Lin's Wife By Ha Jin Summary

The first section of the story is made up of twelve chapters, which the author uses to develop and introduce the main conflict of the story. This section provides the Lin’s background as the main character, Manna as his girlfriend at the hospital, Shuyu as his wife and Bensheng her brother. The character’s backgrounds give insight on the roles they will play in the central conflict of the story. Ha Jin introduces the characters by describing the lifestyle at the hospital and a series of events and situations that shapes their roles in the story. The author begins by providing Lin's educational background and how he and Manna met for the first time. Ha Jin uses dialing between Manna and Mai Dong to describe a beginning of Manna’s first relationship …show more content…
Then, manna's role in the story starts to change slowly from curiosity regarding Lin's family, to fantasizing about him, and finally falling in love with this married man. After developing Manna's role in the relationship between her and Lin, the author starts to reveal another side of Lin that will pray a major role in the central conflict of the story. He describes how Lin's relationship with his wife is not satisfying to him. Similarly, Lin’s attitude towards what he and his colleagues consider the ideal wife for someone like him, is portrayed in such a manner that indicates the possibility for him to consider having a relationship with Manna. Manna ends up learning Lin's attitude towards his wife and she proceeds to initiate a relationship with him. Lin and Manna's relationship grows very fast but Manna is not satisfied with it and she starts pressurizing Lin to divorce his wife so that they can get married. Near the end of the section Ha Jin increases the pace of the story by providing details that describes the increasing tension rising from Manna’s impatient and Lin’s frustration as he tries to figure out what to