The rapist that Aunt Tam “fought...alone” symbolizes the male oppression that Aunt Tam resisted throughout her life, this united to the loss of her brother to Chinh's "land reform", causes Aunt Tam to resent and despise the male influences in her life. Although Aunt Tam upholds ancestral values ​​and practices, her “obsession: getting rich [pg.78]” leads her to rebel against the traditional role of a Vietnamese woman, who never marries and instead seeks to be “even richer.” The traditions he upholds are his support for Hang to continue his family bloodline and the proper maintenance of ancestral ritual and ancestral home. Aunt Tam's neglect of her traditional responsibilities to marry and maintain a homely lifestyle is the product of the suffering she faced at the hands of Chinh in her past. Aunt Tam's "past has poisoned her life, taking with it... every maternal feeling," pushing her into a life of hard work that causes Aunt Tam to never have a family. Although he raises Hang as his heir, he never creates a family in his ancestral home to continue the bloodline through his own family.