Her previous novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and Peony in Love emphasize the difficulty 19th- and 17th-century Chinese women had in achieving freedom and identity in a society that was both male dominated and rigid in its gender expectations.

This is seen by many as controversial because the opera may influence young women into imitating Liniang, starving themselves to death in hopes of finding love.

Peony comes to learn about the courage and extreme suffering both older women experienced during the fighting and that the sternness her mother treated her with as a girl was only her attempt to protect her daughter from the evils of the outside world.

Feeling guilty, she puts herself in self-exile, wandering around Hangzhou, until her mother convinces her to go back and make it up for Ren and his second wife.

[4] The opera presents the love of Du Liniang for a young man, Liu Mengmei, whom she meets in a dream.

On 22 February 2010, Scott Free Productions announced plans to produce an adaptation of the novel with Erin Cressida Wilson writing the script for 20th Century Fox.