57 pages • 1 hour read
Ana HuangKing of Wrath: An Arranged Marriage Romance
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Impact of Familial Pressures
Both Vivian and Dante experience the struggles of pressurizing familial relationships, revealing the impact such relationships can have on an individual. Dante’s family problems are often less immediate than Vivian’s, as his parents are rarely around, his grandfather is recently deceased, and he is the de facto head of the family. Nonetheless, Dante’s relationships with his family members are strained, and he still experiences pressures lingering from his grandfather’s high expectations. His relationship with his parents strikes Vivian as a sad one, since they abandoned Dante and Luca as children, leaving them to be raised by their grandfather and his staff.
As Vivian discovers while talking to Janis Russo, Dante’s parents are fully self-aware; they knew that their decision to leave would hurt their sons, but they also believed that they were making the right choice for all involved. Janis tells Vivian, “Truth be told, I’m not a great mother, and Gianni is not a great father […]. There have been many times when I wished I was the kind of mother they needed, but I’m not. Pretending otherwise would’ve hurt the boys more than it helped’” (160-1). The novel does not cast significant moral judgment on this. Huang therefore suggests that familial pressures affect every generation of the family and that it is not only children who feel pressure from their parents.
Vivian’s family is quite different, and Vivian emphasizes to Dante and others that her cultural background often dictates strict obedience to her parents. Even talking back was strictly forbidden: “I was beholden to [the Lau household] rules even as an adult, and disobedience was always met with swift punishment and sharp words” (10). She also suffers from loneliness since Lau Jewels’s success led to increased distance and less affection between parents and children. As a result, she does not wish to risk losing her parents after disobeying them. She gives up Heath to avoid being disowned, and she agrees to marry Dante for the same reason. When Dante becomes angry over the fact that she lets her parents treat her badly and reminds her that she does not need their money, she highlights just how important her family is to her by responding, “[w]e do things differently, okay? Respect for our elders is important. We don’t talk back just because we don’t like what they say” (245). Huang hence highlights the fact that cultural norms dictate family pressures as much as the individuals within a family. Vivian’s parents constantly criticize her, but she takes the criticism until the pressure builds after the revelation of her father’s betrayal.
Vivian’s parents end up split in how they approach their relationship with their daughters. While Cecilia Lau rejects their father’s disowning of Vivian and promises to try to criticize Vivian less, Francis refuses to express remorse or admit to any weakness. He blames Vivian for disobeying him and being “disloyal” to the family rather than seeing that his behavior was wrong. The fact that these viewpoints are delivered by the antagonist of the novel suggests that it is unwise to give in to family pressure and lead an unhappy life as a result. In the end, both Vivian and Dante put in the work to heal those worth salvaging and accepting the limitations of their more strained relationships.
Compromising Morality for Success
The lives of characters like Dante and Francis revolve around their success in business and society and the decisions they are willing to make to achieve that success. King of Wrath reveals the temptations and consequences of finding success through immoral tactics, ultimately suggesting that it is not worth it to compromise one’s morality for success.
Dante is a businessman who regularly rides the line of morality and legality with certain aspects of his business. Although he claims to keep to the right side of the law when it comes to finances and boardrooms, some of his decisions are presented as immoral. He uses Christian’s skills to dig up dirt on his enemies that he can use to take them down. He justifies such methods when it comes to Lau Jewels – Francis, in essence, started it, and in Dante’s eyes, Francis deserves to be destroyed for blackmailing Dante. Early on in his dealings with Francis, Dante also believes that he does not care about collateral damage: “[Vivian’s] father deserved what was coming to him. […] [R]uin and collateral damage went hand in hand. It was the cost of doing business” (69). Dante also doesn’t care about the morality of destroying Heath’s IPO simply because the man tried to steal his fiancée. The Russo CEO also admits to brutality in his security team, allowing them to turn thieves into examples to deter future problems: “Shattered bones and blood. They were a universally understood language” (133). This violent imagery underscores the immorality of his choices. Dante has lines he does not cross, such as blackmail and working with the mafia, but he is brutal nonetheless.
Francis Lau, however, is willing to do whatever it takes to build a successful business and achieve the social standing and acceptance he desires. He blackmails Dante into marrying Vivian, and he hints at having used similar tactics to make his business as successful as it is. By crossing those lines, Francis altered himself fundamentally; this is what Vivian eventually recognizes. Before learning the truth about the blackmail, she recognizes that Francis is no longer the same man he was before Lau Jewels took off, but it is only once she discovers her father’s behavior that she fully understands the scope of Francis’s transformation. She knows that her family was changed “spiritually” when they became wealthy. In the end, she concludes that “[w]e were better as a family before we were rich” (358). This highlights the idea that compromising morality for success only causes pain and won’t make successful people happy. In the end, Francis refuses to see the truth of Vivian’s conclusion or to express regret over his immoral actions, but Dante learns how to let go, choosing to value Vivian over his own revenge.
