"Dream of the Red Chamber", "a thousand reds and one cry" and "Wan Yan and sorrow", is a tragic history of the common fate of women in the "Twelve Chaos of Jinling" and even in the feudal society of the mainland. This kind of tragedy, in the first time in the history of the decline of Jia Fu has not yet begun, is vividly reflected in the unfortunate encounter of miss Yinglian of the Zhen family (pronounced "true pity") on the Lantern Festival.
We invite Professor Zhan Dan, Vice President of the Dream of the Chinese Red Chamber Society and Department of Chinese of Shanghai Normal University, to write this column about the insulted and damaged life of Yinglian (later renamed Xiangling).
We have successively invited senior people in various industries to write columns, Liang Zaibing, daughter of Liang Sicheng Lin Huiyin, has written articles to remember her parents, psychological counselor Cui Qinglong has analyzed intimate relationships, and Jiang Zhujiu has recalled Go master Wu Qingyuan, we hope that in this way, we can expand the content boundaries outside the news hotspots, show intellectual knowledge, thinking and beauty.
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Yinglian was originally the only daughter of Zhen Shiyin, a gentleman in Gusu Township, who was born with pink makeup and was cute, and her parents were accustomed to her pampering, which was also the main basis for the happiness of the husband and wife. Who expected that Yinglian would grow up to be four years old, and on the night of the Lantern Festival, Zhen Shi's hermit family Huo Qi hugged Yinglian to see the lamp, and in the middle of the night, Huo Qi, because he wanted to solve it, temporarily placed Yinglian on the threshold of a family, and when he returned, he no longer saw the shadow of the child. Yinglian disappeared and was never reunited with her relatives.
She was abducted by human traffickers, so that after more than ten years, when she became a half-old girl, she sold her to a man as a concubine. In the process, she was so frightened that she did not dare to mention her past life. Later, when she reappeared as a character in a lawsuit, the name Yinglian, along with the memory of her birthplace, was lost in the darkness.
Cutting the abducted woman's past life seems to be a long-standing "divine operation". Bystanders recognized her "past life" from her astonishing beauty, especially the rice-grained red birthmark left by her eyebrows. When she was sold to Xue Pan as a concubine, her name was changed to Xiangling, and she has taken this name through most of the novel since then. The eightieth time, Xue Pan's new wife Xia Jingui ordered Xiangling to change her name to Qiuling on the grounds that Lingjiao was incenseless, marking the beginning of her new ordeal.
The red scholar Jiang Hesen talked about Xiangling, and used her three names to draw three stages of life, starting from the bitter "Yinglian" ("Ying Pity"), to Xiangling, who had a short period of happiness soaked in poetry, and finally Qiuling, the destruction of poetry, and the disappearance of incense. Although the Qing Dynasty people believed that "Xiangling" already meant "Xiangguo Drifting Zero", the three names did not differ in stages in terms of their suffering, but the three names that drew the three stages of life from these three names seemed to be closer to the reality of life reflected in the novel, and could be used for our separate discussion.
Yinglian was abducted, and her fate changed abruptly from the Lantern Festival
1. Two key words in the Yinglian stage: Lantern and abduction
Lantern festival is one of the most solemn and lively festivals in traditional society, and ancient vernacular novels such as "Water Margin", "Golden Plum Bottle", "Three Words and Two Beats", etc., all have an important background for the Lantern Festival as the story development or a certain paragraph of the plot. The creation of "Dream of the Red Chamber" continues this tradition, in the plot design, the Lantern Festival is taken as an important node in the development of the Zhen family story, so that people can clamor for a happy peak experience in the prosperity of the festival, and then suddenly reverse, happy and sad.
The process of the decline of the Jia family, which was reflected in the first defeat of the Zhen family, was also continuously focused on the Lantern Festival activities that jia fu repeatedly rendered later (the first eighty times have been specifically unfolded twice, and according to the author's conception, there should be one more after the eighty times). And this kind of focus often associates the changes of the Lantern Festival with the fate of women, such as Yinglian to the Zhen family, Yuan Chun to the Jia family, and trigger a chain reaction of the family.
It should be noted that in the face of the Lantern theme, the ancients often treated it as a complex topic with multiple meanings. The Lantern Festival not only means liveliness and reunion, but also because of the instability of the large number of people gathering, the destructiveness caused by the gangsters mixed in with them, which has another consequence of chaos and parting. This is precisely the multiple symbols of the reality and hints of Yinglian who happened to be abducted late at night on the Lantern Festival.
Abduction, for the change of women's destiny, also has its special significance.
