An Introduction to Dream of the Red Chamber
by Ai-jen Wann

 I. Its Circulation and Translations

Dream of the Red Chamber, also known as The Story of the Stone, is China's greatest novel. The novel, although first printed in 1791 in Qing Dynasty, was circulated in manuscript form since 1754 according to the earliest extant version.

Between 1754 and 1791, more than ten different versions of manuscripts were kept and read by a limited number of readers, and all of these versions either contain 80 or less than 80 chapters in incomplete form. A growing interest in the novel had finally reached its climax when a publisher Cheng Weiyuan printed the first complete version with 120 chapters, in which he wrote a preface to claim that he, by chance, found a fragmentary original ending containing the last 40 chapters and asked a scholar Gao E to edit it. An unprecedented success made its second version come out within 70 days, and more revised "complete versions" rushed into the market one after another in the following several decades.

The novel's popularity in early 19th century soon challenged the traditional Chinese concepts about ethics and morals, and thus stimulated many controversies and fears among Qing officials for its explicit and vivid description of love and sex. Reports of young women's suicide, motivated to their regrets for not being able to find a man who could treat them as tender and sweet as the hero of the novel, also shocked the then closed and conservative Chinese society. The Qing government decided to ban its circulation several times since mid-19th century. Many copies were burnt, and some offset printing plates of the novel were destroyed. But this did not stop the novel from circulating, and it found a way to reach readers under another title: A Romance between Gold and Jade.

Soon after the downfall of Qing in 1911, Dream of the Red Chamber not only became the most popular novel in China, but was also claimed as the greatest Chinese novel by numerous outstanding Chinese scholars. The research focused mainly on its versions, authorship and interpretations created a new term "REDOLOGY" (Hong Xue). The most significant breakthrough of all is generally credited to Hu Shi for his convincing findings of the identity of the author Cao Xueqin, who wrote the first 80 chapters, and Gao E is considered to have written the last 40 chapters.

Western scholars began to join the effort of researching "REDOLOGY" since 1950s, in addition to some abridged translations which were printed since the turn of this century. From 1973-1982, David Hawkes, an Oxford sinologist, and John Minford published a complete English translation, which is hailed as a classic of translation by many critics. The novel now has been translated into 17 different languages either in abridged version, such as German, Italian, Greek, Hungarian, or in complete version, such as Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish and Russian.

II. Its Story

Long ago, when the goddess Nuwa uses her magical powers to repair the vault of heaven, she leaves a stone unused. The stone feels unworthy and shameful of being rejected, and leads a lonely, dull life since he is left behind in a mountain. With a strong admiration of the human world, the Stone is taken down into the Jia family, a very wealthy and powerful family in Nanjing, after being transformed into a piece of precious jade by a Buddhist monk and a Daoist priest.

At the same time, in the Land of Illusion in the celestial World, a male attendant wishes to experience a more colorful life in the human world. A flower fairy wants to go with him to repay him with her tears, because she attained her divinity through being watered everyday with the celestial sweet dews by the attendant. The attendant is reincarnated as Jia Baoyu, the hero of the novel who is the heir of the Jia family. The flower fairy is reincarnated as Lin Daiyu, the heroine of the novel whose mother is a sister of Jia Baoyu's father. Baoyu is born with a piece of precious jade, the Stone's transformation, in his mouth, so he is named Baoyu which means "precious jade." In addition to them, there are other amorous young souls in the Land of Illusion possessing a great illusion of human life, so the Goddess of Disenchantment sends them down into the human world, and each reincarnation has a certain connection with the Jia family.

Many years later, when the Stone finishes his journey in the human world he returns to the same mountain. One day, the other Daoist priest called Vanitas passes below the mountain, catching sight of a large stone on which a long inscription about the Stone's journey is recorded. After reading it twice, he changes his name into Monk Amor, a Buddhist monk name, and then copies it all out and takes it back to the human world to look for a publisher.

What is recorded on the Stone is a complex story containing approximately 1000 characters according to various versions. There are three most important characters, Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai, another girl-cousin who has a golden locket, given by a Buddhist monk, that matches Baoyu's jade. Baochai's locket and Baoyu's jade are thought to indicate a bond of an ideal marriage. Although the love and understanding between Baoyu and Daiyu are very deep, Daiyu's poor health, hyper-sensitiveness, and as an orphan living dependently on the Jia family all make her a worse candidate than Baochai. Baochai is very well liked and respected by the Jia family for her thoughtfulness and good deeds. The triangular relationship between them is meant to provide a path for Baoyu's personal enlightenment freeing him from human desires.

Another important main theme of the novel is the decline of the Jia family fortunes. The novel is also frequently viewed as a chronicle of the rise and fall of the Jia family, which many scholars believe to be based on the author's own life. However, the dramatic disgrace that the Jia family suffers in the later part of the novel is the result of incessant abuse of power and dereliction of duty caused by some family members, which also plays a decisive role for Baoyu's enlightenment according to some hints given in the early part of the novel.

Many clues are provided and hidden in the first 80 chapters for the development of important plots. But since the author did not finish the novel, or perhaps the original last 40 chapters are lost, the ending designed by the other author offers a very bitter one about the triangular relationship between these cousins. Baoyu is led to believe that he is going to marry Daiyu, but acturally he is tricked by his grandmother, mother, and sister-in-law into marrying Baochai. Daiyu hears this information from a foolish maid while the wedding is secretly being performed. Her poor hearlth suddenly deteriorates, and finally she pays off her debts with all her tears suffering a tragic, lonely death.

After marrying Baochai, Baoyu enters a new life of fulfilling his Confucian family obligations: treating his wife with respect, producing a son, and passing the civil entrance examinations. After passing his examinations, Baoyu disappears without trace from the streets. Several days later on a snowy day he reappears in his father's boat as a Buddhist monk, with shaven head and bare feet, wrapped in a large cape made of crimson felt. He completes his "earthly karma" by bowing four times to his father, and then strides off into the snow with a Buddhist monk and a Daoist priest.

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30 Nov. 2000