Analysis of Bao-yu’s dream in Cao Xueqin’s ‘Story of the Stone’ Essay

The myth of the careen by Cao Xueqin is an animated, lively account of life in a large Chinese dwelling in the mid-18th century Qing dynasty. It remains a fascinating novel for modern readers placardh its vivid and detailed descriptions of the minutiae of daily life from clothing, food and interior design to education, union and death. For all its realism however, The Story of the Stone is not set spotlessly in reality. The very premise of the whole tale, that of a single rock remaining out of the goddess Nu-was repairing of the sky, is one based on a magico-religious dream world. The rock is found by a Buddhist and a Taoist who replication it down to the mortal world where it lives out a human life, that of Jia Bao-yu, before attaining Nirvana. Once a rock again, a Taoist copies the inscription on its line up from beginning to end and took it support with him to look for a publisher. Cao Xueqins emphasis on dreams mint be seen in the alternative titles for his masterpiec e. A woolgather of Red Mansions is the title by which the book is perchance intimately commonly known. Twelve Young Ladies of Jinling is also a title suggested in chapter one. Both of these titles contact to the same dream. As David Hawkes ex bleaks, hong lou, red mansion, has the more extraised meaning of the residences of the daughters of rich men and thus, the young ladies themselves. The dream alluded to in these appellations occurs in the fifth chapter of intensity level one, The well-fixed Days.Cousin Zhens unite woman, You-shi, has invited the women of the Rong-guo house, accompanied by Bao-yu, round for a flower viewing posty. Needless to say, Bao-yu soon tires and asks to take a nap. Rather than going back to the Rong mansion, the wife of his nephew, Jia Rong, leads him to her chamber to sleep. Bao-yu immediately drops off into a vivid dream world. He meets the fairy of disillusionment who shows him to the Land of Illusion and into the Department of the Ill-Fated F air. in spite of appearance this department is housed the Jinling, Twelve Beauties of, Main Register, a record of the twelve most notable females in Bau-yus own province of Jinling. The fairy of Disenchantment allows Bao-yu to read the fates of the twelve girls as recorded in the form of four-line verses. Bao-yu can make little sensation of what he reads. Later, the quatrains ar expanded into a serial of twelve watchwordgs entitled A Dream of aureate Days. While the words be sung by a troupe of entertainers, Bao-yu reads along with the manuscript. He unflustered does not understand. Indeed, some(prenominal) the verses in the register and in the song-cycle contain allusions and metaphors not immediately evident and not intimately deciphered. Yet at a most basic level, they provide an outline of the fate of twelve principle female characters in The Story of the Stone. Their fate unfolds throughout the course of the five volume novel. The Golden Days therefore, is only the b eginning. except, by the end of the first volume, to what extent redeem the women already prepared the way for their future course?The first verse in the Main Register is a joint record of Lin Dai-yu and Xue Bao-chai. These two young girls share the affection of Bao-yu and Grandm early(a) Jia. In their own individual ways, they are both paragons. It seems odd therefore that they share only one verse between them. Hawkes puts forward the argument that Dai-yu and Bao-chai represent two complementary aspects of a single grand woman. Evidence for this interpretation lies in the first two lines of their quatrain One was a pattern of female virtue, One a wit who made other wits seem slow. The combination of wit, or intelligence, and virtue were ideal traits in a Qing woman of the upper class. Arguably it was Dai-yu who held the upper hand in wit while Bao-chai, with her generous and accommodating disposition, was the more virtuous. Although in the song-cycle there are two songs for Dai -yu and Bao-chai, it is not the representative that one is dedicated to Dai-yu and one to Bao-chai. Albeit the punt song is solely about Dai-yu, but there are references to both characters in the first song. The character lin in Lin Dai-yu is made up of two guide radicals and has the meaning forest. Xue in Xue Bao-chai sounds the same as the Chinese word for snow while bao chai can be translated as precious or halcyon hairpin. Thus, the references come in the form of gold, flowers, snow and trees. Bao-yu is alluded to using jade or stone as he was natural with a jade stone in his mouth. The first song, The Mistaken Marriage, refers to the marriage rites of gold and jade. This foreshadows the marriage of Bao-chai (gold) and Bao-yu (jade). The speaker however, still remembers the relationship between stone and flower. There is indeed, a special bond between Bao-yu and Dai-yu.Although Bao-yu, a childwhom nature had endowed with the eccentric obtuseness of a simpleton, fails to rec ognise it, Dai-yu is an strongly jealous character and resents whatever time he transcends with Bao-chai and not her. Bao-yu struggles to understand the cause of Dai-yus mainly irrational sulks, yet always attempts to comfort her Take kinship first you are my cousin-german on Fathers side cousin Bao is only a mother-cousin. That makes you much the closer kin. And as for length of acquaintance it was