The Fox Wife

Snow, also known as Ah San and Yuki, is one of two main characters in the narrative. She is an antihero, or a main character where conventional heroic qualities are absent, and the book’s only first-person narrator. Along with Shiro and Kuro, Snow is a mystical fox, what people in China sometimes call hujing (fox spirits) or huxian (fox transcendentals). Like the others, she can influence humans, and her presence and appearance affect their demeanor and actions. Overexposure to her powers can create unhealthy psychological consequences that often leave the human in question overly attached, if not obsessed, with being near or possessing her—as is the case with Mr. Wang.

The narrative describes Snow as having “large, bright eyes; [having a] slender, strong frame, lithe as the branches of a slim tree with green sap running through it” (321). Prior to the death of her daughter, Snow was happily married to Kuro and entertained a friendship with Shiro. After two years of being estranged from Kuro, she meets with Shiro and is often subject to his romantic advances and manipulations. Throughout the narrative, Snow is dedicated to finding Bektu Nikan, the Manchurian photographer who killed her daughter, and exacting her revenge on him.