Dream of the Red Chamber is a vast and complicated long-form masterpiece, with more than 400 characters written in the whole book, of which the author focuses on portraying no less than dozens of major characters with typical significance. Moreover, between the characters and the characters, between the characters and the environment, there are intricate contradictions and conflicts.
In addition, for the depiction of the scene, Cao Xueqin also made great efforts. He struggled to create between the rafters and the rope bed tile stove, and the words seemed to be blood, and ten years of hard work were unusual.
In order to flatter the storyline and describe the characters perfectly, scene description is naturally indispensable, and the illusory scene display is particularly strangely conceived. The following shares an important scene in "Dream of the Red Chamber", the combination of virtual and real, and the technique is exquisite.
The scene of the too unreal realm first appears in the first episode of the novel. Zhen Shiyin dreamed that a monk had taken away the "stupid thing" in his hand, and then he passed a large stone archway and wrote the four big words "Too Illusory Realm".
Since then, this scene has been mentioned many times in the book, such as in the fifth time, Jia Baoyu fell asleep in the bedroom of Jia Rong's wife Qin Keqing, and then floated into the realm of too illusory, where he also saw a couplet depicting the Twelve Pieces of Jinling.
In the seventeenth time in the book, Jia Baoyu tested the couplet in the Grand View Garden. The book describes a jade archway in front of the main hall with green pine eaves, magnolia winding, golden animal faces, and colorful head.
When Bao Yu saw this place, his heart suddenly moved, and he thought about it, as if he had seen it somewhere, but for a moment he couldn't remember what had happened that year.
In fact, Jia Baoyu had certainly seen it, but it was only in a dream, so it was not deeply impressed, but it was also difficult to forget. Most importantly, the author adopts the method of alternating virtual and real, in order to show the story told in the dream of the Red Chamber, which is also true and false, and there is no way to investigate.
So why did Cao Xueqin bother to construct such a virtual illusion? To say that the reason is actually very simple, but it is also difficult to say, at least the following three reasons:
First of all, the scene of the too illusory realm has a fantastic color, which can attract the reader's interest in reading, and can also stimulate the author's desire to create. The author has fictionalized some mythological characters, such as the divine attendant, the daizhu fairy, as well as the hibiscus flower god, the police fairy, etc., which are dazzling, but also make people believe it, and can feel the author's superb and skillful artistic expression ability.
Second, it allowed the author to avoid the very strict censorship at that time, and also played a protective role for himself. The author takes the love story of Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu as a clue to reveal the inevitable demise of the feudal system.
Cao Xueqin deliberately concealed the real thing, and with the help of a piece of psychic treasure jade, perfunctory out a story. Among them, there are not only the ins and outs of a piece of jade, but also the love and hatred of the Twelve Nobles of Jinling, as well as the rise and fall of the four major families, and the inevitable law of the rise and fall of dynasties.
The author is exquisitely conceived, implicit, with countless dreams and hallucinations, interspersed with a series of touching legends, which can not only break people's depression, but also warn future generations, and the role of the illusion is not inferior to the real story.
Finally, this kind of scene setting can make the structure of the work more rigorous, and it can also promote the development of the storyline very well. After Jia Baoyu entered the illusory realm, he not only saw the couplets depicting the Twelve Chao of Jinling, but also heard various songs that interpreted the dream of the Red Chamber, such as "Introduction to the Dream of the Red Chamber", "Birds Throwing Themselves into the Forest", etc., which rehearsed the rise and fall of Jia Fu and also revealed the author's motivation for writing.
Just think, if there is no such illusory scene, the story told by the author will not be so romantic, and the reader will not understand the characters in the story thoroughly, and will lack empathy.
In order to make this huge work can be passed down for a long time, Cao Xueqin has taken pains to not only conceal the characteristics of the times, but also use mythology and illusion to describe, but let the deep theme hide in the layers of fantasy smoke, which is admirable!