52 pages • 1 hour read
Yangsze ChooThe Fox Wife
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Superstitions and Stereotypes
Superstitions characterize the supernatural world of The Fox Wife and inform how foxes interact with their human counterparts. A fox’s experience of the human world is first determined by their gender. Snow alludes to gender stereotypes: “Foxes, people say, are wicked women. […] [M]ost tales focus on the beautiful female foxes who live by devouring qi” (8). Male foxes, for their part, are often referred to as cuckolds and great seducers of married women: “There was once a merchant whose wife was possessed by an evil fox spirit. Appearing in the shape of a young man, he entered the woman’s chamber night after night” (57).
As a whole, foxes are stereotyped as highly sexual beings who siphon the life and happiness of humans. Foxes generally meet a terrible end in these tales, be it through a raid party as Snow describes, being boiled alive in a bottle as Lu recounts, or being blown up by gunpowder as Shiro mentions.
Such beliefs have consequences for foxes like Snow and generate anxiety and caution in all three foxes. Fox history shows how superstitions and stereotypes can be weaponized, which Snow alludes to when discussing “a purge of foxes” (356).
Superstitions about foxes are not without a grain of truth. Foxes do indeed ingest qi. In Shiro’s case, he does this to a degree that kills people and leaves behind a trail for detectives like Bao to follow.
Shadows
Shadows drive the subplot that binds the Huang family with Bao. For foxes, who are liminal beings, shadows represent the realm in which they dwell. As Bao points out, citing a quote from the scholar Ji Yun, “[H]umans and things are different species, and foxes lie between humans and things; darkness and light take different paths, and foxes lie in between darkness and light. ‘Between darkness and light’ implies shadows. The uneasy realm of the believer” (25). Foxes are only allowed a partial presence in the human world or else face the possibility of death. In this way, they have a shadowed presence—one barely perceptible by humans and that quickly dissipates when too much light is shone upon them.
Shadows also represent cultural beliefs: “Chinese traditionally consider shadows part of the soul. Harm done to a shadow, whether by pinning it to the ground or stepping on it, was considered spiritual damage to the person” (127). In the context of the narrative, shadows come to represent the curse, anxiety, and danger facing Bohai from individuals who don’t have shadows. Though Bohai and the others believe these people to be ghosts, Bao’s experiences as a child and adult prove that shadows are the foxes’ domain: Their management of yin and yang in humans troubles a human’s shadow and makes them barely discernable.
Transient Names
For foxes, names are interchangeable markers of identity that may or may not adhere to a specific fox’s preference. Snow is fortunate to be attached to her name. As she tells Mrs. Huang, “It’s a beautiful, poetic name, and one I’ve never tired of” (28). That she can “tire of” a name suggests that names are only kept for their usefulness—a fact that Snow echoes when she explains her alleged family name: “There’s another name, ‘Hu,’ which sounds exactly like fox but is written with a different character. That’s the one we often use to disguise ourselves” (28). Names represent the necessary accommodations that foxes must undertake to adapt to human society and mask their true nature. Though they are identity markers for humans, they work differently for foxes, acting as shields against persecution.
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By Yangsze Choo
