王子腾夫人

Her Story

Wife of Wang Ziteng, the highest-placed man of the Wang family. To the young people of the Jia house she is 舅太太 — their mother’s brother’s wife.

Chapter 25 is her birthday. Grandmother Jia is unwell and Wang Furen stays with her, so Xue Yima, Xifeng, Baochai, Baoyu and the Jia sisters go instead. She is at the Jia house that evening when Baoyu and Xifeng are struck down, and leaves at sunset; her husband comes the next day. In Chapter 70 she calls again, and sends later to fetch Xifeng and the young people for a day’s amusement — the spring her own daughter marries into the household of the Marquis of Baoning. She is never given a name.

In Xiang Li's Hands

In profile, walking left, wrapped to the ankle in a grey ink cloak that trails behind her like weather. Under it a pale sea-green robe flecked yellow, a teal browband, a jade drop at the ear, a pink hem. Bare paper behind. She is dressed to arrive somewhere, which is the only thing the novel has her do.

The Calligraphy

王子腾夫人 — five characters upper right giving her husband’s full name and then 夫人, so that the most powerful woman of the Wang connection reaches the paper entirely through him.

Connections

• Wang Ziteng 王子腾 — her husband, whose name is the only one she is recorded under.
• Wang Furen 王夫人 — her sister-in-law, invited to the birthday and unable to come.
• Xue Yima 薛姨妈 — her other sister-in-law, who goes in Wang Furen’s place.
• Wang Xifeng 王熙凤 — her husband’s niece, sent for by name to spend the day at the Wang house.
• Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 — nephew, at her birthday in Chapter 25 and at her house again in Chapter 70.

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