王夫人荣国府二房的当家媳妇 · 21
Leaf 21 of the Red Chamber · 太太 the Madam of the second house
Lady Wang 王夫人
In Dream of the Red Chamber 紅樓夢 (c. 1791) · in the household (当家) · nicknamed 太太 “the Madam of the second house”
The gentlewoman who kills with propriety: two maidservants die on her conscience, and the marriage she arranges to save her son's wits destroys her own niece.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 32
A Box and the Well
金釧投井Catching a favourite maid joking with Baoyu, she boxes her ear and turns her out; the girl drowns in the well before morning, and Lady Wang settles it with silver and a change of clothes.
- ch. 74
The Night Raid on the Trunks
夜查抄檢The purse and a servant's spite persuade her that the garden is full of wantons. She lets every maid's trunk be rifled that night, and it turns up one love letter and nothing worth the harm.
- ch. 77
Driving Out the Sick Maid
逐晴雯Warned that a pretty maid is a snare to her son, she has the sick Qingwen carried out of the house in her nightclothes to die at a relative's hut, where Baoyu goes to her and writes the elegy.
- ch. 96
A Bride Swapped in the Hour
掉包計To save her son's wits she falls in with her niece's plan: the boy is told he is getting Daiyu and is given Baochai, while the girl he was promised dies at the hour of the ceremony.
結局 The ending
She is the survivor her own caution promised: the house comes back to her husband, her elder son's widow and orphan are still at the family school, her daughter the Consort is dead in the palace, and the second son she broke rules to save walks out of the world at the last, past any finding.
The book itself: what happens, how long it is, which English version to read — The story · How long it is · Which translation · The lamp-oil night · The family tree · The first expulsion