Again like Shakespeare’s work, despite or because of its greatness, no other writing in Chinese literary history has sparked such endless arguments among scholars on the authenticity of its author ship. However, it is now widely accepted that the first 80 chapters of the 120 that comprise the novel are the autobiographical-based work of Tsao Hsueh-chin (1724?-1764).
Tsao was the scion of a wealthy family, whose founder was superintendent of the Imperial Silk Industry in Nanking, an extremely lucrative post held by Tsao family members from 1663-1728. The author’s grandfather, Tsao Yin (a poet, playwright and collector of rare books, inherited the office, but in spite of his large income, left behind enormous debts on his death in 1712. The Emperor, himself, appointed Tsao Yin’s son to the Nanking silk post, and he also named Tsao’s brother-in-law to be Commissioner of the Salt Monopoly at Yangcho, to enable the family to discharge its debts. Tsao Yin’s son, however, died three years later. The author’s father, Tsao Fu, was then made heir by a posthumous adoption process specifically to assure family inheritance of the position. But in 1728, the family moved to Peking, living there in greatly reduced circumstances. The family’s sudden fall is a mystery, but is possibly due to its manipulation for strictly cosmetic purposes by powerful forces raiding silk industry profit.
Dream of the Red Chamber is regarded as having been written in Peking during this period by an embittered Tsao Hsueh Chin, whose adult life was lived in poverty, far from the remembered luxury of his youth. The novel remained unpublished for nearly thirty years after its author’s death.
Actually, the novel we read today was never completed by Tsao Hsuen-chin, who is credited with only eighty chapters; a supplemental forty chapters are attributed to Kao Eh by the preponderancy of scholar-authorities on the Dream of the Red Chamber.
The story begins by recounting curious myths concerning the origins of Jia Pao-yu (a name meaning Precious Jade of the Jia Family), the protagonist of the novel and shadow of the author.
The Goddess Nu Wa used, altogether, thirty-six thousand and five hundred stone blocks to repair the sky. But one block, so destined, was cast aside at the foot of Chingkengfeng (Greensickness peak) on the Incredible Crags of the Great Fable Mountains. It lay there in sorrow and lamentation for its solitary unworthiness.
However, through “self cultivation,” the block came to possess magical powers-capabilities of moving about and changing size at will. One day, while it was sighing with grief, the block witnessed a monk and a Taoist approaching from the distance. The monk, seeing the block in the shape of a pendant fan, smiled and addressed it, “ ...I shall have to cut words on you so that anyone seeing you will know at once that you are extraordinary. After that I shall take you on a little trip to a certain brilliant, successful, poetical, cultivated, aristocratic, elegant, delectable, luxurious, opulent locality.”*
Thus, the block was brought to Red Dust (the mortal world) where it was reincarnated at Rongkuofu (the family residence of the Duke of Rongkuo).
Pao-yu was the reincarnation of the block, born to the Jia family in Nanking. On his birth, the family found in his mouth a sparkling, crystal-clear, tinted-jade carving with inscriptions on it.
One day when he was ten, Pao-yu surprised his family and relatives by pronouncing, “Girls are made of water and boys of mud. When I am with girls I feel fresh and clean. However, boys make me feel stupid and nasty.” It was a prophecy.
We have but indicated the complications of Chapter 1; the rest of the story unfolds in continuing complexity, centering around Pao-yu and the Twelve Golden Girls (including Wang Hsi-feng, Shih Hsiang-yun, Miao Yu, Li Wan, Lin Dai-yu, Chin Ko-chin, Jia Yuan-chun, Jia Chiao-chieh, Jia Ying-chun, Jia Hsi-chun, Jia Tan-chun, and Hsueh Pao-chai) —and Grandmother Jia (the matriarch) and various servants. The action focus is on events at Rongkuo House and the Prospect Gardens the latter a result of the combination of Rongkuo House and the adjacent Ningkuo House.
The Prospect Gardens were created for Pao-yu’s sister, Yuan-chun, who was chosen by the Ching Emperor to be an Imperial Concubine. The splendor of these gardens is described in Chapter 18 of Red Chamber:
Painted phoenixes and coiling dragons flapped and fluttered on the drapes and curtains. The gold and silver gleamed and glinted, and jewels and gems made a fiery sparkle, while subtle incenses smoldered in brazen censers, and “everlasting flowers blossomed in China vases...”*
When Pao-yu’s sister, now Imperial Concubine, saw the gardens from her palanquin, she sighed, “Oh, this is tremendously extravagant!” But what affected her most deeply was still to come—the scene as she stepped out onto a waiting pleasure barge:
Lanterns of crystal and glass, fixed to balustrades lining the banks, casting a silvery radiance over the white marble in the semi-darkness, gave it the appearance of drifts of gleaming snow ... to these visual delights were added many charming miniature gardens on the barge itself—not to mention its pearl blinds, embroidered curtains, and carved and painted oars....*
The world of the Red Chamber is, thus, also the world of the Prospect Gardens, a collection of sights that are either the highest or the lowest, the most refined or the most unrefined....