Born in a squire's house, Zhen Yinglian was originally free of worries, her parents were pampered, and the suspension of a happy life may only happen when there is an external brute force such as abduction and other emergencies. From the narrative function, as the epitome of Jia Fu that must be completed in the first content, the plot of the Zhen family's decline needs to be most condensed artistic treatment, then the emergence of the abducted node does not need to be paved with the interweaving of many clues, the author just let the leper monk mysteriously recite the words, the so-called "good defense festival after the Lantern Festival" to render slightly. But this is only a problem of the novel's technical treatment, and more importantly, Yinglian's abduction seems to be completely accidental, and it is easy for people to interpret this misfortune as a trick of fate with mysterious colors. Thus, the real social inevitability lurking in this event, such as irrational social systems, chaotic social realities, and the despicable notion of buying and selling people as objects, are not easy to perceive.
2. The "fluke" and impermanence of women's fate
In the Yinglian stage, there are two young women who deserve attention, one is the original wife of Jia Yu Village, and the other is the Zhen family.com.
The original wife easily followed the poor scholar Jia Yucun to survive and became the wife of the official, and after only one or two years of work, she died of illness. Good luck came to her, but there was no long material life to enjoy, which was lamentable.
Jiaoxing, as a concubine, married Jia Yucun and was able to "straighten out" after the death of the original wife, and the book commented that she was "fateful". However, the author named her Jiaoxing, the harmonic pronunciation "fluke", in fact, is to express, in his view, the fate of the two is only an accidental "fluke", and the tragedy of women, the impermanence of fate, is a kind of inevitability.
In the fourth time of the novel, when Yinglian grows into a half-eldest girl sold to Feng Yuan, a small squire by human traffickers, Feng Yuan falls in love with her at first sight, decides to officially marry her three days later, and vows not to marry the second person again. It seems that Yinglian's peaceful life after that seems to be guaranteed, and even Yinglian herself sighed when she heard the news: "My sins are full today." ”
A woman's happiness turning around depends on the earnestness and affection of the buyer, and she sees this turnaround as her own sinfulness, as if all her sufferings are for atonement, all her misfortunes are due to her past life sins, and what could be more painful and helpless than this?
3. Women are goods and gifts that men compete for and bribes
Feng Yuan deliberately arranged for Yinglian to pass through the door after three days, and the traffickers took the opportunity to sell her to Xue Pan, the overlord of the Dumb King, and wanted to repeatedly collect money, but they were caught by the two families and beaten to death. As for Yinglian, who was sold twice, it became a commodity that both sides had to compete for, and no one refused to return to collect money.
On the surface, they are all because they like Yinglian as a person. But in fact, they did not really treat Yinglian as a human being, because they had not consulted Yinglian's wishes, the domineering Xue Pan could not be, and the beloved Feng Yuan did not seem to have either. Perhaps, for them, buying Yinglian as an item, there is no longer a problem of respect for people. When there is a dispute between buyers, it is natural for buyers to wrestle with each other, and if you want to solicit the wishes of the goods themselves and listen to their choices, it is not only logical, but also ridiculous.
At this time, Yinglian's fate was decided by human traffickers and by the competing buyers, and she could only helplessly and desperately wait for the hammer of fate. Even if she had pinned her hopes on Feng Yuan, she could only extinguish that pitiful flame of hope herself.
When Feng Yuan was killed and Yinglian was robbed by Xue Pan, her life seemed to have another chance to rewrite. Because Xue Pan was sued by the Feng family to Ying Tianfu, the newly appointed prefect Jia Yucun wanted to do something, not to mention that Yinglian was the daughter of Zhen Shiyin, who had once helped him, and he had also promised the Zhen family to visit Yinglian. However, when the disciples who were born as gourd monks clearly explained Xue Pan's background, broke the stakes to Jia Yucun, and pointed out that the Xue family was in contact with Jia Zheng and Prince Teng, who helped him reinstate him, he immediately changed his mind and bent the law.
To be precise, he needed to bury the devalued human feelings of the past, and firmly hold the greater human feelings of the present and the future firmly in his hands, so he did not pursue Xue Pan's crimes, nor did he help Yinglian reunite with his relatives, but wrote two letters to please Jia Zheng and Prince Teng, saying that "the matter of making his nephew is over, don't worry too much", which is equivalent to seeing Yinglian as a gift that can bribe Jia Zheng and Prince Teng.
What is intriguing is that Jia Yucun has a saying about Yinglian's misfortune, so-called:
This is also their obstacle encounter, and it is not accidental. Otherwise, how could this Feng Yuan only look at this Yinglian? This Yinglian has been tortured by abductors for several years, and only then has she gained a head start, and she is also an amorous, if it can be gathered, it is a beautiful thing, and this matter is born again. This Xue family is richer than the Feng family, and if they want to be human, they naturally have many concubines and are lascivious, and they may not be in love with Feng Yuan. This is exactly the dream love affair, just met a pair of thin children.
