The name change
For young Jun-Ling, life is suddenly changed drastically when her mother dies. When her father remarries, that is even more change to a situation that she already feels she has no stability it. When the stepmother changes her name to Adeline, that is a symbolic change that proves to Adeline that nothing will be the same. She is powerless to retain her old identity, and the family starts calling her by a new name without her permission.
The stepmother
The stepmother represents the functional decisions that Joseph, the father, makes to move forward in life. The stepmother represents the role of motherhood being played by someone other than Jun-Ling's own mother. This just exacerbates her anguish and her desire for her mother. The name change from Jun-Ling to Adeline is proof that this stepmother isn't one to preserve a sacred relationship to the past. She doesn't honor Adeline's emotional struggle as much as she might have, and Adeline cannot help but feel a natural antagonism between them.
Mao's regime
The literal, historical rise of the Mao regime in China changes everything again. For Adeline and her entire family, the regime change doesn't just mean they'll write someone else's names on their yearly taxes—they might be murdered. This shows the reader that they belong to a higher class in China, because the regime change is precipitating a Marxist revolution where the upper class is now unsafe. They because Mao's rise to power signifies the end of their family in China. They are political refugees, yet another brutal change that Adeline must adapt to.
The writing contest
For Adeline, the writing contest isn't just a writing contest. It does two things: it allows her to go to medical school, and it proves to her that her mind is of an high caliber. The essay contest is judged blindly, so she won it fair and square. In a more abstract way, this also represents the duality of fate, because the same fate that removed her family from wealth and power, that removed her mother from the family, that even removed her own name, is now adding opportunity to her life. She realizes that she has something worth striving for.
The death of the father
The father dies in Hong Kong. This is a horrific turn of events for Adeline, but even worse when she learns that the father willed everything to the stepmother and nothing to his own children. This is living proof of a suspicion that Adeline believed since youth, that when their mother died, the father stopped thinking of their children as family and started thinking of them as a liability. That would certainly explain why he allowed Adeline's stepmother to mistreat her. The fact that she won the entire inheritance is a frustrating one, but before long, the stepmother is diagnosed with cancer and dies. Fate has done weird things in this family.
