Published in 2004, Donna Jo Napoli’s Bound is a young adult historical fiction novel that reinterprets the Cinderella fairy tale. In ancient China, a 14-year-old girl named Xing Xing is forced to take on servile duties for her stepmother and her half-sister, Wei Ping, after her father’s death. As societal expectations tighten and her stepmother’s desperation to marry off Wei Ping increases, Xing Xing must find a way to secure her own future. The novel was named a Best Book for Young Adults in 2005 by the American Library Association and explores themes of female autonomy, beauty norms, and neglect.

Citations in this study guide refer to the eBook edition released by Atheneum Books in 2004.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of bullying, gender discrimination, sexual violence, mental illness, physical abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse, child death, animal cruelty and death, graphic violence, enslavement, illness, and death.

Plot Summary

Fourteen-year-old Xing Xing lives with her stepmother and half-sister, Wei Ping, during the Ming dynasty. The girls’ late father, a potter named Wu, didn’t want their feet bound even though girls with tiny feet have better marriage prospects in their cultural context. Xing Xing’s stepmother has Wei Ping’s feet bound after Wu’s death, which occurs about a year before the story opens. After the death of her husband, the stepmother becomes physically and emotionally abusive toward Xing Xing, forcing her to do most of the household’s chores. One day, Xing Xing discovers a beautiful carp in a pool near the cave where her family lives and keeps the fish’s existence a secret from her stepmother.

When Xing Xing’s stepmother sends her out hunting, she finds three raccoon kits that have been abandoned by their mother. Reasoning that giving them a swift death would be more humane than letting a predator devour them, the girl kills two of the kits and brings their bodies and the live kit home. Wei Ping wants to keep the surviving raccoon as a pet. Seeing how lonely and desperate her half-sister is for diversion from the pain in her bound feet, Xing Xing places the fish from the pool in a bowl made by her father and presents it to Wei Ping. Her stepmother responds by giving her a rare look of approval, and Xing Xing hopes her obedience will eventually earn her stepmother’s love.

Over the following month, Xing Xing and Wei Ping bond over their mutual love for the carp and the raccoon. Wei Ping begins to confide in her half-sister about the terrible pain her feet cause her even though her mother told her never to speak of it. One day, the stepmother proposes a plan to find a husband for Wei Ping: Xing Xing will harvest their green jujube dates, sell them to an itinerant doctor, and proclaim that Wei Ping was the one who discerned the plant’s medicinal power.

While Xing Xing is out gathering jujubes, the raccoon eats two of Wei Ping’s toes. Her stepmother kills the animal and cuts off two toes from Wei Ping’s other foot so that her feet will match. Distraught, Xing Xing returns the fish to the pool. She fears that her stepmother will cast her out of the family for bringing the raccoon into their home, but instead her stepmother instructs her to carry Wei Ping to Master Wu’s grave. Wei Ping begs her father and the rest of her ancestors to end her pain. Her mother burns paper money as an offering to her late husband and beseeches him to help Wei Ping find a husband.

The next day, Wei Ping’s condition deteriorates, and her mother sends Xing Xing out to sell the dates to the itinerant doctor. A poultry seller offers to give Xing Xing a ride into town in his cart. Although she is suspicious of the man’s intentions, she bonds with the enslaved boy who works for him, and the boy tries to cover for her when she sneaks away from the cart. After she escapes from the cart driver, Xing Xing has a vision of her carp, which calms and comforts her.

Xing Xing finds the doctor, a man called Yao Wang, in the town and asks him to treat her sister. She spends five days with the doctor, who ensures that she’s fed much better than she is at home. To thank him, she secretly replaces the untidy lettering on some of his bottles of medicine with her finest calligraphy. On the fifth day, the doctor lets Xing Xing tell him all about the troubles Wei Ping is having with her feet and about her stepmother’s plan to use the dates to find her daughter a husband. Yao Wang explains that he can’t return to Xing Xing’s village so soon because he has patients who need him elsewhere, but he promises to experiment with the dates and tell his patients their origins if he’s able to find a medicinal use for them. He gives her a sack of medicine and explains how to apply it to Wei Ping’s feet.

Afraid of what will happen if she returns home without the doctor, Xing Xing prays in a temple. Suddenly, a pharmacist and two government officials accuse Yao Wang of selling medicines that aren’t state regulated, a crime punishable by a severe beating. Xing Xing intervenes and says that she’s rewritten some of the medicine bottles’ labels. Yao Wang uses the officials’ sexism to convince them that his medicine is regulated but that Xing Xing, his ‘daughter,’ accidentally erased the state seal when she was practicing her calligraphy on the bottles.

Because the officials now believe that Xing Xing is his daughter, Yao Wang has to accompany her out of town. They find passage on a cargo boat sailing upriver, but the doctor sneaks away before they reach the girl’s village. When Xing Xing returns home, she finds her stepmother and half-sister’s mental health and hygiene have severely deteriorated in her absence. After cleaning the cave and bathing and feeding her relatives, Xing Xing applies the medicine from Yao Wang to Wei Ping’s feet. Feeling overcome with exhaustion, she joins the carp in the pool and suddenly feels certain that the fish is the reincarnation of her mother.

A month later, Wei Ping’s condition and the stepmother’s mental health have greatly improved thanks to Xing Xing’s ministrations. One morning, Wei Ping insists on accompanying her half-sister to draw water from the pool and sees the carp, which has grown longer than an adult human. Xing Xing feels anxious when Wei Ping tells her mother that the enormous, beautiful fish only surfaces from the pool if Xing Xing is present.

The local community prepares for a festival. The stepmother gives Xing Xing a beautiful new dress and tells her to go outside the village and compose poetry that she can recite at the celebration. While Xing Xing is away, her stepmother puts on her stepdaughter’s old clothes to lure the carp to the edge of the pool. She kills the fish and prepares a stew from its flesh.

The next day, Xing Xing lies in a field and grieves the carp’s death until nightfall. She hears a voice that she believes is her father’s spirit urging her onward. She confronts her stepmother about killing the fish, and the woman warns Xing Xing not to tell Wei Ping what she did. The next morning, Xing Xing finds the carp’s bones in the dung heap outside the family’s home, washes them, and buries them in the storeroom where her father’s remaining pottery vessels are kept. Under a loose stone in the storeroom, she discovers a letter addressed to her from her mother along with her mother’s fine clothing and shoes adorned with jewels, which the message invites her to use however she needs.

Xing Xing pretends to be ill so that her stepmother and Wei Ping will attend the festival without her. Once they leave, she puts on her mother’s green silk dress, kingfisher feather cloak, and golden shoes. Her beauty draws the attention of many men at the festival, but she ignores them. When Xing Xing notices her stepmother and half-sister staring at her, she grows afraid and runs home, losing one of her shoes in her flight.

A prince hears that the shoe was worn by the most beautiful woman in China, and he resolves to marry the maiden whose foot fits the shoe. He travels throughout the region, personally trying the shoe on every woman and girl who was at the festival. When he comes to the cave, Wei Ping and her mother both try the shoe on, but it doesn’t fit them. Her stepmother doesn’t want Xing Xing to take the prince’s test, but the girl speaks up for herself and reveals that the shoe is hers. Awed by her beauty and quick wit, the prince proposes. Xing Xing is touched by his tender, charming manner and accepts. Together, they leave the cave hand in hand.