Yinglian is the daughter of Jia Yucun's benefactor, but he completely discusses it with an attitude of staying out of the matter, and also explains it with the fate concept of evil obstacle encounters and dreamy love, as if he does not need to bear any responsibility. Such rhetoric has little meaning except to prove his hypocrisy.
Xiangling learns poetry, a short poetic life
Yinglian was taken away as a concubine by Xue Pan, and Xue Baochao gave her a new name, Xiangling. Yinglian seemed to have experienced it in her past life. The Xiangling we know is largely associated with her poetry study. The fragment of "Xiangling Xueshi" was once selected for inclusion in middle school Chinese textbooks and was widely circulated. Some problems that middle school students may not understand, may wish to discuss here.
First, what does "Xiangling Xueshi" mean?
First of all, it is a self-salvation of Xiangling's soul. Her bitter life seems to have been temporarily forgotten in the study of poetry, allowing her to enter a new world. The more focused she devoted herself to poetry, the stronger her perseverance became, and the more it showed how painful the world of her mind, which had been buried in darkness, was. Studying poetry awakens her to a good feeling and shields suffering from her mind (though it may not be able to dispel it). For example, she and Dai Yu exchanged poetry experience, read "The sunset in the head of the river, lonely smoke in the ruins", recalled the days when she came to the capital, the boat leaned to the tree shore in the evening, and saw several families cooking dinner, and the green cooking smoke went up the clouds. Of course, it is only when she temporarily enters the Grand View Garden, and her life and mentality are slightly settled, that the good feelings may be awakened.
Secondly, it is a classification of people, a classification based on literary attainment rather than political status. Jia Baoyu once said, "Old people are no longer vain and affectionate. We lament day after day that it is a pity that he is such a person who is vulgar, who knows that there is today, we can see the heavens and the earth. "It highlights an idea, the distinction between people's elegance and customs, whether there is poetry or not, is an important criterion.
Third, it is a focus on the poetic novel "Dream of the Red Chamber", which elevates the poetry scattered everywhere to self-consciousness and rationality in the discussion of poetry between Xiangling and Daiyu, and becomes a kind of poetic wisdom. However, this kind of rationality is still not separated from the feeling, and it is the feeling of Xiangling's personal integration with life.
Second, where is Xiangling's third poem?
In the stage of learning poetry from Daiyu, Xiangling tried three poems with the title of "Moon", and only the third one obtained in the dream was appreciated. The first link is very good: "The essence wants to cover up the difficulty, and the shadow is self-juanjuan and cold", which unifies the description of the moon with the portrayal of people's spiritual temperament.
The middle two are "a piece of anvil knocking a thousand miles white, half a round of chicken singing five more crippled." The autumn flute on the green river, the red-sleeved building head night leaning railing. "Although there are traces of clichés, the context is still connected. In the end, she wrote that "Bode Chang'e should borrow a question, why not make the eternal reunion", people and things are completely in harmony, and the image of si woman implied by this person can be said to a large extent to be Xiangling herself. Xue Pan went away to do business at that time, and Xiangling, as Xue Pan's concubine, was in line with the situation of the woman in the boudoir staying alone in the empty house, and Xiangling wrote her own personal feelings into the poem, which was an important condition for the success of the poem.
However, Xue Pan's own unbearableness and neglect of Xiangling, as Feng Jie said to Jia Lian for the sixteenth time, "After half a month, I also look at the horse shed wind", which seems to make Xiangling and the role of Si Woman incompatible. And Xiang Ling had a hard time entering the Grand View Garden when Xue Pan was out of the far door, and had the opportunity to learn poetry with Lin Daiyu, which was a great joy, and that kind of excitement seemed to contradict the faint lament of si women in the poem. Under such circumstances, Xiangling still brings herself into a kind of thinking woman image in the unconscious of the dream, indicating her subconscious identification with traditional feudal values - although Xue Pan quickly lost enthusiasm for her, when Xue Pan was beaten by Liu Xianglian, Xiangling still cried and swollen her eyes. Releasing this self-styled image of herself through the unconscious in the dream reflects Cao Xueqin's critical spirit. Third, why not let Xiangling learn longer?
By designing dreams, so that Xiangling has divine help to obtain a more satisfactory poem, the author may want to hint that in a short period of time, Xiangling poetry should have a real qualitative improvement, or it is more difficult, the actual process of learning poetry, there must be many repetitions and twists. So, why doesn't the author present the tortuous development of Xiangling Xueshi in a longer period of time, more objectively, comprehensively and complexly?
