Lin Daiyu is the heroine of "Dream of the Red Chamber" and the first of the Twelve Nobles of Jinling, and the above problems will be revealed to you one by one below.
There is no doubt that Lin Daiyu is the most beautiful looking woman in the whole "Dream of the Red Chamber", in order to make the reader aware of this, Cao Gong can be described as painstaking, using various preparations and details, little by little, so that Lin Daiyu's beauty into the reader's heart, the most typical of which is to make full use of the saying that "Qing is a shadow".
For example, in the 74th time of "Dream of the Red Chamber", Madame Wang once commented that Qingwen "is a bit like your sister Lin between her eyebrows", which shows that Qingwen's appearance is similar to Daiyu, but just the similarity is enough for Qingwen to support the appearance of the entire Rongguo Mansion, and even Wang Xifeng is praised on the side: If you talk about these girls, it is better than Qingwen.
It seems to be written qingwen, but in fact, it reflects the beauty of Lin Daiyu, which is rare in the world.
Cao Gong also praised the beauty of Daiyu, that is, the 26th "Xiaoxiangguan Spring Sleepy Hair Ghost", Lin Daiyu came to Yihong Courtyard to look for Baoyu, the result was that Qingwen was in a bad mood, plus she did not hear Daiyu's voice, so she turned it away, Lin Daiyu was angry outside the door and was angry, and it was wronged, and there is such a classic description in the book:
The more Dai Yu thought about it, the more sad she became, and she didn't care about the cold moss, the cold wind of the flower path, the independent corner of the wall, under the shade of the flower, sad and sad, and whimpered. It turned out that this Dai Yu had a unique posture and was beautiful in the world, and did not expect this cry, and the birds and crows on the willow branches and flowers nearby, when they heard this sound, they flew up in shock and flew away, and could not bear to listen to it again. It is really a flower soul that is silent and emotionless, and the bird dreams are obsessed with where to be frightened. - 26th
From this point of view, it can be seen that the beauty of Daiyu can be called the best of "Dream of the Red Chamber", and Cao Xueqin used a most advanced method in order to shape the image of this beauty - not to write Daiyu's appearance, but to let readers identify with Daiyu's beauty.
Naturally, some readers will say, why didn't Dai Yu's appearance be written in "Dream of the Red Chamber"? Didn't you look at the 3rd "Lin Daiyu Entering Jia Mansion", which mentions Daiyu's appearance, let's first look at the description of Daiyu's appearance this time:
After seeing bi, sitting down and looking at the description carefully, and the others are different: a bay like a frown, a pair of eyes that seem to be happy or not happy, a state of two sorrows, and a disease of pampering. Tears lit up, and the panting was slight. When idle, it is like a flower shining on the water, the action is like a weak willow supporting the wind, the heart is more than dry, and the illness is like Xizi winning three points. - 3rd time
It is true that what is written here is indeed writing about Daiyu's appearance, but it seems to have written such a paragraph, but in fact it does not reveal Daiyu's true face: are her eyes big or small? Is the shape of her face round or pointed? Is her skin tone white or yellow? Is her figure thin or fat?
Readers will be astonished to find that there is no such appearance information at all, Cao Xueqin said that Daiyu's eyebrows are "like a hoof", the eyes are "like joy or not joy", it seems to tell Daiyu's facial features, but what is like a hoof, what is like a joy or not, who can give the answer?
Cao Xueqin abstracted Daiyu's appearance from the beginning, and no one could know what Daiyu's true appearance was. But every reader has his own image of Daiyu in his heart--the girl who hid deep in his heart, the girl whose love sinus first opened.
This is Cao Gong's preference for Daiyu, because of his preference, so that he does not want to give Daiyu a clear facial feature, on the contrary, for Xue Baochao, another leader of the Jinling Twelve, Cao Gong lacks this preference, so he gives Baochao a real appearance image: his face is like a silver plate, his eyes are like water apricots, his lips are not dotted and red, and his eyebrows are not painted and green.
If you ask Xue Baochao what he looks like, there will always be several appearance characteristics: plump figure, fair skin, two snow arms, elegant demeanor, and everyone is beautiful.
Including Yingchun and Tanchun, the book also has its appearance description: skin is slightly plump, fit in shape, cheeks condensed new lychee, nose greasy goose fat, gentle silence, amiable view (Yingchun); Slender shoulders, slender waist, long figure, duck egg face, handsome eyes and eyebrows, Gu Pan Shenfei, literary essence, see the vulgar (Tanchun). Because Xi Chun is still young, there are only eight characters in the book that are "not enough to describe the small", which can also be ignored.
That is to say, this kind of abstract appearance, Cao Gong only gave Dai Yu one person, why do this, is to let everyone think of the image of Dai Yu that they expect, she is always so beautiful, once given a fixed appearance, then her beauty will be greatly reduced.
Not only that, we will also see that Lin Daiyu's dress is rarely mentioned in the book, for example, Wang Xifeng's dress is often "brilliant embroidery, like a divine concubine fairy", which shows Ah Feng's secular feminine style; Baochao always wears "half-old clothes", which shows that he is gentle and thick, low-key and introverted; The clothes worn by the eldest sister-in-law Li Feng are usually plain, because she is a widow, and she does not dare to wear too gorgeous, I am afraid that it will attract criticism...
Only Daiyu, the book rarely writes what clothes Dai Yu wears (except for the 49th time when the sisters meet in the snow, it was remembered that Dai Yu wore a white fox skin crane), what accessories (Bao Chao has a golden lock, Xiangyun has a golden unicorn), why is Cao Gong like this?
Because to some extent, Lin Daiyu is not a person, but the most beautiful and kind woman in everyone's fantasy, she is in line with the aesthetics of the general public, then it must be a thousand people, a thousand kinds of dresses, the more the external description of Daiyu, the less Dai Yu's aura, if it is written from the appearance, clothing, accessories layer by layer, then Dai Yu has become an ordinary beauty, rather than a heavenly Daizhu fairy.