The love tragedy of Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu has been stirring people's hearts for more than two hundred years. As early as Cao Xueqin had not finished the manuscript, this novel had been widely circulated among people, and the stories in it had become a hotly discussed topic. There was a popular saying at that time: "If you don't talk about "Dream of Red Mansions" in a conversation, reading poetry and books will be in vain." Chen Qiyuan's "Notes of Yongxianzhai" and Zou Tao's "Three Borrows in the Lu" in the Qing Dynasty also talked about two touching stories respectively: One is a girl from Hangzhou who, because of reading "A Dream of Red Mansions", felt about her life experience and became depressed. He became ill and later died of grief; one was a man named Jin in Suzhou who read "A Dream of Red Mansions" and mourned Daiyu's fate, and finally became a madman. Cao Xueqin composed a touching piece of music about love and ideals in "A Dream of Red Mansions". It made the vast number of young men and women who were cruelly suppressed by ethics and ethics in feudal society feel passionate about the pain and unfortunate fate of love, and also awakened the They (she) pursue happiness and free love and marriage. The love tragedy of Bao Dai written in "A Dream of Red Mansions" has profound and typical significance of the times.
Cao Xueqin's love story about Bao Dai in "A Dream of Red Mansions" has careful design and layout. This work has a complex, large and exquisite network structure. Baodai's love occupies an important position in this structure. It is interspersed and intertwined with some secondary stories and plots to form a tight whole. From this love story, from the third chapter to the seventh chapter, Daiyu and Baochai entered the Rongguo Mansion one after another, which is the prelude to this story. From the eighth chapter to the thirty-second chapter, it is mainly about the contradictory relationship between the two parties in love. Internal development and conflict. The emergence of Baochai gives this contradiction new and complex content, and at the same time gradually reveals the thoughts and personalities of the relevant characters. After the thirty-second chapter, the conflict of love changes from the internal to the external. The author shows its incomparable complexity from the wider space of Jia's house, further highlighting the inevitability of its tragic ending. After eighty chapters, there should be a third stage that takes a turn for the worse, announcing the final completion of the tragedy and the final outcome of the tragic character. It is a pity that the author passed away before completing the manuscript (or this part of the manuscript has been lost). This work was completed by Gao E.
Jia Baoyu is a descendant of the Jia Mansion, a family that is "a family of poetry, etiquette and hairpins, a family of bells and dishes", and is the heir to the family business that this feudal family is looking forward to. But he did not follow the path arranged by the feudal family, and became a rebel and an unworthy descendant. In the book, we see that in the soil of this family, which is full of humus, a seedling with new living matter grows. Instead, Jia Baoyu's family and the secular society he lived in became a classroom for him to learn about all the sources of evil. There is a poem in the book "Moon over Xijiang" about him: "He is poor and unable to handle common affairs, he is stupid and afraid of reading articles, his behavior is eccentric and eccentric, and he is afraid of being slandered by the world."
He has become the "talentless man" in this society. The stubborn stone became the "devil incarnation" in the eyes of feudal parents. The feudal parents were full of disappointment and panic in this child.
A prominent aspect of Jia Baoyu's character is his suspicion and criticism of the old traditional feudal culture and the ethics of Confucius and Mencius. He said, "In addition to the Four Books, there are too many fabrications." He criticized the obscurantism of "mixing offerings and building temples". He was extremely disgusted with the eight-legged imperial examination system adopted by ordinary scholars at that time. He detested the official career economy and those bureaucrats like Jia Yucun who were greedy and greedy. For the "literary admonishment" and "military war" that the feudal society advertised as the model of civil servants and generals, they boldly denounced them as "fame fishing" and "national thieves and ghosts". For many people who were oppressed and humiliated in feudal families, Women express praise and sympathy. In Jia Baoyu, the budding light of democratic thought that had just risen on the horizon in our country in the eighteenth century was revealed.
