Content Warning: The source material and this guide contain references to suicide, domestic abuse, child abuse, child death, and wartime violence.

The protagonist of the novel, Fugui is a dynamic character who shifts from the beginning to the end. In the beginning, he is the spoiled son of a wealthy, self-made landlord. He is cruel to his wife and disrespectful to his father. He ends up squandering the family’s wealth due to his gambling and sex addictions and forces his family to become poor farmers. After this change in circumstance, Fugui begins to change. He is no longer the gluttonous boy wasting his time in the city and instead spends his days devoted to his wife and children. He works tirelessly in the fields to support his family and continually sacrifices his health and safety to ensure that they have enough food to eat and enough money to send his son to school; his story embodies the theme of Perseverance in the Face of Hardship. By the end of the novel, and from his nostalgic reminiscing of his past, it’s clear that the time he spent with his family was the most meaningful part of his life.