On the one hand, because the image of Xiangling cannot occupy a more important position in the overall design of the characters in the novel, and cannot get more space; on the other hand, it is objectively not allowed for her to stay in daguanyuan for a longer period of time, and only when Xue Pan goes out to do business, she gets a brief opportunity to enter daguanyuan to learn poetry. Once Xue Pan returned, she was about to move out of the Grand View Garden and return to Xue Pan. Therefore, Xiang Ling's desperate study of poetry is certainly her interest, and it can also be said that it has a lot to do with her few days in the Grand View Garden and the rare opportunities. In this limited time, we must write about the development of Xiangling's poetry in a more in-depth way, so that Xiangling can make great progress after learning poetry for a period of time, and give her a kind of comfort, which is probably a strategy for the author to extend the brushstrokes to the dream and present the rapid improvement of her writing level through mysterious ways, right?
Fourth, why did Xiang Ling learn poetry from Dai Yu instead of Bao Chao?
Baochao's poetry writing is not worse than Daiyu's, the thirty-seventh time, Tanchun initiated the establishment of a poetry club, the first time to aria white begonia competition, Xue Baochao is the top spot. And Baochao's insight is more extensive than Daiyu's, book knowledge and human sophistication, are much more accumulated than Daiyu, Lin Daiyu has seen those forbidden books at that time, which Baochao has long been familiar with, and can also persuade Daiyu with the posture of a person who has come over. Most importantly, Xiangling and Baochao live in the same courtyard, and it is most natural to learn from Baochao. Why not?
Of course, this has to do with Baochao's personality. Because although she also writes poetry, she still fundamentally thinks that it is serious for girls to do needlework, so she is taught by her, and she is more willing to teach female red masters, such as the warblers around her. This may also involve Baochao's understanding of Xue Pan, because Xue Pan is indeed a person with no grace to speak of, and can only write "hum rhymes" of "one mosquito hums, two flies hum". If Bao Chao taught Xiang Ling to be a person who became a heavenly monk and admired the moon, why did Xue Pan feel bad? And a woman with too high creative talent seems to be difficult for men without culture to control, such a traditional concept, Xue Baochao will not be unaware.
Although the novel does not explicitly state this layer, it is understandable from common sense. Therefore, the Qing Dynasty commentators knew that one of the tragedies that "Dream of the Red Chamber" made him most unacceptable was the encounter between the two stays. The Dumb King meets The Dumb Xiangling, the former's incomprehensible poetry and the latter's indulgence in poetry meet and live together, making people feel that this is not only the tragedy of the destruction of life, but also the tragedy of the destruction of poetry.
Fifth, the end of the poetic life.
The seventy-ninth time, Xue Pan wanted to marry Xia Jingui as a wife, Xiangling was elated, and felt that the team of the poetry club was about to grow again, but Jia Baoyu was worried that Xia Jingui's arrival might not be beneficial to Xiangling, and a sentence made Xiangling change her face.
Bao Yu said, "But only when I heard this, I didn't know how to worry about you." ”
Xiang Ling suddenly became angry and said, "What is this! Su Ri we are all humble, today suddenly mention these things, what does it mean! No wonder everyone says you're a stranger. ”
The speed with which its attitude has changed is staggering.
We don't know whether Xiangling's attitude is too naïve, or because she does not dare to face up to and does not want to believe Baoyu's hints? Or, as some scholars have said, because she had never met anyone who really treated her well, Xiangling could not understand Baoyu's sincere concern. Otherwise, she had a humble mind: since Baoyu was in the end a distant place that she could not rely on, she could only strengthen the confidence of relying on the people around her, so as to settle her helpless weakness? In short, lonely, she seems to need to see distant concerns as excessive, in order to stand on her current position. The disappearance of Xiangling in the distance is inevitable.
But Xia Jingui also eradicated the little poetic poetry she retained.
After Xiangling used a delicate mentality and poetic language to describe the light fragrance of Lingjiao, Xia Jingui immediately asked her to change her name, erase the incense character, and change it to Qiuling, giving the coldest blow to her little self-intoxicating warm poetry. Autumn is when the strong fragrance of osmanthus flowers disperses, where is there any room for the existence of rhombus incense? According to Cao Xueqin's original idea, Xiangling's final ending was to be tortured to death by Xia Jingui. This is written more clearly in the fifth sentence:
The root and the lotus flower are fragrant, and the life is really hurt. Since the birth of lonely trees in the two places, the soul of the incense has returned to its hometown.
