Liu Shi
刘氏
“A Surname and a Suffix”
Her Story
Grannie Liu’s daughter, wife of the farmer Wang Gou’er, mother of Ban’er and Qing’er. In Chapter 6 her husband, with the winter stores unbought, drinks and picks quarrels at home, and she does not answer back. It is her mother who proposes going to the Rong mansion to trade on an old family connection. She has no personal name in the novel — only her father’s surname with 氏 after it, the Liu woman.
In Xiang Li's Hands
She is painted as a beauty. High bun with a blue ribbon, a jade drop at the ear, short black cape over pale green, a skirt of blue flowers filling the lower third of the sheet. Nothing here says village. The hand at her throat is the only hesitation.
The Calligraphy
刘氏 — her father’s surname and 氏, “woman of the Liu family”, which is the whole of the name a farm wife is given.
Connections
- Grannie Liu 刘姥姥 — her mother.
- Wang Gou’er 王狗儿 — her husband, the farmer.
- Ban’er 板儿 — her son, taken to the Rong mansion in Chapter 6.
Others of the same kind · outsider – townsfolk, tenants, tradespeople Liu Xianglian 柳湘莲 · Jiang Yuhan 蒋玉菡 · Liu Laolao 刘姥姥 · Wang Gou'er 王狗儿 · Ban'er 板儿 · Qing'er 青儿 · Feng Yuan 冯渊 · Ni Er 倪二 · Bu Shiren 卜世仁 · Yinjie 银姐 · Fang Chun 方椿 · Shi Daizi 石呆子 · Yun'er 云儿 · Wu Liang 吴良 and 4 more
Named on these pages Wang Gou'er 王狗儿
Dream of the Red Chamber
Xiang Li painted all 413 characters of the novel between 1975 and 1985, the first person to complete the entire cast. See the whole collection · Chinese Empresses
