Characters Lady Tan's Circle of Women Lisa See

Meiling: The Midwife’s Journey in Lady Tan’s Circle of Women

Overview

Meiling is the daughter of Midwife Shi, born into a lower-class family in fifteenth-century China. She becomes the lifelong friend of Yunxian, the protagonist and a female doctor. Meiling’s story in Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is one of ambition, jealousy, sacrifice, and resilience. She rises from a child apprentice to become an imperial midwife attending Empress Zhang, but her path is marked by painful losses and moral compromises. Meiling’s character embodies the tension between duty and self-fulfillment, and her choices reveal how class and gender shape a woman’s life.

Plot Role

Meiling first appears in Chapter 3 when eight-year-old Yunxian meets her and Midwife Shi at Lady Huang’s consultation. From that day, Meiling becomes Yunxian’s closest companion and a conduit to the world outside the elite household. She acts as a midwife during Yunxian’s difficult first childbirth, saving both mother and child. Later, Meiling is selected to join the Lodge of Ritual and Ceremony in the Forbidden City, a high honor that strains her friendship with Yunxian. In the palace, Meiling delivers the empress’s son while hiding her own labor contractions, a decision that leads to the stillbirth of her own daughter and her own hemorrhage. She is arrested, flogged, and banished. After returning to Wuxi, Meiling helps Yunxian uncover the truth behind a series of deaths and betrayals within the Yang household. In the final chapters, Meiling urges Yunxian to compile her medical knowledge into a book, and the two women grow old together, their bond intact.

Motivations and Traits

Meiling is driven by a desire to rise above her station. She accepts the friendship contract formalized by Grandmother Ru because it offers access to learning and connections. She values respect and often feels the sting of her lower-class status—for example, when she confesses to Yunxian that she envied her privileged life. At the same time, Meiling is fiercely loyal. She risks her life to serve the empress and later nurses Yunxian through severe postpartum depression. Her jealousy surfaces when Yunxian’s opportunities seem to outshine her own, but she always returns to the friendship. Meiling is practical, willing to do the “filthy work” of assisting coroners, as her mother did. She is also deeply resilient, surviving a brutal flogging and the loss of a child.

Chronological Arc

  • Childhood (age 8): Meiling meets Yunxian at the lotus pond. Their friendship is formalized by Grandmother Ru and Midwife Shi despite class barriers. Meiling begins learning midwifery and secretly receives reading lessons from Yunxian in exchange for stories of the outside world.
  • Adolescence and early marriage: Meiling becomes Young Midwife after her mother’s reputation suffers. She attends births and builds her skills. She marries Kailoo. When Yunxian is in labor with a breech baby, Meiling and her mother save them. The friendship is strained by lost letters; they partially reconcile.
  • Imperial call: Meiling is chosen for the palace. Maoren blames Yunxian. Meiling leaves for Beijing with mixed emotions. In the Forbidden City, she dresses as a court lady and serves Empress Zhang, who demands that Yunxian also stay.
  • Palace tragedy: Meiling hides her own labor contractions to first deliver the empress’s son. Immediately after, she hemorrhages and her daughter is stillborn. She is arrested for polluting the birth chamber. The emperor sentences her to death, commuted to thirty strokes of flogging and banishment. Yunxian treats her wounds, mixing her own blood into tea for Meiling.
  • Return and confession: Meiling confesses she stole herbs intended for Yunxian, taking them herself in the hope of conceiving. Yunxian learns the herbs were abortifacients prescribed by Doctor Wong at Lady Kuo’s request. The revelation devastates them but leads to a deeper honesty.
  • Later years: Meiling assists Yunxian in exposing Doctor Wong’s crime. She cares for Yunxian during a severe depression. With Yunxian’s help, Meiling conceives and gives birth to a living child. At age fifty, Meiling encourages Yunxian to write Miscellaneous Records of a Female Doctor, and the two reflect on their lifelong bond.

