Dream of the Red Chamber – Tragic fates in the midst of decline

Lin Daiyu and Jia Baoyu in Dream of the Red Chamber (1987)

The work was composed by Cao Xueqin during the mid-18th century when The feudal dynasty began to rot and came to an end. The first 80 chapters were written by Cao Tuyet Can, the next 40 chapters were written by Cao Ngac.

During the reign of Yongzheng Qianlong (1723 – 1795) China’s capitalist economic development has begun to appear while the feudal system is on the verge of disintegration. From that social situation, the urban class was born with new cultural aesthetic needs. Dream of the Red Chamber is a focus on the spiritual life of urban people, expressing the spirit of democracy, criticizing the corrupt feudal society, criticizing religion. The old-fashioned thing calls for freedom of love and freedom of marriage, liberation of individuality, desire for equality, living with personal ideals…

Lady Lam Dai Ngoc

Cao Tuyet Can was originally from a great aristocratic family and worked as a tax collector in Giang Ninh. Five times King Kangxi toured Jiangnan, four times he stayed at Cao’s palace. Life in the palace was extremely luxurious and royal.

The Cao family had a literary and poetic tradition with many ancestors being famous artists. But during the reign of Cao Tuyet Can, the family’s period of prosperity and splendor came to an end. Father Cao Tuyet Can was convicted of a crime and was imprisoned and had his assets confiscated. Cao Xueqin and other family members lived bitter days in poverty.

Jia Bao Ngoc

The last ten years of his life he devoted all his mental energy to writing the masterpiece Dream of the Red Chamber< /span> classic works of Chinese literature. He wrote that when he was in poverty and had no money to buy medicine, his child died. When he died the work was unfinished and unpublished. Twenty-eight years later Cao Ngac relied on his manuscript to complete the last 40 chapters.

The plot is based on the true story of the former Cao family, which is the author’s major narrative work. The audience both expressed regret for a golden age and reflected the nature of contemporary Chinese feudal society. Cao Tuyet Can wrote Dream of the Red Chamber to express and relieve the “indignation” in his heart. He put all his energy and enthusiasm at the end of his life into Dream of the Red Chamber.

Dream of the Red Chamber is a realistic picture of Chinese feudal society on the road to decline. The dignified and orderly appearance cannot hide the rotten reality of the upper class in the fake palace. The opulent and lustful life of the exploiting class with cruel relationships between people made the Gia palace like a shipwreck that could not be saved. It is also a miniature image of Chinese society during the Qing Dynasty. Cao Xueqin was a realistic writer who criticized him for signaling the sunset of Chinese feudalism. With the perspective of a writer with a democratic spirit, he saw new people with anti-traditional ideas. Jia Bao Ngoc Lam Dai Ngoc are “disloyal” children, young men who live “against the flow”, they oppose the concept of favoring men and disliking women, they hate academic examinations and fame, they only pursue a free life without being bound by rules. tie. They love each other because of that rebellious thought. It is a silent struggle between the new and the old between early democratic ideology and entrenched feudal ideology.

< figure class="image">Tiet Bao Thoa

Tiet Bao Thoa

Dream of the Red Chamber has two comparable worlds: “dream world” and “real world”, specifically the world inside and outside Dai Quan Vien. Cao Tuyet Can uses many pairs of opposite words to express the difference between the two worlds: “clean” and “bare” “love” and “lust” “truth” and “false” the left and right sides of “feng moon” Bao Giam”. Dai Quan Vien is a surreal ideal world, a garden of paradise that the Cao family built in their imagination.

Dai Quan Vien is the garden that the Jia family built for 12 noble ladies. The beauty of the house they live in is isolated from the outside world in the hope that they will stay there and live their carefree days without being tainted with the filth of a black and silver life and without being harmed. A group of aristocratic men with bad habits were watching. The Cao family wants them to stay young forever in Dai Quan Vien and not be married off anywhere.

The ideal world of Dai Guanyuan of 12 young women and men Bao Ngoc

Dai Quan Vien is the ideal world of Dream of the Red Chamber in the heart mosaic of Jia Bao Ngoc and the 12 young women, this is the only world that makes sense. For them, the world outside Dai Quan Vien is considered non-existent, if it exists, it is only full of negative and evil things. Because outside the Great Officer (referring to Phuong Vien Association) there are only dirty and depraved life habits.

In the work Jia Xa can be considered one of the dirtiest people in the world. next to Jia Tran Jia Lien Tuyet Ban… Jia Xa forced her to marry the maid Uyen Uong as a concubine, forcing her to hang herself because she could not accept having to marry a prostitute as her husband. Tap Nhan condemned Jia Xa: “The big man is too excited. If you had a clean face, he wouldn’t have forgiven you.” Jia Lien’s lustful scenes are often depicted in films, showing the inherent lustful nature of people who live leisurely on oppression and exploitation. Their empty lives make them day and night only think about fighting, deceiving, deceiving, committing suicide, committing crimes… A few honest faces appear, most of them belong to the lower class like old Liu Tap Nhan.. Therefore, the Gia family’s palace could not escape its inevitable collapse. This is a rich metaphor for the feudal society of the late Qing Dynasty, which had reached its end and was about to reach its final conclusion.

Pure and pure Love at Dai Quan Vien

Typical is the character of nun Dieu Ngoc, one of the most pure women. number one in the ideal world of Dai Quan Vien, but after that world was broken, she was the one who wandered into the most filthy place of the real world.

Dream of the Red Chamber describes the process of formation, development and eventual collapse of the ideal world of Dai Quan Vien. That ideal world from the beginning was inseparable from the real world: Dai Quan Vien, pure and fruity, was originally built on the dirty foundation of Hoi Phuong Vien. During the process of 12 young women cultivating and developing their pure fruit garden, they were constantly stalked and destroyed by dirty hands from outside. Purity that grows out of impurity must eventually fall in the midst of impurity. That is the central meaning of the tragedy Dream of the Red Chamber. That is the impasse of young people who yearn for a new ideal of life but in the end have to be overcome because they are in the darkness of the decline of the old day and cannot stand in the morning light of the new day. The tragic element of history overshadows the tragedy of the lives of all the characters.
 
The novel was made into a movie right after the film’s release Dream of the Red Chamber has resonated throughout China and many Asian countries including Vietnam. 
 
Ho Bich Ngoc
< /span>According to Cultural China