Lin Daiyu understands, sympathizes with and supports Baoyu best among the Daguanyuan sisters, and thus becomes Baoyu's close friend. They cultivated the seedlings of love on the basis of like-mindedness. Daiyu never advised Baoyu to care about official career and economy, and to study and become an official. From her, we can see the noble talents cultivated by our country's excellent classical cultural traditions. Not only is she outstanding in appearance, but she is also known for her poetry and craftsmanship, which shines in the Grand View Garden. What she loves most is not "Four Books" and "Biography of Women", but "The Romance of the West Chamber" and "The Peony Pavilion" which boldly express resistance to feudal ethics. These works inspired her and Baoyu's youthful awakening, and they fought together for their own happiness and ideals.
Thirty-two chapters ago, we saw that the description of the love theme was almost tight and the writing was concentrated. After the thirty-third chapter, although events directly or indirectly related to this theme were also written, such as Baoyu being beaten, Chai and Dai detecting injuries, Xiren being promoted, embroidering a mandarin duck dream foretelling Jiang Yunxuan, Baoyu shouting "wood and stone" in his dream "Marriage" and so on, but this secret line gradually became thinner, and after the thirty-eighth chapter, it seemed to be interrupted.
Cao Xueqin began to write about the large and small banquets and gatherings in the Rongguo Mansion, the girls' association and poetry, the complex conflicts and struggles within the Jia Mansion, and a series of other events. Because before the thirty-second chapter, after concentrating on writing about Bao Dai's mutual testing and then establishing trust based on their common thoughts, after the "internal" conflict was resolved, Cao Xueqin needed to explore it in a broader space. To reveal the typical environment and profound roots of Bao and Dai's love tragedy, it is necessary to write more deeply and broadly about the corruption, decay, and helpless decline trend of Jia's family and even the entire secular society. Therefore, it can be said that after Chapter 32, the focus of Bao Dai's love description shifted from "internal" to "external".
We see that in the subsequent chapters, Baodai’s misunderstandings and quarrels have decreased. In the development of the description of love between density and density, Lin Daiyu always lamented who was the person in the Grand View Garden who knew both coldness and hotness. Chapter 35, in front of Yihong Hospital, there was an endless stream of relatives checking on her. "Daiyu nodded unconsciously after looking at her. Thinking of the benefits of her parents, her face was already filled with tears." She thought of Cui Yingying in "The Romance of the West Chamber", and when she saw the newly arrived Xue Baoqin, she couldn't help but lament that there was no relative there. Her fragile heart was almost broken by this heavy worry. In the huge Grand View Garden, only the personal maid Zijuan shared her sorrow and joy with her. In the love test of Daiyu, this kind-hearted maid went to test Baoyu on behalf of the girl and almost caused a commotion. However, she was the only one who could frankly discuss Daiyu's deeply hidden thoughts: "...I am sincere. "Girl. I have been worried about you for these few years, and I have no parents or brothers. Who knows how to feel the heat? It's time for the old lady to understand that it's important to finish the big things. "But how can we hope that Daiyu will be able to do it? What about braver action? And how can we expect Zijuan, a maid with a humble status, to be of much help to the girl? However, when Aunt Xue hypocritically said that it would be better to give Sister Lin to Baoyu, Zijuan finally ignored her identity and shyness and hurriedly approached her and said, "Why don't you talk to the old lady about this idea?" However, throughout "" In the first eighty chapters of "Dream of Red Mansions" (actually including the forty chapters in Gao Xu), we have never seen Aunt Xue put her words into action. "Why didn't you tell the old lady?" Only God knows! Not only did she not He said, but he didn't forget to say something like "The golden lock was given by the monk, and he said it needs jade to match it." This hypocritical concubine, Xi's cheap "caress" actually won Daiyu's innocent gratitude, and she recognized her as her "mother" from then on! The fifty-seven chapters not only describe the hypocrisy of Xue's mother and daughter, Daiyu's innocence, and Zijuan's enthusiasm, but are also important chapters for us to gain insight into Daiyu's inner world.