you who came here first. You and I have practicaly grown up togetherWhy should I ever be any less close to you because of her? There is a profound roll in the hay between Bao-yu and Dai-yu that seems to grow with the progression of the first volume. They share an understanding so intense that it was almost as if they had grown into a single person. The speaker suggests however, that afterwards on Dai-yu (that fairy wood) dies. Thus, even a wife so courteous and so physique as Bao-chai is no substitute for the wife that Dai-yu could have been. Their marriage, even though others all commend it, is a mistake. This is succeeded by Hope Betrayed which deals specifically with the close relationship between Dai-yu (a flower from paradise) and Bao-yu (a pure jade without spot or stain). They are clearly meant for each other but the poem augurs future disaster. The pain heartache that stems from such an ardent love leave behinding all be in vain. In one sense these two poems pose an insurrmountable contradiction. Fate, the belief in which provides the premise for this entire dream barb, go forth have them be together but they are not.They are meant to be but cannot and this inability is portrayed as some kind of mistake, a going against the natural line of battle. Is there therefore, even such a thing as fate? This question aside, it can be seen that, in the case of Dai-yu and Bao-chai, their journey has barely begun by the end of The Golden Days. Their relationship with Bao-yu is entirely platonic (physically at least) and, although it is perhaps assumed that one of them, most likely Dai-yu, go out be be Bao-yus future bride, this is only hinted at in jest among the maids and is a source of great embarassement to Dai-yu. The second quatrain and the le change poem can be interpretted as Yuan-chuns fate. Yuan-chun, daughter of Lady Wang and Jia Zheng, is Bao-yus elder sister. The first two lines describe her, age twenty, leaving her family to live in the emperors palace as a royal concubine. As can be seen by the subsequent effort put into a lavish tend compund in honour fo her visit, this was a position held in great esteem. Although out of modesty, Yuan-chun later changes the name, the setting for her reunion with her family within Prospect Garden initially bears the inscription Precinct of the Celsetial Visitant. Hence perhaps, the use of the phrase pomegranate-time. Hawkes stresses the redness of the original Chinese text, the colour red being a symbol of good-fortune and prosperity. Although much of this sense has inevitably been lost in translation, the red skin of the pomegranate could perhaps be taken as emphasising the great advantages such a position could confabulate on both concubine and family.The second half of the quatrain however, does not bode so well for the future. Although Yuan-chun is superior if not in beauty and intelligence then in success to her half-sister Tan-chun and her cousins, Ying-chun and Xi-chun (the three springs), her charmed life will come to an end when hare meets tiger. Hare and tiger refer to Chinese years. Thus, this soothsaying specifies that the date of Yuan-chuns death will accrue at the end of a tiger year and at the beginning of a rabbit year. The third song, Mutability, again prophesises Yuan-chuns expiry from the Rong-guo household to the emperors palace. It goes on to describe her appearing before her parents in a dream to pay her final exam duty, forewarning again of her death. By the end of The Golden Days Yuan-chun has indeed left home to become a royal con cubine. Although the location of the Jia kinsperson in The Story of the Stone is questionable, it is clear that Yuan-chun and her family feel cut off from each other in spirit if not by physical distance.Their reunion in chapter eighteen is an emotional one and although the emperor allows visits in the palace once a month, special permission moldiness be granted for a once-yearly return to the family home. It is for this reason, so far the road back home did seem, that Yuan-chun will be forced to pay her final filial duties in a dream. (Hawkes points out that this dream sequence never in fact took address. He suggests that Xueqin used the material for this episode in chapter thirteen instead, when Qin-shi appears before Xi-feng in a dream.) Tan-chun, half-sister to Yuan-chun, one of the three springs referred to in a higher place and daughter of Jia Zheng and a concubine, is the subject of the quartern quatraine in the Main Register. She is by far the most gifted of the three spr ings as well as possessing a kind, generous nature.The first line, Blessed with a shrewd mind and a noble heart, is countered however, by the second, Yet born in time of twilight and decay. Although The golden Days is essentially a story set in the happy, carefree years of childhood, the bigger draft reveals a time of political and social upheaval, a sense of which permeates many aspects of the novel. Tan-chuns prophesised marriage in the final two lines will thus perhaps be related to stinting considerations. The marriage will clearly not be a happy one. The very title of the fourth song, From Dear Ones Parted, suggests the unsurmountable distance between Tan-chun and her home and her intense homsickness. The song has Tan-chun referring to our rising, falling, meaning the rise and fall of the Jia family. As a result of this, each in some other land must