeline is not a lucky girl because she has to face many obstacles and challenges before succeeding in life. Firstly, her name is changed by her grandmother from Jun-Ching to Adeline without her consent. The change of her name brings an identity crisis in her life because she does not understand why her names are changed. Secondly, her loving biological mother dies leaving her with a selfish stepmother. Thirdly, she is sent to learn in a far environment where she rarely sees her sister and father.