In feudal society, the system of arranged marriage based on the orders of parents and the words of matchmakers was widely practiced. Young men and women had no right to dominate "life-long events" that related to their own vital interests. They are isolated in a narrow world without contact with each other. Feudal parents' requirements for their children are to be familiar with the books of sages, do well in eight-part essays, and take the imperial examination in order to become an accomplice and slave of the ruling class. For a woman, they are required to become a good wife and mother with "three obediences and four virtues" . Their youth was wasted in deep boudoirs practicing female needlework, painting dragons and embroidering phoenixes, and decadent books such as "The Book of Daughters" and "Biography of Women" became the life textbooks they were only allowed to read. The shackles of feudal ethics imprisoned their healthy physical and mental development. Our readers today are almost unable to understand or blame her for being overly sentimental, but we should know that this girl's distorted thought and character is caused by the evil social system.
Now let’s look at the second person in the work describing love and marriage—Xue Baochai, who was originally a superfluous person in Bao Dai’s love!
The girls filled in the catkins poems together. , Daiyu wrote very sentimentally: "The grass and trees also know their sorrow, and their youth turns gray." However, Xue Baochai found optimism and hope in the wandering catkins. She seemed to sing a completely different style in response to Daiyu's sadness: "There is no reason to laugh when I am young, and the good wind sends me to the blue clouds by force." ." Baochai's success in the Grand View Garden is inseparable from her "goodness and fakeness in things".
When Sister Feng was trying to please Jia Mu, she could say: "I have been here for so many years, no matter how clever the second sister-in-law is, no matter how clever she is, she is no better than an old lady." In the thirty-two chapters, we have seen that She actually made slanderous remarks about Jin Chuan'er's tragic death. And here we see the indifference and ruthlessness of Second Sister You after she was killed by Sister Feng's poisonous scheme: "This is a fate destined by the previous life... I have to let her go!" This girl's soul has been polluted by feudal orthodoxy to the point of a kind of Horrible situation!
Xue Baochai, an uninvited guest who suddenly appeared in Baodai's love kingdom, entered the Grand View Garden with her harmony with the society at that time, optimism and enterprising spirit. This girl not only possesses the rare beauty among the feudal "girls' beauty", but also possesses all the vulgarities of secular society. This young girl who was "open-minded and accommodating to the times" and was very popular among her servants was born in the Xue family of Jinling, one of the four major families, and was the daughter of a illustrious imperial merchant. Her mother was the sister of Mrs. Wang, who was in power in the Jia family and dominated Baoyu's marriage. It is precisely because of the marriage of the previous generation that the four major families have greater political and economic power of honor and disgrace. The image of Baochai did sometimes confuse Baoyu, an aristocratic son with a certain bad nature as a descendant of an aristocratic family, so Daiyu had to be wary of allergies. Lin Daiyu, a girl from Suzhou, was actually an orphan in the Jia family. She has almost nothing that secular society requires from a married partner, and she does not have any effective material power to fight against the third party. The only thing she has is the sincere heart of a girl, a heart that beats with Baoyu's heart. She loves Baoyu passionately, but she must bury this heart deeply in her identity as a boudoir lady. She needs to respect herself and never allow her identity as a lady to be damaged even a little bit. In this environment with different surnames, "you have to be careful every step of the way, be careful at all times, don't say one more word, don't take one more step, for fear of being laughed at", not to mention the kind of "fornication", "eloping", etc. It is absolutely not allowed in an ethical society. After all, she was still a lady from a well-known family with a family of poems and etiquette, and her upbringing made it impossible for her to have a bolder act of resistance. Therefore, what we see is such a contradictory and painful tragic character! But in the eyes of the secular people in Grand View Garden, she was aloof and self-centered, which was very detrimental to her.
In the seventh chapter, Zhou Rui’s family sends palace flowers. We see that she is the only one who wants to ask: "Is it just for me, or are there other girls?" She doesn't know that she got the last two flowers by accident, but she can't help but blame the flower sender: "I just know it! If others don't choose the leftovers, they won't give it to me!" This is Daiyu's character that we see in the overture.
Entering the eighth chapter, the conflict of love gradually unfolds. When Baochai first entered Jia's house, he was chatting with Baoyu and was bumped into by Daiyu. She happened to say: "I'm unlucky to be here." This is the first scene of Daiyu's love that we have seen in the work. It was revealed for the first time, and it was expressed in an inexplicable and suspicious form unique to her. She knew that in feudal society, marriages were often formed based on words such as "a good match". She already felt how much of a threat this girl wearing a golden lock posed to her when she entered the kingdom that seemed to her to be her own territory!
