◀ Drama

Comprehensive index starts

in volume 5, page 2667.

Dream of the Red Chamber

Hóng Lóu Mèng ​红 楼 梦

D ream of the Red Chamber is universally rec-circulated chapter drafts to some of them as he wrote (the ognized as China’s greatest novel. Written novel in its earliest version was called Story of the Stone).

primarily by Cao Xueqin (c. 1715– 1764), this One of his relatives, who identified himself as “Red Ink-semi- autobiographical novel combines deep stone Studio” ( Zhiyan zhai 脂硯齋), made extensive mar-psychological insight with sharp social satire, ginal comments on Cao’s manuscript, which Cao himself revised five times before he died in 1764, by which time all set in a Buddhist- Daoist mythological frame-he had completed at least eighty chapters. Almost three work that emphasizes the futility of human de-decades later, in 1792 Gao E 高鶚 and Cheng Weiyuan 程

sire, the impermanence of all things, and the 偉元 published the first printed version of the newly titled complex interplay of illusion and reality.

novel, Dream of the Red Chamber, 紅樓夢 in 120 chapters. They claimed they had found a draft of the last forty C

chapters and had simply edited them into their final form.

There has long been a controversy over the authorship ao Xueqin 曹雪芹 (c. 1715– 1764) was born into a of these last forty chapters, but since the late eighteenth Chinese family of bond servants for the Manchu century the 120- chapter version as published by Gao E

rulers. His great- grandfather, Cao Yin 曹寅, was has been the generally accepted version of the novel. The a personal servant of Emperor Kangxi 康熙 (reigned 1662–

identity of Cao Xueqin as the novel’s principal author was 1722), one of the highest officials of the land. However, early established only in the twentieth century.

in Xueqin’s youth the emperor died, and his successor, the Yongzheng 雍正 emperor (reigned 1722– 1736), turned against the Cao family, stripped its members of their offi-Jia Family: Prosperous

cial posts, and confiscated their wealth. The family fortunes but Precarious

took a brief turn upward after the death of the Yongzheng emperor but suffered another purge in 1739. From that time Cao placed his novel in a mythological framework empha-on Cao Xueqin lived in obscurity and poverty in Beijing, sizing the Buddhist message of the impermanence of all where he soon began working on his novel.

things, the dangers of emotional attachments, and the illusory nature of wealth and high rank. The story focuses on the large, prosperous, and prominent Jia 賈 family, whose Creation of the Novel

high position is threatened because most of the men in the younger generation are wastrels with little or no chance to Cao Xueqin had a few close friends who appreciated his succeed in the all- important civil service examinations.

gift for vivid description and imaginative writing, and he The main protagonist of the story is a young boy who was 645

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Berkshire Encyclopedia of China

宝 库 山 中 华 全 书

named Baoyu (Precious Jade 寶玉) for the precious jade Idyllic Life in

stone found in his mouth when he was born (hence Cao’s original title). Baoyu is often chastised by his stern Confu-Grand- View Garden

cian father, Jia Zheng 賈政, who desperately wants him to grow up, succeed in the examinations, and continue the Baoyu is an odd boy (most likely a self- portrait of the family tradition of service in officialdom. Baoyu hates the author) who much prefers the company of girls over insipid eight- legged essays (named after the rigid format of boys, and he spends most of his time playing with his eight sections in parallel prose) required in the examina-beautiful young female sisters and cousins and their tions, and he is literally sickened by the pressures placed many personal maids. When Baoyu’s eldest sister, Yu-on him to memorize the Confucian classics all for the sake anchun 元春, an imperial concubine, is allowed to visit of examination success and an official career. Most of the her family for the one time in her adult life, the family time he manages to avoid studying the classics because builds a beautiful “Grand- View Garden” 大觀園— full he is constantly indulged by his doting grandmother, the of rocks, streams, trees, and pavilions— to welcome her.

matriarch and dominant personality of the Jia family.

(This parallels events in the Cao family, who once built an elaborate garden to welcome the Kangxi emperor himself on one of his southern tours.) On her visit Yu-anchun urges Jia Zheng to let Baoyu and his sisters and A Qing dynasty woodcut print by Gai Qi depict-female cousins make their home in the idyllic garden.

ing Xiren, one of four hundred vividly drawn Many chapters in the novel are devoted to lovingly de-characters from the novel Dream of the Red

tailed descriptions of the carefree lives of these young

Chamber.

people in the garden, where they observe the beautiful changes of the seasons and entertain themselves with frivolous games, poetry, drama troupes, painting, embroidery, and the finest food and drink that money can buy.

Tragic Love and Decline of

the Jia Family Fortunes

Over time the charmed lives of these young people are spoiled by the intrusions of cold reality. Baoyu falls in love with one of his cousins, Lin Daiyu 林黛玉 (Black Jade), who moves into his family compound after her mother dies. These two are portrayed as reincarnated divine beings whose love is predestined, but their love is tragic as they are not allowed to marry because Daiyu is judged by the senior women in the family to be too frail (she suffers from what appears to be tuberculosis) and too temperamental to be considered a good wife for Baoyu. Instead he is married to another beautiful cousin, Xue Baochai 薛寶釵 (Precious Clasp), who is much more robust and cheerful than the morose but talented Daiyu. The young maidens and servants of the household meet their demises through disastrous ar-ranged marriages, suicide, or even kidnapping.

© 2009 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC

Dream of the Red Chamber n Hóng Lóu Mèng n 红楼梦

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Multilayered Complexity

novel has inspired half as much discussion and debate as Dream of the Red Chamber. The field of Red Studies or While the romantic triangle of Baoyu and his two lovely

“Redology” ( Hongxue 紅學) has spawned hundreds of cousins is a central theme of the novel, it by no means books, thousands of articles, and even an encyclopedia dominates the story, which includes over four hun-devoted to the novel. As with Shakespeare in the English-dred vividly drawn characters. No novel in the Chi-speaking world, Proust in French literature, or The Tale of nese tradition portrays so many characters with such Genji in Japan, Dream of the Red Chamber has achieved an psychological depth and intimacy as Dream of the Red iconic status as the greatest and most illuminating work Chamber— servants are as lifelike and individualized as of fiction in all of Chinese culture.

their masters. Dream of the Red Chamber is a paragon Paul S. ROPP

of philosophical ambition and multilayered complexity.

The complexity begins with the language of the novel in which puns are ubiquitous and multiple meanings can Further Reading

be found on every page. Great tension exists between Cao Xueqin. (1973– 1986). The story of the stone (D. Hawkes the Buddhist- Daoist framework of the novel, which em-

& J. Minford, Trans.). Harmondsworth, U.K.: phasizes the illusory quality of sensory experience and Penguin.

emotional attachments, and the strong emotional com-Edwards, L. P. (1994). Men & women in Qing China: Gen-mitment of the author to his characters and their loves, der in The Red Chamber Dream. Leiden, The Neth-erlands: E. J. Brill.

hopes, and vulnerabilities.