The novel creates two worlds in sharp contrast, one the world of the Prospect Gardens, the other, the real world outside. Tsao Hsueh-chin used symbolic phraseology to identify for his readers the distinct worlds—for instance, such adjectives as “clear” and “turbid,” “affectionate” and “lascivious,” “real” and “unreal,” and even the “right side” and “wrong side” of “A Mirror for Romantics”.
Although Prospect Gardens was built for the Imperial concubine, actually, she herself wanted the female inhabitants of the two houses, especially the young girls, to enjoy there a life free of worldly worries. She was lonely in the Emperor’s palace, that alone depriving her of the happiness such a life might bring.
The gardens were a paradise that separated the Twelve Golden Girls from the consequences of puberty—from the outside world. There, maintaining in chastity an idyllic life filled with poetic conversation, they distanced themselves from the fact that they were on their way to the marriage market.
In other situations, young girls happily accept the challenges and enticements of marriage. These girls, under an obsession of love, deeply worried about their future. Accordingly, they hoped that this stage of innocence might extend forever. Afraid of entering the domain of worldly experience, they sheltered in their fortress-paradise.
Through detailed descriptions of daily occurrences and meaningful situations in the Gardens, the story glides smoothly forward, effortlessly as the barge on the water, marked by the occasional meaningful day-a birthday, festival, or other ritual occasion, unfolded in minute, elegant, and lively ways.
Dream of the Red Chamber radiates a showing of youthful literary attainment, conversations filled with poetic wit and real humor. And such conversational gatherings assert a stable quality in the novel’s unfolding. Not only the unmarried girls, but older, married women radiate happiness in this ambience. However, some scholars hold that this female merriment is “assumed,” that it is only a manifestation of childlike humor, riddle solving, games, and meaningless talk—as if only through such activities, they could break away from adult responsibilities and the accompanying turmoil in feelings.
No matter how joyous the gatherings in the gardens might be, the fragrance of sadness always permeates the descriptions.
Jia-cheng (Pao-Yu’s father), the only upright scholar in the Jia clan at this time, was a lonely man. At the beginning of the story, his oldest son had died, and he naturally pinned all his hope on the remaining son, Pao-yu. He wanted him to study hard for the official examinations, a preparatory step for the journey to cabinet rank. However, Pao-yu, spoiled by his grandmother (the matriarch), his mother, and other female relatives, detested traditional learning. He was most fond of a playful way of life amid his female cousins and the young maids.
In the latter stage of his childhood, Pao-yu is taken with a very beautiful female cousin, Dai-yu:
In stillness she made one think
of a graceful flower
Reflected in the water;
In motion she called to mind
tender willow shoots
Caressed by the wind.*
And in the eyes of Dai-yu, Pao-yu:
...had a face like. the moon...a shapely nose, and eyes clear as limpid pools, that even in anger seemed to smile...*
Several years pass, and another pretty cousin of Pao-yu’s comes to join the Jia clan. Although Pao-yu has sworn again and again that his love for Dai-yu will last until the seas dry and stones rot, Dai-yu still takes the new arrival as her rival. She worries, and her constant lamentations end in her deteriorated health. When her rival is finally selected to be Pao-yu’s wife, Dai-yu, broken-hearted, dies on the night of their wedding.
The marriage is forever flawed by Dai-yu’s death. Pao-yu, severely affected, becomes ill. Later on, he recovers his health and becomes a chujen (a successful candidate in the provincial examination). But that is followed by his desertion of his family and alienation from the world-he becomes a monk.
Since its acquisition of magical powers, the celestial stone had become Pao-yu, then fallen into the wash of the mortal world and experienced separation and transformation in the Red Dust. Now it returns, at last, to the foot of Mt. Greensickness among the Incredible Crags of the Great Fable Mountains-having completed its search for eternity and the loftiest “way.”
The author, after revealing the symbolic world of the Red Chamber, turns his head and casts his glance at those in the real world, smiling a sad and merciful smile, “Our most poignant memories, recalled, only reveal our follies to be the more deplorable. Now that we have all dreamed the same dream, you should no longer laugh at the unreasoning passions of other mortals.”
Dream of the Red Chamber is a recording of mankind’s seeking after eternity. It points to the inevitability of facing life—of man’s being man.
A revealing distinction between Dream of the Red Chamber and other early Ching novels is the former’s sad ending. Hu Shih (1891-1962), the educator and philosopher who pioneered the literary movement which made the vernacular the dominating medium of modern Chinese literature, commented:
Although the last forty chapters by Kao Eh can not compare with the initial eighty chapters by Tsao Hsueh-chin, they still hold areas worthy of praise. Ssu-chi’s and Yuan-yang’s deaths, Miao Yu’s being taken captive, Hsi-jen’s getting married-all are depicted in brilliant and exquisite passages.... Moreover, Kao Eh lets Dai-yu die from illness, and Pao-yu abandon his home and become a monk. He turns the story toward a sad final, breaking free of the traditional Chinese happy ending....
(Freely adapted quotations from David Hawkes’ The Story of the Stone, a translated version of Dream of the Red Chamber)