In the ninth chapter, Baoyu went to Daiyu to say goodbye when he entered school. Daiyu also asked: "Why don't you say goodbye to your sister Bao!" From the eighth chapter to the thirty-second chapter, We see that Bao and Dai's love is filled with so much endless trouble, anger and pain. After "The Poems in the Grand View Garden Matched Their Titles", Daiyu thought that the sachet she had made for Baoyu had been taken away by the servants, and she was very sad and angry, but she didn't know that Baoyu was hidden in her chest; again, due to Xiangyun's unintentional There was a saying in the film that Xiaodan, who sang in opera, looked like Sister Lin, but it caused a storm that vented her anger on Baoyu. ...
Love always carries the color of its class and era. In the era of "Dream of Red Mansions", with Daiyu's origin and upbringing, we cannot imagine that a woman like Liu Qiaoer today would proudly sing: "This time I will find my husband's family by myself." Cao Xueqin, the master of realism, always grasps this method of creating typical characters.
In Chapter 29, the author once gave us an explanation: "It turns out that Baoyu... has been rubbing hands with Daiyu since he was a child, and they were in the same mood. Now he knows a little bit about things and has read some evil books. It is rumored that none of the beautiful ladies seen in the homes of close friends from far away are as beautiful as Daiyu. Therefore, she has always had something on her mind that she cannot express, so she often turns to anger or joy and tries every means to test her secretly.
"Because you also hide your true feelings, and I also hide my true feelings, and only use falsehoods to test. In this way, "two falsehoods meet, and one truth will eventually come out." It is so trivial that there will be no quarrels.
The irrationality of feudal society and its marriage system is like this. The ruling class can allow the most obscene fornication and the most shameless sexual relations - like the scandals that happened inside and outside the Ning and Rong mansions. , but it does not allow the love of pure and reasonable young men and women like Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu to exist.
In these chapters, in addition to the description of Bao Dai’s love, we also see the characterization of their thoughts and characters. , we also see the gradual unfolding of Xue Baochai's character. It allows us to gradually understand the nature of this young girl who follows the times and is loved by everyone in the Grand View Garden. She has a behavior that is extremely inappropriate for her age. Philosophy: Don't speak when it's not your own business, shake your head when asked, and don't know. This girl who has never been fond of flower powder often takes a kind of "cold fragrance pill", and her rationality seems to have taken away what she deserves prematurely. Enthusiasm. She praised Xiren in her heart: "Don't be wrong about this girl, she has some insight when you listen to her words." She also "pay attention to the quality of her words, which is very admirable." "Jia Mu made a birthday celebration for her and asked her to order a play. This girl who kept saying "women always want to be chaste and quiet" actually ordered two lively plays such as "Journey to the West" and "Mountain Gate" in front of Jia Mu. She also He answered Jia Mu that what she likes to eat is sweet and rotten things. It turns out, "Baochai knew very well that Jia Mu in old age liked dramas and liked to eat sweet and rotten things, so she always told her what she liked." "Once again, Concubine Jia sent a lantern riddle from the palace. In Baochai's view, it was "nothing new", but "he rarely praised it, except that it was 'difficult to guess'. I deliberately thought about it, but I had already guessed it when I saw it. "In the preliminary display in this previous part, we saw that she was a person who was too precocious, lost the innocence of a girl too early, and the worldly philistine mentality penetrated into her soul too early. Because of this, she was deeply loved. From Jia Mu, Yuan Fei to Xi Ren and many other orthodox figures, Bao Dai's love develops in this kind of conflicting factors, and the haze gradually envelopes it. On their heads, various ominous omens seemed to have told people of its tragic ending: in addition to the theory of "a good marriage between gold and jade", another Taoist Zhang came to propose marriage to Baoyu: Qingxu Guan defeated Baoyu, but Baoyu got another marriage with him. The golden unicorn is like Shi Xiangyun. "Because the unicorn is hiding behind the white-headed twin stars," this strange look back, I wonder what twists and turns Cao Xueqin is going to tell us about this love story. Chapter 22 says, "Jia Mu saw Baochai coming. I wish her stability and peace." I wanted to give her a gift for her fifteenth birthday. People said: "Of course it is different from what I gave to Sister Lin in previous years." Also, the gift given to the sisters by the imperial concubine was only Baoyu. It’s the same as Baochai’s... Is this all a coincidence?
