Donna Jo Napoli’s Bound takes inspiration from Chinese Cinderella stories, adapting the ancient fairy tale to address historical issues and themes that remain relevant today. The earliest written record of the fairy tale was penned by a ninth-century scholar named Duan Chengshi. Although this text is typically referred to as a Chinese Cinderella story due to the language in which it was written, Chengshi took care to point out that the story’s characters belong to an ethnic minority, and aspects of the tale suggest that it originated outside of China. Napoli chose to set her novel in the Ming dynasty, which lasted from 1368-1644, and in an ethnically Chinese community. These changes enabled her “to integrate cultural habits of time, place, and community—notably, the prominence of foot binding” (186) into her version of the story. As a result of this focus on foot binding, her fairy tale retelling explores a theme not addressed in the original story, The Violence of Beauty Norms.

Napoli’s novel retains many elements from the ancient Chinese Cinderella story. Some of these aspects, such as the abuse the protagonist experiences at the hands of her stepmother and the “glory and riches [she finds] as a result of losing her slipper” appear in variations of the tale around the world (Mair, Victor. “The First Recorded Cinderella Story.” Hawai’i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture, edited by Victor Mair, Steinhardt, and Goldin, University of Honolulu Press, 2005, pp. 363-367.) The golden-eyed, red-finned carp that figures prominently in Bound is a distinctive element of the Chinese version. In the traditional tale, the main character, a young woman named Yexian, cherishes the fish, but her stepmother disguises herself in her stepdaughter’s clothes, kills the fish, and hides its bones in a dung heap. Napoli’s novel follows this same structure, but the circumstances that move the protagonist from grief to her happily ever after differ. In the traditional tale, a mysterious, shaggy figure tells the distraught Yexian “to pray to the bones and [her] wish will be granted,” and she prays for the luxurious garments that she wears to the festival (Mair). Napoli reinterprets the carp and draws upon ancient Chinese belief in rebirth by making the fish the reincarnation of Xing Xing’s mother. Like Yexian, Xing Xing wears majestic garments adorned with kingfisher feathers, gold, and pearls to the festival, but this finery belonged to her mother, and she finds the clothes because she showed reverence for her parent by burying the fish’s bones. The novel’s reworking of traditional fairytale elements emphasizes the importance of familial support and honoring one’s ancestors.

In the ancient version of the tale, Yexian marries the king of a nearby island nation, and her stepmother and half-sister are executed by stoning. Endings in which wrongdoings are punished with death are common in traditional fairy tales, but Napoli departs from this traditional structure, choosing to leave Wei Ping and her mother alive to contend with the consequences of their actions. This structural decision aligns with contemporary storytelling sensibilities and Xing Xing’s characterization as a compassionate characterization as a person who desires her liberty more than her revenge.