A young nun from Buddhist cloisters of the Rong-guo house. Although beautiful and learned, she is aloof, haughty, unsociable, and has an obsession with cleanliness. The novel says she was compelled by her illness to become a nun, and shelters herself under the nunnery to dodge political affairs. Her fate is not known after her abduction by bandits. The peasants begin to sing a work song from the Book of Odes, indicating that they require the Prince to destroy his ancestor's remains in the Pre-Confucian manner (punishable in the Eighth Hell [1]). Lee, Haiyan. 2010. Enemy under My Skin: Eileen Chang’s Lust, Caution and the Politics of Transcendence. PMLA 125: 640–56. [ Google Scholar] [ CrossRef]

Ronald Egan: This novel almost unanimously would be considered by Chinese readers, from the time it first began to circulate down to the present day, as the finest piece of Chinese literature that was ever produced.An unusual child, precocious, coddled (especially by his grandmother and his maids), and not with the sort of ambition that the expectations of the family demand, he is the great hope of the family.

Ronald Egan: The novel has a mythological frame that I haven't even referred to yet. It's called The Story of the Stone, uh, Shitou Ji in Chinese, which is an alternate title to the Dream of the Red Mansion. It's called The Story of the Stone because in this mythological framework, which appears in the first chapter and in the last chapter and pokes through the day to day life of the family. at various points in the novel. The several leading characters, including the young boy and the young girl that he falls in love with, they originally are, um, inhabitants of the heavens. They are beings in heaven, and they are sent down to the earth to lead a human life by a, by a fairy in heaven whose express purpose in sending them down to our world is to get them to see the illusion of human life. So this is very much a Buddhist message. And I mentioned that at the very end of the novel, Baoyu withdraws from society, rejects his family and goes off and becomes a Buddhist monk. So that, that's another way of thinking about this novel. It's a, a story about disillusionment with the world, especially with the aspects of the world concerned with prestige, material wealth, society’s honor, etc., etc., which Buddhism, of course, has no patience for. We’re told in the first chapter, this is going to be a story about learning the illusion of life. So in many of the reforms that the Communist leadership will be calling for in the 1920s, 1930s, and up until they come to power in 1949 and then begin to implement their new vision of Chinese society in the 1950s and 60s, many of these, like equal status for both genders, equal rights for women, challenging the authority of older generation over young generation, challenging the blind acceptance and obedience to the dictates of filial piety, these all become mainstays of the Chinese communist vision for reform in Chinese society. And they’re there in the novel. They're there in the novel. So this author, he's, he’s way, he’s way ahead of his time. He's way ahead of his time. Then, quite suddenly, in the midst of this placid, agreeable existence, he was discontented. He got up one day feeling out of sorts. Nothing he did brought any relief. Whether he stayed indoors or went out into the garden, he remained bored and miserable. The garden's female population were mostly still in that age of innocence when freedom from inhibition is the fruit of ignorance. Waking and sleeping they surrounded him, and their mindless giggling was constantly in his ears. How could they understand the restless feelings that now consumed him? In his present mood of discontent he was bored with the garden and its inmates; yet his attempts to find distraction outside it ended in the same emptiness and ennui. Autobiographical of Cao’s family. Cao Xueqin (1715-63) Bannermen served as the elite of the Banner army. Offered their services in exchange for political appointments, special privileges, gifts of land and goods. Cao grandfather is the Commisioner of Texile Imports at Nanking. In 1728, when Cao was about 13, the new emperor took the family down (stripped of commission and confiscation of goods). Ronald Egan: There are admirable characters in the novel. They aren't shallow in the respect that they lead very, very simple, happy lives. There are admirable characters who struggle with the problems of the society that the author goes out of his way to depict. And yet they struggle with these problems without allowing themselves to become corrupted by them. For example, the father of Baoyu. Baoyu is the, the young man protagonist. His father is a respectable man. He is completely out of touch with his son and out of tune with his son. But you don't finish the novel thinking that he's a bad man. You, you finish the a novel with a keen sense of here's a good man who is struggling to retain his ethics and morality in a society in which it is challenged almost every day.Zachary: So we've discussed how it criticizes certain, you know, gender inequality or perhaps abuses of elders towards their children. What Chinese values does it affirm or does it pass on? And if you're a Chinese reader of this text, what scripts does it provide to you about how to live a good life? Unfortunate Caltrop is battered by a philandering husband; And One Plaster Wang presribes for an insufferavle wife Master Li converses with a skull in a patch of reeds, which write in the air, communicating the thoughts of Liu Ling. The two talk of old times and Master Li tells it he wishes Moon Boy to look in a certain mirror. The skull is apprehensive since only three others ( Emperor T'ang, Chou the Rouge and Crazy Ch'i) have returned from the trip.