Chapter 32, “Telling the truth about Baoyu” is an extremely important chapter in writing about Baodai’s love. This chapter This chapter is a turning point. It tells us at least the following three points:
1. Through the conversations between Xi Ren and Shi Xiangyun, we know the essence of Xue Baochai’s thought and character, and the reason why Baoyu chose Daiyu. The fundamental reason for her dislike of Baochai.
2. Daiyu overheard the conversation between Xiren, Shi Xiangyun and Baoyu, and heard that Baoyu "praised me selfishly in front of others", and she finally let go. The burden of being "uneasy" in the past
3. Bao Dai confessed her heart to each other, but was caught by the attacker again, and was extremely shocked. She was "surprised, scared, anxious, and ashamed." , causing her to worry that "there will inevitably be something untalented in the future, which will be shocking and frightening, but how to deal with it to avoid this ugly disaster", which foreshadows her informing in front of Mrs. Wang and the precautions taken by her feudal parents. , Daguanyuan - a series of events that are not conducive to Bao Dai's love, such as the beating of Bao Wang, the inspection of Daguanyuan, the expulsion of Qingwen, Siqi, Fang Gong, etc.
Zhi Yanzhai. There is often a saying in the comments about the writing structure of "A Dream of Red Mansions": "The grass snake is as gray as a thread, and the pulse is thousands of miles away". That is to say, "A Dream of Red Mansions" often uses the writing method of one after another, sometimes hidden and sometimes revealed. The clues of development seem to be missing, but they are revealed in the distance. The description of Bao Dai's love is also like this sometimes.
The love tragedy of Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu is touching in "A Dream of Red Mansions". important event. How should we understand Baodai's love tragedy? It should be understood from the following aspects:
1. Baodai's love tragedy is the central story in "A Dream of Red Mansions".
It is the main thread throughout the book. The whole book takes this as the main line, and against the background of the rise and fall of the Jia family, it describes the occurrence, maturity and tragic ending of Bao Dai's love, and connects the misfortunes of many women and other clues, leading the description of love to a broad life, fully It reveals the subjective and objective factors that cause love tragedy, which makes the description of love rich in content.
2. Bao Dai’s love is a kind of love with a new color. On the one hand, this love inherits the anti-feudal tradition of the previous generation; on the other hand, it breaks through the love expressed by the writers of the previous generation and takes a big step forward. This is mainly reflected in the conflict between two ideas and two life paths through Jia Baoyu's choice of two love objects, Xue Baochai, who is perfect in "morality, speech, work, and appearance", and Lin Daiyu, who never persuades him to establish a career and become famous. , and thereby put forward a new concept of love, that is, love must be based on anti-feudalism as its content, congenial personality and consistent thinking.
Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu were not only anti-feudal in love, but also had rebellious thoughts on issues such as official career, imperial examinations, fame and wealth. In fact, Lin Daiyu deviated from the feminine ways of the feudal era in many ways. She spent all her energy on reading and writing poems that were not her duty as a daughter. She knew "The Romance of the West Chamber" which was considered an evil book at the time; more importantly, she knew it by heart; It was she who adopted a supportive attitude towards Jia Baoyu, who was the "scourge" of the feudal family. Not only did she never say "bastard words" to him about career and economics, but she also promised him life-long commitment. It is precisely because of their different rebelliousness that the two of them are drawn deeper into love; and love in turn leads them to a deeper path of rebellion. Xue Baochai is very beautiful, good-tempered, knowledgeable, and good at dealing with things. Although she also made Baoyu's heart fall in love, because the two people's thoughts and personalities were incompatible, one was a feudal rebel and the other was a feudal defender, so Jia Baoyu chose Lin Daiyu .