Choosing Vulnerability Over Wrath
Ana Huang aligns each of the male protagonists of the Kins of Sin series with one of the deadly sins; as the title suggests, Dante’s sin is wrathfulness. He regularly has to work off his anger in the boxing ring with his friend Kai, and he is known for being brutal in business and, in particular, his security measures for the business and his family. He lessens the extent of his wrath with loved ones, but he is still harsh with them. When Greta criticizes his treatment of Vivian, he reprimands her and thinks to himself, “[i]f she were anyone else, I would’ve fired and blacklisted her the second the word harsh left her mouth” (49). The italicized fixation on the word “harsh” only highlights his own wrath. Dante does not tolerate criticism from others, although he learns to appreciate it when Vivian stands up to him. He also does not tolerate anyone interfering with his business or personal life. Vivian recognizes his wrathful and possessive instincts when Heath first seeks her out at an antique market, noting to herself once he leaves, “I was suddenly glad Dante didn’t take any interest in my comings and goings. If he did…I had a strong feeling Heath might not make it to see his company’s IPO” (80). She is correct in her assumption, as Dante does enact retribution over Heath’s actions, destroying the man’s IPO.
Over the course of his relationship with Vivian, however, Dante learns the value of vulnerability and the consequences of rage. As Vivian observes when she meets Dante’s parents, the man may seem invincible, but everyone has insecurities and hurts. Dante hides his well, but his relationship with Vivian helps him to understand himself and express vulnerability. He resists that vulnerability with Vivian at first, avoiding difficult conversations and clinging to his revenge even as he develops feelings for Vivian. He reminds himself that, “[i]n the words of Enzo Russo, emotion was weakness, and there was no room for weakness in the cutthroat corporate world” (218). Under the pressure of his own wrathful instinct for revenge and Christian’s prodding of those instincts, Dante chooses to move forward with his plan to destroy Lau Jewels and distance himself from Vivian.
In the end, though, Dante learns that he cannot escape his emotions and that wrath will create a life of loneliness and unhappiness. With Luca’s help, he realizes that love is more important than giving in to anger, and he assures Vivian, “I don’t care about punishment or revenge anymore. I care about you” (340). In an effort to show Vivian that he is trying to change, he pursues her after she tries to end their engagement, and he speaks honestly, even admitting that he does not know how to pursue a woman and is doing his best. He realizes that even though admitting weakness is “unheard of for a Russo […] denying my feelings had landed me in my current hell, and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice” (332). In the end, Dante recognizes that giving in to wrath ultimately leaves him empty, and he chooses vulnerability.
Racism and Classism
Huang conveys the insidious nature of racism and classism in King of Wrath. Characters regularly reference the issue of classism in upper-class society; Vivian thinks about how her family is rich, “but we would never be old money. Not in this generation” (8). Being “old money” is the way to be accepted in the highest echelons of society, but Vivian’s father and mother desperately want to be accepted by that society. This is why Vivian’s father expects her and her sister to agree to arranged marriages; by marrying into old money families like the Russos, they gain a sense of legitimacy and, presumably, acceptance. Francis Lau becomes obsessed with the idea, turning to blackmail to ensure that he achieves it.
Running underneath all these references to classism, however, is a deeply-rooted racism and internalized bigotry toward families of color–in this case, towards a Chinese American family. It is never identified outright, which reflects the way racism often functions in covert ways to create plausible deniability. However, Vivian feels it in interactions with people like Buffy Darlington, who, when Vivian stands up to her, demands that Vivian’s Legacy Ball be the best one in the Ball’s history. The closest anyone comes to acknowledging the racism among the upper classes is Vivian’s mother, Cecilia, who, when confronted with how critical she has been to Vivian, explains,
‘We’re not the only new money family in Boston, but we’re the ones who are looked down on the most by the blue-blood snobs. Why do you think that is?’ It was a rhetorical question. We both knew why. Money bought a lot of things, but it couldn’t buy off inherent biases (356).
She criticized Vivian to help her daughter fit in more; she knows that white families of the upper classes can get away with certain laxities in their behavior, dress, and more, while families of color would be criticized for not conforming to the expectations of those “blue-blood snobs.” So, although the novel does not directly address the issue of racism, such racist bigotry plays an unstated role throughout the novel.
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