The daughter / the eldest daughter (the poor fool) Character Analysis

The eldest daughter is born during the famine, and Wang Lung takes her birth as a bad sign because she’s his first female child. She proves to be mentally disabled (perhaps as a result of her malnourished upbringing), and she never learns to talk or to take care of herself, instead sitting in the sun and smiling and laughing at Wang Lung. She twice comes close to awful tragedy, first in being born during the famine and second in almost being sold as a slave. Ironically, she ends up being the happiest character in the novel simply because she’s seemingly unaware of what goes on around her. Wang Lung wishes he himself had this ability to ignore everything bad, and so he dotes on his eldest daughter, and she in turn makes him happy.