Through Bao Dai’s love, the author expresses the idea that only love based on anti-feudalism is a beautiful love. However, this kind of love is not tolerated by feudal society and feudal parents, which leads to A tragedy.
Although Xue Baochai got married, it was a marriage without a foundation of love, and the so-called "gold and jade marriage" was just a tragic ending. The love principles proposed by Cao Xueqin through Bao Dai have the content of democratic thoughts and are close to the modern view of love. This is not easy.
In addition, when Cao Xueqin dealt with this traditional love theme, he inherited and developed the anti-feudal tradition of love stories in novels and operas of the previous generation, but he also broke through the love at first sight in the past love descriptions, and the mature appearance of a talented man and a beautiful woman. Taozi, he clearly stated for the first time that love must be based on ideological unity. Cao Xueqin also broke the traditional idea and writing method of happy ending in love stories. He described the tragic ending of Bao Dai's love. This tragedy is shocking. The description of love in "A Dream of Red Mansions" is novel and highly thought-provoking.
3. Cao Xueqin wrote about the new characteristics of Baodai's love, as well as its complexity, and the historical limitations and class limitations of Baodai's love. Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu longed for love in their thoughts, and relied on their parents in their actions. In terms of love, they did not get rid of the spiritual burden of feudalism. This is more obvious in Lin Daiyu. Lin Daiyu is willing to become a life-and-death couple with Jia Baoyu. However, when Baoyu uses the words of "The Romance of the West Chamber" to express his love, Lin Daiyu regards this as demeaning and harmful to morality. thing. The two of them longed for free love in thought and a realistic marriage, but they were unable to break through the restrictions of feudal ethics in action. Their love is sincere and passionate, but they cannot and do not dare to express it directly. The painful and tortuous way they express love reflects their own ideological contradictions and reflects that they still have not got rid of the feudal concept of love. The shackles of etiquette. Jia Baoyu's love for Lin Daiyu was sincere and dedicated, but he had also been in love with Xue Baochai. He had an affair with Xiren, and he had the idea of ????polygamy for a good wife and a beautiful concubine. Therefore, the feudal class has a deep imprint on Baoyu in this regard.
Baoyu and Daiyu pursue free love, but they regard love as the most meaningful thing in life, and make love’s position in life absolute. They are distressed, bored, and sad about love all day long. , they regard each other as the main meaning of life, so once they lose the hope of love and marriage, they also lose the main meaning of life, so they feel that the value of life is limited.
Their views and feelings are inseparable from their wealthy class status, thoughts and feelings, so their love is full of pathos and sadness. Baodai's love reflects the limitations and weakness of class from content to sentiment, from actions to methods. Therefore, we say that their tragedy is inseparable from their own weakness.
4. Baodai’s love tragedy has profound and broad social content. Cao Xueqin does not write love tragedy in isolation, but reveals the social causes of love tragedy from different aspects, especially describing the decline of the Jia family, which is a typical environment for Baodai's love tragedy. The contradiction between "a good relationship between gold and jade" and "an alliance between wood and stone". It is the conflict between feudal power and free love. With the decline of the Jia family, the situation becomes increasingly unfavorable for Baodai. Although Jia Mu and others understand Baodai's tendency on love issues, they view this from the perspective of parents. One question. In their view, Baoyu was an unfilial son, and Daiyu's ideological style also violated feudal ethics and seemed weird. If they were allowed to get married, the consequences would be disastrous. We know that at that time, the Jia family was financially exhausted, and the conflicts within the family were becoming more and more acute. They were in urgent need of a capable head, and Xue Baochai was the ideal candidate. Not only does she follow feudal women's ethics ideologically and is a lady of feudal ethics, but she is also good at relationships and has the talent of a housekeeper. Only she can adapt to the needs of the Jia family and act as the mainstay to save the declining situation. Therefore, it is a common understanding and an inevitable trend for parents to choose Baochai for Baoyu. Under such a situation, Baodai's love must have a tragic ending. Mr. Wu Zuxiang said: "The author strives to 'tell the whole story' about this tragedy from the extremely complex and profound relationship and development of the characters' personalities and living environment."