Story of the Stone - Essay Example

 Story of the Stone The story of the stone is one of the greatest Chinese novels. The novel contains over hundred of characters and events. Jia BaoYu is one of the main characters who gives the deepest impression for readers. He was born with a piece of brilliant jade in his mouth, the only valued male heir in Jia’s family. The formation of his rebellious character was not accidental; his living environment in all aspects reveals the reasons for the growth of his character. If there’s “Prenatal” to say, Baoyu was attracted by the charm of women when he was in his mother’s stomach, that would not be wrong. Until he was born, various female nurses and maids were surrounding him and accompanied him day and night by holding him which made him indulged in beautiful women from that time. He smells the aroma of women’s powder and hears the soft words from women’s mouth. The lack of male heir in Jia’s family gave him no impression of male when he was young. The only male model in his mind was his father Jia Zheng, but “he has been mad keen on study ever since he was a lad. He is a very upright sort of person, straight as a die.” (Ch.2 75). As compared to most women’s softness and consideration, Jia Zheng was more of a scary and esteemed father in Baoyu’s mind; it differentiated the definition of male and female in his point of view since his childhood. “Girls are made of water and boys are made of mud. When I am with girls I feel fresh and clean.” (Ch2 76). Baoyu gets more attracted towards female aspect. The older female cousin and maid is such his mentor instead of his father. He was not surrounded by Confucian books or ethic poetry but girls’ cosmetics and rouge pot. “When they celebrate the First Twelve month of Baoyu and Sir Zheng tested his disposition by putting a lot of objects in from of him and seeing which he would take hold of, he stretched out his little hand and started playing with some women’s things…” (Ch.2 76). Baoyu’s preschool education was not successful in the “female world” which made him not interested into studying but more into the female loves. Later on during Baoyu’s teenage period, his parents assigned few female maids to serve him from morning to the night. From his childhood to teenage period, he has not lived without those female maids and cousins who were always around him. With his getting older, the pure admiration of girls changed into love feelings. He was not interested in honor or official reputation but more sensitive into the affairs between his maids. The author devoted a whole chapter by explaining one of Baoyu’s dreams. Baoyu was led by the Goddess of Disenchantment to the illusory land, where he was shown a book of record and destiny of the girls of his family. The Goddess taught him the difference between lust of mind and lust of body by addressing him to have sex with “ke qing” in his dream. “I have admonished you with fairy songs. And now I am going to give you my little sister Two-in-one- ‘Ke-qing’ to her friends to be your bride” (Ch.5 146). The ancestor was trying to enlighten Baoyu about the love affairs between men and women and further informed that they were just like that. Most of men in the world were indulged into lust of body but Baoyu should not devote himself to that. On the other hand, as a Confucian, Baoyu should commit himself more into studying and becoming an official. Since the female was the dominate leader in the family, most females were more intelligent than males. There was not any role model from the male cousin whose hard working could help Baoyu to be enlightened. The Goddess told him that “It is my earnest hope that, knowing this you will henceforth be able to shake yourself free of its entanglements and change your previous way of thinking, devoting your mind seriously to the teachings of Confucius and Mencius…”(Ch.5 146) In fact, Baoyu was not enlightened by the dream at all. He shared the dream with his favored maid Aroma and persuaded her to try the “Art of love” which was to have sex with him. The living environment negatively affected Baoyu’s mentality. In the feudal society, maid had to obey the master; even Aroma felt that it was not right to do such thing with Baoyu since he was young but she was still restricted to satisfy her master. Baoyu had long been attracted by Aroma’s charms and it became the motivation for him to try out the lust of body and he totally forgot the enlightenment of studying in Confucian. Moreover, Aroma was not the only female who distracted him in the household. The most ironic thing was that Baoyu only gets back to reading when he gets mad of girls. One day he was reading “Zhuang-zi”, instead of getting enlightenment, he instantly connect the passage to the female cousins “If Baochai’s heavenly beauty is discarded there will be no further grounds for tender admiration; and if Dai-yu’s divine intelligence is destroyed there will be no further cause for romantic imaginings…” (Ch21, 421). Basically he was saying that he would not be distracted by the girls if they were not intelligent and beautiful. Since most of them were too pretty and smart he could not get rid of them in his mind, but he never realized that he should clean up his mind in order to concentrate on studying and take on the responsibilities for his family. Grandmother Jia treated Baoyu as a treasure. Baoyu’s seemed to her to be the smartest and the best looking male heir in the family. Grandmother Jia was ridiculously spoiling him and kept him away from studying. Whenever Jia Zheng pressurized Baoyu for studying, Grandmother Jia would always intercede his father’s pressurizing and emphasized on not to stress Baoyu too much. Overly pampered and spoiled behavior resulted in his laziness. He rarely went to school and hated to read Cofucian books. He found more interest in the forbidden books. It revealed that Baoyu was not the right male heir who had the capability to bring good reputation for the family. Everybody in the household always covered up for Baoyu for his mistakes. As a male heir in the family, he should be tougher and always learn from his mistakes. In Ch. 73, Jia Zheng decided that he would test Pao-yu's scholarship; one of the maids ran to Baoyu and told him to get ready, Baoyu naturally became very nervous. He decided to stay up for a whole night for studying, but he could not concentrate as usual. Later on, one of the maids dashed in and said that someone had just "jumped down from the top of the wall." It scared everybody in the room. Skybright thought Baoyu was too struggling for study as she said, “Why don’t you take advantage of this to get off tomorrow? Tell them that the shock has made you ill.”(Ch 73 438). Baoyu pretended to fall ill from shock, and thus he avoided being tested by his father. This incident made everybody very on-edge. The excuse Skybright asked Baoyu to pretend was ridiculous. Baoyu had no ability to distinguish between right and wrong, he had no capability of facing any stress. Baoyu’s character was strongly influenced by the female heirs in the family instead of male heirs and this influenced his personality development to a greater extent. According to Baoyu’s perceptions, females are superior as compared to males as they are pure at heart. He is not only attracted towards females because of their superiority in terms of intelligence but he is also influenced towards them sexually and he had a number of sexual affairs with his maids indicating his extensive interest in females. Along with maids, Baoyu also had affairs with other females of the novel such as Lin Daiyu, Xue Baochai, Jia Yuanchun, Jia, Tanchun, Shi Xiangyun and many others. Grandmother Jia being the matriarch of the Jia family left a strong influence on the development of Baoyu’s personality. He develops a character that is not like other male members of his family because of involvement of female figures around him. The protagonist of the novel, Baoyu is not a foolish or dull character. He has his own personality and he is also intelligent but his interests are different as compared to his father. The female influence in his personality development has made him a character that is against the norms of male society due to which, he can be characterized as a rebellious figure in Jia family. Works Cited Xueqin, Cao and Gao E. The Story of the Stone. John Minford (Translator). New York: Penguin Classics, 1982. Read More