The name of the
wife of the (then) poor farmer
Wang Lung, from the book
The Good Earth, written by
Pearl S. Buck.
She was bought as a slave, in order to be Wang Lung's wife. She is quiet; being a slave seems to have traumatized her somehow, but she is *extremely* hard working. My favorite example of this is that when she was pregnant, she was out working in the fields with her husband up until the very last day, when she dropped and said something to the effect that it was time to have her child. Better still, it is noted that on her way inside, while in labor, she made dinner before giving birth. Of course, she walked back out on the fields for more work that night.
Most readers will probably be horrified at how Wang Lung treats her, and how she just takes it. She tells her daughter that she has to look pretty, or her husband won't love her, just like her daddy didn't love her. Ouch.
Also has the recognition of being probably the only grown woman in the book that isn't a bitch, not that Wang Lung cares, or realizes how lucky he is.
A simple character, yet rather hard to place in the "what it means" sense.