be, each for himself must fend as best he may, again suggesting that the marriage will be one of economic convenience. Apart fr om allusions to her wit and good character, we learn little about Tan-chun in the first volume of The Story of the Stone. There are however, hints to be found as to her fate. In chapter 22, she attends gran Jias riddle party. Asked to compose a riddle, the answer to Tan-chuns is a kite.This image of a kite as associated with Tan-chun symbolizes her departure a thousand miles away, her flight from the nest. Her riddle also foreshadows her unhappiness once in the marriage My strength all goes when once the bond is parted, And on the leash I drift off broken hearted. This description of drifting off in the wind ties in with the suggestion in the song that she will be taken to her new husband by boat through rain and wind. Like Tan-chun, relatively little reference is made to Shi Xiang-yun, the subject of the fourth quatrain and fifth song. She is the daughter of Grandmother Jias brothers son. Orphaned as a young girl, she first lived with Grandmother Jia before moving in with her unc le, Shi Ding, and his wife. It seems from both the register and the song, that Xiang-yun is destined to find the man of her dreams, a perfect, gentle husband. But happiness will be fleeting Soon you must mourn your bright suns early setting. The Xiang flows and the Chu clouds sail away. The Xiang was a river flowing through the ancient kingdom of Chu. This was believed to be home to a goddess of lovers. But soon the clouds of Gao-tang faded, the waters of the Xiang ran dry. This suggests another calamity, perhaps the sudden death of her husband. There is no intimation of Xiang-yuns fate in The Golden Days. The main scene involving her is one of comic relief as Dai-yu teases her about her lisp and Xiang-yun responds good-humouredly. The impression created is of a happy-go-lucky, lively young girl, quite a contrast from the rather intense and moody Dai-yu.This is best illustrated in Xueqins description of them asleep Dai-yu was tightly cocooned in a quilt of apricot-coloured damask, t he picture of tranquil repose. Xiang-yun, by contrast, lay with her hank of park black hair tumbled untidily beside the pillow, a white arm with its two gold bracelets thown carelessly outside the bedding and two white shoulders exposed above the peach-pink coverlet, which barely reached her armpits. A tomboy, even in her sleep Bao-yu muttered The sixth woman included in the register is the only one of the twelve who is not a member of the Jia family. Adamantina nevertheless lives among them in Prospect Garden after Yuan-chun issues an edict stating that the garden is not to be closed up. She is a nun and this is reflected in the descriptions of her spiritualty and her grace and wit to match the gods that set her with the rest at odds. Nauseous to her the worlds rank diet. Her final destination however, is clearly one of disrepute. In both the quatrain and the song, she ends up in the mud, impure and shameful. The fact that down here, only wealthy rakes might bless their luck sugg ests that Adamantina will end her days as perhaps a prostitute. By the end of The Golden Days however, she is still a nun who looks down on common flesh and blood The one-seventh of the Twelve Beauties of Jinling is Ying-chun, the eldest of the three springs. She is Jia Shes daughter by a concubine.With the arrival of Dai-yu and Bao-chai, the three springs are relugated to a secondary position in Grandmother Jias affections. Ying-chun is thus a rather underdeveloped character in The Golden Days. The sixth entry in the register and the seventh poem both suggest that she will be married off to a violent, unfaithful and cruel bully. There is no hint of this fate in the first volume of the novel. The Golden Days gives away equally little about the subject of the next quatrain and song, Xi-chun. Sister of Cousin Zhen and the youngest of the three springs, seems destined to seek release from offsprings extravagance and to win chaste quietness and heavenly peace by becoming a Buddhist nun . Wang Xi-feng on the other hand, wife of Jia Lian and cousin to Bao-yu, plays a far more prominent role in The Golden Days. She is a very strong character, a feminist role-model. She has all the qualities of the ideal wife with her managerial prowess and deference to her elders, and yet she always manages to be on top. This combination of cunning and virtue can best be seen in the chapters relations with Qin-shis funeral. Having been relegated posthumously to the status of a Noble Dame, the funeral is a grand affair. The sheer cost and man-power involved is staggering and Xi-feng is put in charge of it all. Nevertheless, she manages it with the conclusiveness of a little general.On the night of the wake, her maturity and superior social skills are further demonstrated when it is left entirely to her to do the honours. Xi-fengs vivacious charm and social assurance stood out in striking contrastShe was in her element, and if she took any notice of her humbler sisters it was only to throw out an occassional order or to bend them in some other way to her imperious will. This can be juxtaposed with the episode in the next chapter when, after the funeral, Xi-feng, Bao-yu and Qin-zhong spend the night in the Water-moon Priory. The prioress Euergesia, catching Xi-feng alone, tells her the story