The Soft Shell Crab and the Metal Claw follows Wei Tang, a Chinese woman in her mid twenties, who finds herself enslaved by the bonds of marriage to an abusive husband, the owner of a fish market in New York City's Chinatown. Trapped in this foreign reproduction of her homeland, Wei Tang is forced to endure a grueling workday of gutting fish as well as the physical torment brought upon her by her husband. However, after years of enduring this life, Wei Tang has hatched a plan to escape. Will Wei Tang get away, or, like the crabs and fish she sells, are there just some traps from which we cannot break free?