Theme One
One of the themes in the book “Falling Leaves” is abandonment. Throughout the book Adeline is ship off, left out, and deprived of the things she loves most. All Adeline wanted was her step- mother and father love and approval, the majority of the book is her as a child, and her struggle to be part of her family. As she grows up and starts a family of her own , she continues to struggle with abandonment by her first husband.
Adeline always knew she was unloved and unimportant, when Adeline was in primary school she would often have been forgotten and would have to walk miles to get home. ,there wasn't a time Adeline could not remember herself being in a boarding school, or a catholic school. Even at school she couldn't escape the wrath of her stepmother Niang, for she had made sure no one could visit her. When Adeline was a teenager she was sent to Sacred Heart Boarding School , where she won a playwriting competition. While she was at Sacred Heart her stepmother had forbidden anyone to visit or write to her, she was deprived the necessary love of her Aunt Ye Ye and Baba and to never talk to them again. When Adeline was a child Aunt Baba friends brought the children ducklings, Adeline received the runt. One day while her father was testing the dog on will power, Adeline was to put her duckling because it was the smallest on the ground in front of the dog. The dog had no will power and took the life of her duckling, Adeline sobbed while her family laughed at her.
I think this theme is important because as a child I knew I was loved and cared for, abandonment is nothing anyone should feel especially a child. As a parent it's your job to make your child feel important and cared for. The book “The Language Of Flowers” is about a young girl who was abandoned and grew up in foster care, she does not know how to get close to people, she connects to the world only through flowers and what they mean. In today's society adoption and foster care are forms of abandonment, when you're put for adoption it's usually because parents don't want you so they leave or abandon you, the same for foster care the only difference is in foster care they can give you to a different parent if they don't like you. This is how abandonment is a common theme in books and life.