Relationships

  • Yunxian: Their friendship is the emotional core of the novel. Grandmother Ru calls it a “contract between two hearts.” They share joy and sorrow, but jealousy and secrets sometimes test their trust. Meiling admits feeling envy when Yunxian’s life seems easier. Yet she also says, “Our friendship makes us part of a single whole.”
  • Midwife Shi: Meiling’s mother teaches her the trade, including its darker aspects like assisting coroners. She is a sharp, pragmatic woman who negotiates for her daughter’s future.
  • Kailoo: Meiling’s husband is proud of her appointment to the palace. He seems kind but fades into the background during her later trials.
  • Empress Zhang: Meiling builds a strong connection with the empress, but the imperial hierarchy ultimately fails to protect her. The emperor’s sentence is harsh despite the empress’s protest.

Key Decisions and Consequences

  • Accepting the friendship contract: This decision gives Meiling a powerful ally but also exposes her to the expectations of an elite family. It opens doors—she learns to read and gains patronage—but also creates resentment when she can’t equal Yunxian’s status.
  • Going to the palace: Meiling accepts the imperial summons, hoping to bring honor and rewards to her family. Instead, she suffers a stillbirth, flogging, and banishment. The choice nearly destroys her.
  • Hiding her labor: To protect the empress’s delivery, Meiling conceals her own contractions. This leads directly to her child’s death and her own hemorrhage. It is a sacrifice that embodies the theme of duty overriding personal well-being.
  • Stealing herbs from Yunxian: Desperate to conceive, Meiling takes herbs meant for Yunxian, not knowing they are abortifacients. The confession strengthens their bond by forcing both women to confront their mistakes.
  • Urging Yunxian to write a book: In old age, Meiling pushes Yunxian to preserve her medical cases. This ensures Yunxian’s legacy and demonstrates Meiling’s continued belief in the power of women’s healing.

Theme/Symbol Connections

  • Female friendship and solidarity: Meiling and Yunxian’s relationship is the novel’s central example of a “circle of women.” Their contract symbolizes the rare trust that can cross class lines.
  • Women’s medicine and healing: Meiling represents the practical, hands-on side of women’s health—midwifery, autopsy assistance, and herbal knowledge. Her skills complement Yunxian’s scholarly approach.
  • Duty vs. self-fulfillment: Meiling’s choice to prioritize the empress’s delivery over her own pregnancy illustrates the theme of sacrifice. She puts duty first, but the cost is immense.
  • Class and gender hierarchy: Meiling is acutely aware that her big feet and lower birth limit her prospects. Grandmother Ru notes that a midwife’s reputation is low and her fortunes precarious. Meiling’s rise to the palace breaks barriers but doesn’t erase them.
  • Sacrifice and resilience: From childhood to old age, Meiling endures physical pain, loss, and humiliation. Yet she survives and ultimately thrives, proving that resilience is a form of power.

5 Book-Specific Questions and Answers

1. Why does Meiling steal herbal ingredients from Yunxian?
Meiling took the herbs believing they would help her conceive. She later discovers they were not fertility remedies but abortifacients prescribed by Doctor Wong at Lady Kuo’s request. The theft was born of desperation and ignorance.

2. How does Meiling’s friendship with Yunxian begin?
Grandmother Ru and Midwife Shi negotiate a formal friendship agreement, despite Meiling’s lower-class background. The two girls first bond at a lotus pond when Yunxian is eight, and the arrangement is sealed with a “contract between two hearts.”

3. What happens to Meiling in the Forbidden City?
Meiling becomes the midwife to Empress Zhang. She hides her own labor to deliver the heir first, then suffers severe hemorrhage and delivers a stillborn daughter. For polluting the birth chamber, she is arrested, flogged thirty strokes, and banished from the palace.

4. How does Meiling change after the flogging?
She becomes deeply despondent, barely speaking or eating. Yunxian nurses her back to health. During recovery, Meiling confesses the herb theft, which deepens their bond. She later regains her strength and returns to midwifery in Wuxi.

5. What role does Meiling play in the novel’s final chapter?
Nineteen years after the smallpox outbreak, Meiling is the one who urges Yunxian to compile her thirty-one medical cases into a book. The two friends reflect on aging, recite the phrase “white-haired, growing old together,” and celebrate Yunxian’s publication.