“The Flaw of the Stone: Baoyu’s Entanglement with Love how the Universe tries to Cure It” Carl Forsthoefel On the very first page of The Dream of Red Chamber the author tells us of a stone which was cast away by the goddess Nuwa for being unworthy of repairing the sky. This stone is the ethereal representation of Baoyu, and is abandoned in a place called Greensickness Peak, located in the Incredible Crags of the Great Fable Mountains. Many people have studied the symbolic meaning of this peak and
Dream of the Red Chamber is one of the classics of Chinese literature and is considered by some to be eminent example of classic Chinese writing. Written in the middle of the eighteenth century, is serves as one of the last great tableaus of China prior to influence from the West. Its central story is that of boy, Jia Baoyu, growing up in feudal China. He lives a privileged life — the Jia family is by no means impoverished — and is attended on by maids as he spends his days with his cousins and friends
It is interesting to note that The Dream of red Chamber from the first chapter is presented as a story of enlightenment. It is described by Vanitas as a love story, but that is only a vehicle used to stimulate enlightenment through love. In the novel, Zhen Shiyin and Jia Zheng both become enlightened through their deep-rooted love for their children. However, characters such as Adamantina and Jia Jing illustrate contrasts to them. Neither of these characters attempt to achieve enlightenment through
for Enlightenment in Candide and Dream of the Red Chamber Seventeenth-century Europe saw the end of the Renaissance and ushered in the Neoclassic era. During this period, which is also called the Enlightenment and "The Age of Reason," society advocated rationalism and urged the restraint of emotion. Writers modeled their works after the Greco-Roman satires and picaresque novels. At around the same time in China, the author of Dream of the Red Chamber explores a different kind of enlightenment,
Xinyu Wang GHIST 101 Yongguang Hu March 27, 2015 Study of the Qing dynasty from Dream of the Red Chamber Dream of the Red Chamber (Chinese: 红楼梦), also named as The Story of the Stone (Chinese:石头记) is a masterpiece of Chinese vernacular literature and one of Chinese Four Great Classical Novels. The novel was written around 1749 C.E to 1759C.E during the Qing Dynasty. The book was originally written by Cao Xue Qin and then continued and finished by another Chinese writer, Gao E. This is not only
Dream of the Red Chamber is a book that depicts the life of a Chinese aristocratic family. The novel describes the life of the women in Chinese aristocracy and their declining fortune. The story is full of dreams and begins with a myth of the stone. This story tells how the Goddess Nugua repaired the Dome of Heaven. She began with thirty six thousand five hundred and one stones, but had one left over. This stone would be reincarnated several times on earth. Pao-yu the hero of the novel is the
Thus, it makes sense that such valuation largely depends on context. For instance, an object that has once symbolized the joys of life can soon cause a character’s misery once the situation surrounding the object has changed. In the Dream of the Red Chamber, this is especially apparent in the case of Dai-yu in Chapter 82. The structures that had once catered to her happiness soon trap her in a state of insecurity and fear. Thus, the fragility of how these systems change in valuation in relation to
In the Dream of the Red Chamber a picture is painted of two worlds or two mindsets about living, and the reader is confronted with the task of contemplating what is real. The worlds that are introduced are of the contemplative person, which is represented by Great Void Illusion Land (GVIL), and that of education, working, and pleasure, which is represented by the Red Dust. The book alludes to an understanding that even though one way of life might be preferred to another, both are real, and that