of a benefactor of the priory called Zhang. He is desperate to call off his daughters engagement to the son of a captain in the Chang-an garrison. The captain however, is being thoroughly unreasonable and refusing to take back the betrothal-gifts. Euergesia beseeches Xi-feng to use her unfluence to get Jia Zheng to write a letter to ecumenic Yun asking him to have a word with the captain because It is hardly likely that he would refuse to obey his commading officer. Xi-feng coyly turns her down until Euergesia questions Xi-fengs ability. Xi-feng relents and agrees to take part for the the not so small sum of three thousand taels of silver.Xi-feng is clearly fiscally-minded and savvy, never one to let an opportunity for profit slip by. The hush-hush modality in which this matter of the captain is broached also suggests that it is rather shady business. Yet, any qualms Xi-feng feigns to have about getting involved seem to be easily forgotten. Xi-feng is indeed, as the ninth song states, too shrewd by half. She is too focused on self-advancement but with the fall of the Jia family later in The Story of the Stone, Xi-fengs plotting and manouevering will all come to nothing Like a great buildings tottering crash, Like flickering lampwick burned to ash Although the exact nature of Xi-fengs future is not specified, it is clear that it is not a bright one. She will, as the title of the ninth song says, be caught by her own cunning. Although we see none of her decline in The Golden Days, there are hints of a fall to come. When Qin-shi appears to her in a dream, she warns Xi-feng of the future fall of the Jai family as a whole. She quotes a proverb The higher the climb, the harder the fall. Could this be referring equally to Xi-feng as to the family? Is there a reason why Qin-shi appears before Xi-feng specifically? The 10th Beautiy of Jinling, interestingly enough, does not even appear in the first volume. Qiao-jie, daughter of Xi-feng, nevertheless has some sort of trouble ahead of her. It seems that no one will be spared pain and grief as the Jia family declines. The penultimate Beauty included on the Main Register is Li Wan, mother of Jia Lan. Li Wan was married to Jia Zhu, brother of Bao-yu.Jia Zhu died before the start of the novel as implied by the third line in the eleventh song, the pleasures of the bridal bed soon fled. The quatrain suggests that their son, Jia Lan, her Orchid, will be successful. The song goes further to describe the awesome sight of the head with cap and bands of office on, and gleaming bright upon his breast the gold insignia Jia Lan will later pass the civil service exam and become a high official. It is p erhaps slightly far-fetched but one of the few mentions of Jia Lan comes in chapter nine, set in the Jia clan school house. As for Li Wan, there is no hint that the black night of deaths dark barrier lay close at hand. It would seem that she tragically dies after her sons appointment. Finally, there is Qin-shi, the twelfth Beauty of Jinling. She is the young wife of Jia Rong but dies of a mysterious unidentified disease half way through The Golden Days. Of all the women, Qin-shi is the only one whose whole fate is played out in the course of the first volume. It does not, however, run according to plan. Both the quatrain and the song, The Good Things Have an End, explicitly express that she will hang herself. The most likely reason for her self-annihilation is the familys discovery of her incestuous affair with her father-in-law, cousin Zhen Say not our troubles all from Rongs side came For their beginning Ning must take the blame. Indeed, there are indications of such intrigue.A drunken servant lets slip, in a fit of rage, Father-in-law pokes in the ashes The reader is clearly meant to take note of this comment, as Bao-yu subsequently questions Xi-feng as to its meaning. Xi-feng is quick in quashing any ideas Bao-yu may have on the subject and terrified by her vehemence, Bao-yu implored her forgiveness. There is obviously something to hide. Cousin Zhens hysterical reaction after her death is also a sign that their relationship was not as it seemed. He is inconsolable, proclaiming Now that she has been taken from us its plain to see that this senior branch of the family is doomed to extinction The poem accordingly, states that her death, the ruin of a mighty house protended. Qin-shis suicide does not however, take place and she instead dies of natural causes. A reason for this discrepancy is put foward by Hawkes. While Xueqin did originally have Qin-shi hanging herself from painted beams, a notation by one of the commentators on the original manuscript stat es that her ordered Xueqin to remove the scene.Xueqin reluctantly did so but, unenthusiastic about the change, failed to make the necessary alterations to the rest of the text. Having examined the fates of the Twelve Beauties of Jinling as expressed in the Main Register of the Department of the Ill Fated Fair and in the fairy of Disenchantments song cycle, it becomes immediately obvious that tradgedy lies ahead. With the decline of the Jia family will come a decline in the fortunes of each of the women. It is also clear that by the end of the first volume of The Story of the Stone the story has, in fact, barely begun. The Jia household is still powerful and rich, the child heros are still young and and insouciant, these are still the golden days.