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- The vice president's corruptive acts are exposed (arresting without a warrant)
- the tyranical beliefs and rule of Mr Duong (vice president), "All power is dictatorship. It must be exercised without weakness. The state needs obedience to its authority and its laws"
- Aunt Tam makes satire comments about the government to entertain and Duong is appalled and wants to leave
- Aunt Tam insists he stays, and the conversation evolves until Aunt Tam ridicules the vice president when he asks her to teach his daughter to make noodles she responds, "As I recall, your daughter isn't used to getting her hands dirty." and "wasn't she living off your salary?". These comments left the vice president embarrassed.
- Hang visits Uncle Chinh after he sends her a telegram and he asks for Hang's help to sell the black market items she brought for him because he says, "I don't want to depend on help from people outside the family. They could do me in, denounce me, or spread rumors...Help me."

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Flashback:
- Aunt Tam's house (dinner party)
- All guests sitting at dining table

- The train (present time/after the flashback)
- Train station (two men harrass Hang)
Flashback to a year earlier:
- In street on the way to the subway station early in the morning (before crack of dawn)
- Train station
- Train
- Uncle Chinh's hotel in Moscow
- Hotel foyer

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- After Aunt Tam's banquet, Hang returns to her mother's house (Que) in Hanoi and tells her she missed her
- Hang starts university in a few days and Aunt tam gave her some money for clothes.
- Que insists that Hang wears a gaudy shirt to her first day in university. All the students tease her.
- Autumn arrives and Hang returns to Que where she listens to the cripple's song again and pities him.
- Que asks Hang if she wants to go to Uncle Chinh's house
- Hang sees that Que now has not fit into their family after supplying them for a long time now.
- The following year Uncle Chinh is diagnosed with diabetes. In the hospital Que assures her that she will provide the medicine.
- After a while Hang and Que don't have enough food for themselves but Que insists that she uses her money to help with the medicine as his condition was getting worse.
- Hang begs Que to sell the ring Aunt tam gave to her as she was hungry but Que screams at her and tells her to shut up. Hang runs out the house but returns to bed later
- The next morning Aunt tam visits and notices that Hang has become skinnier. After finding out she has been supplying the medicine for Uncle Chinh, She demands the earrings back and gives Hang a basket of food before leaving.
- Hang and Que's relationship begins to deteriorate. After a fight, Que tells Hang to leave the house so she goes to her old high school and lives with some of the people there.
- Uncle Chinh goes back to work and Hang dreams about the leaky roof, the cripple's song and a stick of barley sugar.
- Hang continues to study and Aunt Tam rewards her for being the best in her class by buying her dresses and jewellery
- Money starts to pile up but Neighbour Vi tells Hang that Que is really suffering over what happened between them.

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Jewellery - The rings and other jewellery that Aunt tam gives to Hang symbolises how wealth is used as an expression of love. Although Aunt tam uses this as a way of showing her affection, Hang makes it explicitly clear that she would prefer genuine love without the constant gifts. Doung uses the jewellery to highlight that even though one may receive extravagant gifts, it cannot replace genuine affection and love. The jewellery acts as a barrier between the loving relationship of Hang and her mother Que which makes Hang upset as she wants the love of her mother over the gifts she has ben receiving

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The cripple's song - represents her development throughout the story and her coming of age. The song was about the Autumn leaves and as a child, she used to appreciate the beauty of the cripple's song despite its sad nature but now that she has grown up, she recognises the pain and suffering it has originated from. She pities the cripple as she has now realised that the song is derived from the cyclical cycle of poverty that has trapped the cripple and the dreams that he will never accomplish. This demonstrates the start of her disillusionment as when she has grown up she has realised that she was blind to the suffering of her hometown that surrounded her for so long.

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Hang:
Hang played the part of the successful niece and eventually it drained her to the point where she left the party to go take a nap. This reveals that Hang is a genuine and authentic individual who does not feel comfortable pretending to be someone that she is not. She also tries her best to talk to other guests and the vice president, with the desire to impress him and maintain the virtuous impression he has of her aunt which she is an imprint of, meaning that Hang values her Aunt greatly through wanting to impress people, even though it drains Hang, for her.

Hang scrutinizes the vice president as a means to determine for herself a reason why the vice president is hated for high handed behaviour, suggesting that she doesnt believe rumours/gossip without gaining an opinion for herself/meeting the vice president first, before making judgements.

Aunt Tam: When being complimented about her sticky rice she remains humble which portrays her journey of having the urge to be successful and to work non stop until she was rich and now being richer and not forgetting where she started. The stories she is retelling as well as the legends and how Aunt Tam embarrassed and mocked the vice president conveys that Aunt Tam is ruthless and a strong-headed character who has a lot of built-up tension and hatred for the government due to having gone through a tough life and is not afraid of holding back her thoughts and opinions. Aunt Tam feeds all her family members at the dinner a large amount of food which is a symbol wealth during this period, which the author has utilised as a means to portray to the readers her high standing position and stable and now good quality of life which she did not have before

The vice president:
The vice president makes a comment at the beginning of the dinner "Here you are at last. Do us the honor of sitting at our table. After all, this is the century of materialism". This comment is a jab at Aunt Tam proposing that she values herself above others and she doesn't value sitting down with people who have less fortune than her, though we realise later that this is really a joke between the two individuals when he says "In fact, to live like you do is really like happiness. The whole village dreams of having this: a nice house, a granary full of rice, money in the bank." This represents the vice presidents character and allows readers to believe that he rather favors Aunt Tam and has a liking towards her, conveyed in the line, "No, no, I mean this, sincerely, Madame Tam. You know, these days its rare you find sincere, honest people; bastards abound". However, this line also shows how the vice president has a rather darker and harsher side with the use of crass language, further depicted when he goes on to talk about his values and beliefs about agitators, and state law.

The way in which the vice president responds to Aunt Tam's ridicule about his rulings and about the way his daughter is living off his salary demonstrates that he was offended by Aunt Tam's comment, joke or not, due to their relationship, the vice president is rather cowardish instead of outwardly angry as he might have been if it were another person, not Aunt Tam who made the comments. The vice president does not defend himself or his rulings after the comments made that he felt attacked and sheepish by.

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Food: symbolises the different status in society and financial position of people e.g. holding a 'banquet' similar to Aunt Tam, suggests wealth, whereas changing foods from rice to a banana skin like Hang and Que, this proposes that they have become impoverished.

The cripples song: He is always singing autumn/winter songs which is associated with cold and suffering, which foreshadows the suffering and rigidity of the various oppressions e.g. the confucian culture and communist rule

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Que - she symbolises traditional Vietnamese values that are now classed as outdated. She also embodies the patriarchal system that was so prevalent in Vietnam. She prioritises her brother and nephew over her own daughter which exhibits the large bias Confucian culture has towards male family members.

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Hang - she has a strong desire for genuine love so when Que starts to provide for Uncle Chinh and neglects her she starts to get increasingly upset. On top of this, the food provided by Aunt tam represents her love for Hang, but Hang prefers genuine love and affection. This chapter is the start of Hang's realisation of the oppression involved in Confucian culture and how she has spent her entire life providing for others. This results in her leaving behind her familial ties and putting herself first to escape the cycle of poverty that has trapped her mother and other family members.