The Story of the Stone Dream of the Red Chamber – Viewing Guide

About the novel

Also called: The Dream of the Red Chamber
Written: 1740s–1764
Author: Cao Xueqin
Length: 120 chapters, which is 5 volumes in English (getting through Chapter 6 gives you a sense of the whole)

Significance [2:44]

It is the most celebrated work of fiction in the Chinese language
The story had a big impact on Chinese culture and people read the book hundreds of times; there is even a study of the novel called “Hongxue”
There are numerous plays, TV miniseries, and comic books written about or adapted from it
You can get meals based on the novel
There is a theme park based on the family home

How to read it [5:17]

It is written on two levels
- A metaphysical story
- A detailed story of a wealthy Qing dynasty family in the mid-1800s
One of the confusing and yet fascinating parts of the novel is this abstraction where the novel comments about itself as a novel

Two stories

One level: A magical story of a stone, a piece of jade, which is reincarnated to experience life as a human (as the boy Baoyu, meaning “Precious Jade”.) The stone finally realizes at the end that a life of human relationships or ties is meaningless.

Second level: It is a detailed portrait of a family in the 1700s toward the end of the Qing dynasty, in the capital city of Beijing, and about the decline of a wealthy family [6:33]

It is also a love story, a love triangle between three characters who are cousins

Baoyu (Precious Jade, the reincarnated stone), the male protagonist
The girl cousin, Daiyu
The girl cousin, Baochai

The first part of the novel is more philosophical and abstract (but a bit confusing)

The second part of the novel is the story of the interaction of the cousins (similar to a Jane Austen book)

Characters in the story

Baoyu – the reincarnated stone; a sensitive boy, the grandmother’s favorite and heir
Daiyu – a girl cousin, thin-skinned and self-destructive
Baochai – a girl cousin, even-tempered
Over 300 relatives
Slave attendants

Themes

Interior lives [9:10]

The novel describes the friction people experience within social norms, such as the status of women
The different lives of people from different families (or “jias” in Chinese)
The novel also explores the difference between what people say and what they do on one hand, and what they are thinking

Women’s status [9:40]

The novel explores the plight of girls sold into marriage, and the psychological impact of that experience; the fears accompanying it
This is the first work of Chinese literature to discuss this phenomenon and feelings, especially the feelings of a slave girl [10:30]

Historical Background: Who were the Manchus? [11:33]

In the mid-1600s the Manchus, a northeastern tribe, conquered the Ming dynasty and took over China
To rule China, they called themselves the “Qing” dynasty, and relied on Han Chinese people to teach them how to administer and govern the country
The Han were the majority of the population; the previous Ming dynasty emperors were Han

Nationalism

When this novel was written the idea of a nation, like China, did not exist
The powerful ruling Manchus were only 2% of the country, a small minority of the population [12:20]
They ruled over the 98% who were Han Chinese
There was a lot of tension between the two groups
The book never mentions if the characters are Manchus or not

Ruling power [13:25]

The idea of a ruler was someone who communicated with the cosmos on behalf of all people, appointed, and who ruled all under Heaven
A being above all, whether Han or Manchu

Complete, Total, Absolute

The idea of “completion” or entirety is important in the novel
There were many projects in the Qing dynasty to “complete”: a set of maps, a body of literature, etc. [14:19]
There is also no reference to the everyday, real world, just the cosmological world, or the multiverse [14:32]

Speculative Fiction, or Self-Conscious Novels, or Fantasy Fiction [14:52]

The novel is in part a fantasy, also known as “speculative fiction”
In the abstract part of the story, the stone returns from a journey to Greensickness Peak, and shows an inscription carved on its side to a monk who is called “Vanitas”
That inscription is, in fact, the story of the stone read by Vanitas [14:53]
There are many versions of the novel and many different names
There is much discussion of what the novel is, how it came into being, and what its name is – this fascinates readers

Authorship [19:40]

It took 200 years for an author to be associated with the novel; it was anonymous in pre-modern China; in the 20th century the author’s name finally became known

Word play

The author’s last name is Cao
The novel’s family’s last name is Jia and the writing of Cao and Jia is similar in Chinese characters
The word “jia” is also a homophone (sounds the same as another word but is not written the same) for “false” and that pun about false things works throughout the novel [20:43]

Manchu identity

The author’s ancestor was Han, not Manchu, but worked for the imperial household as a slave
Another ancestor of the author was captured by and made a slave by the Manchus
The author’s great-grandmother was a wet nurse to the Qing dynasty Kangxi emperor, who reigned from 1662–1722
The emperor treated her and the author’s grandfather well
After Emperor Kangxi died, the Cao family had their wealth confiscated
They were forced to leave their house and lived quite poorly, although they still seemed like wealthy privileged people [21:52]

Readership

The novel was written by hand at first and was therefore not available to the masses or general public [23:46]
It was passed around among friends and colleagues
Many handwritten editions exist but all are incomplete fragments of the full story
After 50 years the novel was finally professionally published [24:20]