Chinese literature response 2 - Essay Example

Novel is a literary form that got it self established firmly in Europe in 18th century. By then the middle became a strong segment of the society with increased leisure time. The leisurely middle class was attracted to this literary form and thus, the novel got established in Western literature. “The Story of The Stone”, the Chinese classic novel by Cao Xueqin, also belongs to the eighteenth century, and marvels any European novel in its treatment of love and emotions. This novel was written at a time, when China had no real communication with the west.

And still it turns out to be a psychological novel that can marvel any European novels of that time .The advantage of the novel in traditional Chinese literature was that, it only held a peripheral position in the literary system. Thus novelists could explore new themes with more freedom, from which the orthodox modes of writing shied away. “The story of the Stone” is a typical example of a novel exploring poetically the unorthodox themes, of romantic, passionate love and emotions in the Chinese classical literature.

In its opening itself the novel introduces the main theme of passionate love. It begins by telling the reader about a magical stone that can move by its own, change size and can even talk. It was cast off from the heavens by the Goddess Nu-Wa who was repairing the sky with stones. This particular stone was the only excess one left when she finished her work. The stone had magical qualities because it had been touched by a Goddess. The magical stone was distained to be incarnated into a human being.

As the stone waits for its future destiny, near a pond it falls in love with a flower. The theme of love is thus introduced at the very beginning of the novel. The stone gets incarnated as the minor noble man Jia Bao-yu of the influential Jia family, a cultured wealthy family in early Qing dynasty China. The flower gets incarnated as Lin Dai –yu who is related to the Jia family but is a commoner. The novel centers around these two teenagers, who though unaware of their heavenly origins, try to come to grips with the human destiny on earth through very ordinary daily events in their lives.

The caricature of Jin-Bao-yu is interesting and unique. He is the heir to the family. He is handsome, but very impertinent. The heir of the family should get very high education and pass the civil service examinations. But he is a spoilt boy, spoiled by his grand mother. While all boys of his age study, he spends time in the women’s quarters enjoying the idle pleasures like eating, making up, dressing up and gossiping. He enjoys playing games with his girl cousins, aunts, maids and actresses with his doting grandmother and mother as witness.

He grows up as a dreamy romantic Youngman always in love with more than one girl at a time. The caricature of this central character becomes unique in that, in spite of these idle pleasures around, Bao-yu keeps apart his deepest feelings for Dai-yu, the human incarnation of the flower the magical stone fell in love with. But the family considers her a mismatch to Bao –yu because she is orphaned, sickly and very whiny. The novelist portrays the unfolding of ironic but touching romantic love through these two sensitive and self conscious youngsters.

The novelist’s attitude not only towards Dai yu, but also towards other women in the novel can be called a sort of feminist one, though feminism was unheard of then. Male dominance and lineage was the dominant factor that decided the structure of the society during the time depicted in the novel. But that never excluded strong women characters in the then society and hence in the novel too. In the very beginning of the novel the novelist indicates that the story of the magical stone is that of a “number of females”.

Later Bao-yu the major male character of the novel says that women are like pure water and hence he is comfortable more with them. Men he says are unclean and mud like. There are very strong women characters in the novel one of whom is Wang Xi-feng. She is a young woman in her twenties, but strong and efficient enough to manage the affairs of Ning and Rong branches of the Jia family living in two mansions on opposite sides of Two Dukes Street. Bao-yu’s soul mate Dai-yu, two servants Aroma and Caltrop are other strong women characters in the novel.

The narrative consistently tells about the efficiency, power and influence of the women in the society The novel introduces the reader to the Chinese culture and literature in an entertaining manner. It integrates the various shades of the Chinese culture, including its rich folk wisdom, mythology, poetry and drama. Thus the historical China is made accessible to the twenty first century reader by this novel. The language of the novel is often very poetic. Here is an example from chapter 36: Boa-yu reveals his idea of glorious death like this:”Now if I were fortunate, I would die now, while you (the girls) are all around me; then your tears could combine to make a great river that my corpse could float away on, far, far away to some remote place that no bird has ever flown to, and gently decompose with the wind….

” The novel is poetically romantic. To quote Halver Eifring : “ To an astonishing degree, it ( The Story of the Stone )is concerned with love and emotions as a complex psychological theme , not just a subject of entertainment or a focus of moral concern…….It is a psychological novel built around a core of conflicting inner impulses .” (Love and Emotions in Traditional Chinese Literature, PP272). “The Story of the Stone” is a novel of hope. It tells us that “love is of source unknown, yet it grows ever deeper.

The living may die of it, by its power the dead live again.” ===================Sources cited:1) Eifring Halvor, Love and Emotions in Traditional Chinese Literature, BRILL, 2004.