"Lonely trees in two places" is exactly a "gui" word.
Qiu Ling's Destination: The Victim of the Female Inner Scroll
Sitchell said that philosophers in the past explained the world, and the problem was to change the world. But what "Dream of the Red Chamber" makes us see is that the interpretation and change of the Xiangling world has become a problem.
For Xiangling's life, I believe many people have imagined that if Xue Pan's wife is not a jealous Xia Jingui, but a person with a much milder temper, then Xiangling's life may not be so miserable. So, in the end, it was her bad luck, or, in the words of the leper monk, "luck without fate." This seems to explain the problem, but in fact it obscures the problem.
Because, the fundamental problem that caused the tragedy of Xiangling is that women cannot stand on their own feet in society, and it is an unreasonable system of wives and concubines, especially when she was abducted and sold at the beginning of her life, losing her basic freedom as a person and the minimum dignity of women.
Xia Jingui, who encounters strange jealousy, has an inevitable chance. In the male hegemonic society, the so-called evil virtue of women's jealousy has been repeatedly written and sorted out into a special book like "Jealousy", which has become a kind of object that needs to be condemned or ridiculed by society, and those who can be like the Qing Dynasty scholar Yu Zhengyi said that "jealousy is not a woman's evil virtue" are after all a minority.
Similar social problems cannot be explained by natural character problems or mysterious fate problems. If emotions are inherently exclusive, and women in society can only rely on men to survive, they need to fight for their status by clinging to their favors. In this way, the woman in the concubine system can only fight for herself by attacking another weaker woman, rather than directly confronting the man. Xia Jingui treated Xiangling like this, and Sister Feng treated Sister You like this. In popular parlance, it is that women seek a pitiful survival position by means of ruthless inward rolls between each other.
Is there a way out of this inner volume?
Jia Baoyu, a lover who has a general concern about the fate of women, has tried. When he heard that Xiangling could not stand Xia Jingui's jealousy, he also wanted to help Xiangling get out of the predicament, but how did he do it? He went to find the King of jianghu Langzhong, hoping that there would be a plaster for the spirit to put on Xia Jingui's jealous disease. So Wang Daoshi gave a wonderful answer:
Wang Yitian said busily, "This plaster for jealousy has not passed." There is a kind of decoction medicine, or it can be cured, but it is slower, and it cannot be immediately effective. Baoyu asked, "What soup medicine?" How to eat? Wang Yitian said, "This is called 'healing soup.'" With one excellent autumn pear, two dollars of rock sugar, one dollar of orange peel, three bowls of water, the pear is ripe for degrees. Eat such a pear every morning, eat it and eat it. Bao Yu said, "This is not worth anything, but I'm afraid it may not work." Wang Yitian said: "One dose does not work, take ten doses; today does not work, eat tomorrow; this year does not work, eat until next year." Horizontal and vertical these three herbs are moisturizing the lungs and appetizing without hurting, sweet and silky, and cough and delicious. After eating a hundred years old, people are going to die horizontally, and they are still jealous of what they are dying! That's when it worked. Saying that, Bao Yu laughed incessantly and scolded "the bull's head with the grease mouth."
At first glance, wang Daoshi Huyi's jealous soup seems to be to joke with Jia Baoyu, or to tease him, and some people think that this is a satire of the rare curative effect of traditional Chinese medicine and the unveiling of the deception technique in jianghu langzhong. In fact, it may not be on the point. Because when Jia Baoyu found Wang Daoshi in helplessness and wanted to cure Xia Jingui's jealousy by applying plaster, he actually simplified the psychological and social problems involving women. This kind of behavior, like the characters in the novel and even Xiangling herself using "fate and no luck", "sins", and "evil obstacles" to explain her misfortune, and even using poetry and distance to encourage and save her spiritual world, is actually a simplistic way of dealing with it. And Cao Xueqin's greatness lies in the destruction of writing poetry and the disappearance of distant places, so that all religious philosophical explanations and childlike healing actions are ridiculous, so as to present Xiangling's living and tragic experience to everyone.
It is not without sighing that Cheng Weiyuan and Gao Yan sorted out the 103rd time in the continuation, with a rewrite of Qiu Ling's ending, so that Xia Jingui mistakenly ate the poison that he wanted to poison Qiu Ling, and Qiu Ling was able to straighten out and give a happy ending. To be so afraid to face the harsh reality and only to close their eyes and talk nonsense, to save women with self-deceptive plots, is actually to throw them into a more difficult abyss to rescue.
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Author: Jendan
Editor: Wang Jingyi
Image: Network
Operations Editor: Wang Da meow