Snow Flower and the Secret Fan characters

Appears from the start

An elderly woman looking back on her life in nineteenth-century Hunan. As a girl from a modest farming family, Lily learns that the quality of her feet may give her an unusually favorable marriage. She is disciplined, eager to be worthy of love, and deeply shaped by the rules that confine women to domestic spaces and judge them through obedience, marriage, and sons.

First appears in chapter 4

The girl matched to Lily as her laotong, a formal lifelong counterpart meant to share an intimate bond deeper than ordinary friendship. Snow Flower appears refined and comes from a family believed to have higher standing than Lily's. Through messages written in nüshu, she gives Lily companionship and a private language for feelings their public lives do not permit.

First appears in chapter 2

The matchmaker who recognizes that Lily's feet could transform her marriage prospects. Madame Wang arranges both Lily's laotong relationship with Snow Flower and the negotiations that will determine Lily's future household. She is worldly, authoritative, and one of the few women able to move regularly between otherwise separate families.

Also known as Mama

First appears in chapter 2

Lily's mother, who prepares her daughters for the narrow duties expected of women. She supervises Lily's footbinding with severe resolve, believing that enduring pain and achieving the proper shape are necessary for her daughter's security and the family's advancement.

First appears in chapter 2

Lily's cousin and childhood companion, close enough in age that they pass through footbinding and preparation for marriage together. Beautiful Moon shares the women's upstairs world with Lily and gives her an ordinary family friendship alongside the more formal bond with Snow Flower.

First appears in chapter 3

Lily's younger sister, whose feet are bound with Lily's and Beautiful Moon's. Her body cannot withstand the infection that follows, showing Lily at an early age that the custom demanded as a condition of womanhood can also be fatal.

First appears in chapter 8

The man chosen as Lily's husband in the prosperous Lu family of Tongkou. At their marriage he is still largely a stranger to her, and their relationship is governed by family duty and the expectation that Lily will produce sons and serve his household.

First appears in chapter 8

The senior woman in Lily's married household. Lady Lu evaluates the new bride according to her feet, manners, work, fertility, and obedience. Her approval carries immense weight as Lily learns the hierarchy of the wealthy family she has entered.

First appears in chapter 9

Snow Flower's husband, a butcher whose trade places his family low in the local social order. His household is far poorer and harsher than the one Snow Flower's upbringing led Lily to expect, and his temper adds fear to the difficulties Snow Flower faces as a wife and mother.

First appears in chapter 9

Snow Flower's mother, once associated with a cultivated household but weakened by addiction and the family's decline. Her circumstances are part of the truth Snow Flower has been ashamed to tell Lily and help explain the difference between the girl's polished education and her actual marriage prospects.