People who have watched "Dream of the Red Chamber" know that there is a prodigal prince Jia Lian in it, so what is his life? Is there any secret hidden in him? Who will his archetypal character be?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="40" >(1)Is Jia Lian a concubine or a concubine? Who was his mother? </h1>
Jia Lian is a fictional character in Dream of the Red Chamber, and his father is Jia Huan, a first-class general. Who the mother is, there is no clear explanation in the book, but it is certain that it is not Lady Xing of Jia Yu's room. Because Lady Xing herself said that she had no children and no daughters. Her exact words were: "... But I have been childless all my life, my life is clean, and I can't make people laugh and talk about it. (The Seventy-third Time in Dream of the Red Chamber, Lady Xing said to Jia Yingchun.) But judging from the fact that Jia Lian's mother is never mentioned in the book, his mother may have died.
Whether Jia Lian is a concubine or a concubine is not clearly explained in "Dream of the Red Chamber". Given that Jia Lian's wife, Wang Xifeng, was the concubine of the Wang family, and judging from Wang Xifeng's behavior of looking down on Aunt Zhao, Aunt Zhou, and other minor wives of Jia Zheng in jia mansions, how could she possibly tolerate that her husband was born to an aunt? Therefore, the possibility that Jia Lian is a concubine is extremely high.
If Jia Lian is a concubine, then his mother is Jia Shu's original wife. Lady Xing was Jia Shu's step-wife. Many people who study "Dream of the Red Chamber" start from the assumption that Jia Lian is a concubine, believing that Lady Xing is Jia Shu's step-brother rather than the original match. However, the book does not explicitly state whether Lady Xing is Jia Shu's step-brother.
However, some people also believe that Jia Lian is a shuzi, and a big piece of evidence is what Lady Xing said to Yingchun in the seventy-third time. In this passage, Jia Lian and Wang Xifeng are first mentioned, revealing many dissatisfaction with them, and then pointing out that Yingchun and Jia Lian were not born of the same mother, and also said that Yingchun, like Tanchun, was born by an aunt, and clearly stated that Yingchun's birth mother was dead.
The key point is that the next sentence that the researcher who believes that Jia Lian is Shuzi is based on this sentence, thinking that "" refers to Jia Yingchun and Jia Lian's mother, since they are compared to their mothers, and compared with Aunt Zhao, then Jia Lian's mother must also be an aunt. But there is a question here, does "your two brides" refer to the two brides of Yingchun and Jia Lian or the brides of Yingchun and Tanchun? Combined with the logic of the context and the text about Jia Lian elsewhere in the book, "your two mothers" refers to the two mothers of Yingchun and Tanchun. If so, there is no doubt that Jia Lian is a concubine.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="41" >(2) Is Jia Lian the eldest son? Why is it called "Second Master Lian"? </h1>
Although it is controversial whether Jia Lian is a concubine, he is the eldest son of Jia Huan, which is generally recognized, and the second time "Dream of the Red Chamber" borrows Leng Zixing's mouth, it is said that Jia Huan has a second son, the eldest son's name is Jia Lian, and he donated a Tongzhi Yunyun, but did not say what Jia Huan's second son was called. However, combined with the narrative elsewhere in the book, Jia Shu's second son should be Jia Chun.
Some people also believe that Jia Lian is the second son of Jia Huan, and his eldest son has another person, one of the bases is that Jia Lian is called "Second Master Lian", and Wu Keqi, a red scholar in the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, held this view. Wu Keqi believes that Jia Lian has an older brother named Jia Hu. In his book "Dog Kennel Exploring Red", he said that he had seen a kind of "noon factory book" of "Dream of the Red Chamber". In the "Noon Factory Book", it is said that Jia Yu had three sons, and there was the eldest son Jia Hu above Jia Lian, but he died early, and there was a concubine under Jia Lian. However, except for Wu Keqi, no one else has ever seen the so-called "Noon Factory Ben", and in the other surviving versions of "Dream of the Red Chamber", there is no evidence to support Jia Hu, the eldest son of Jia Hu, who died prematurely.
Liu Xinwu also believes that Jia Lian is the second son of Jia Shu, and Jia Lian's brother is named Jia Mei. He said that the ancient book "Stone Record" in St. Petersburg, Russia, which describes the scene of sacrifice, has a sentence that reads: "At that time, jia jing was headed by jia jing, and the next one was headed by jia mei." Therefore, he believed that Jia Mei was Jia Yu's eldest son and Jia Lian's older brother.
What Wu Keqi and Liu Xinwu said each other, as a family's words, can be used for everyone's reference, but it is difficult to subvert the generally agreed view that "Jia Lian is the eldest son of Jia Pardon". Since the early versions of "Dream of the Red Chamber" were all copied versions, in the process of copying, it is possible that individual places are copied incorrectly. The character of Jia Mei only appeared in the St. Petersburg collection, and only appeared once in the fifty-third time, and there was no such figure before or after, so it is very likely that a clerical error occurred during the copying. Combined with other versions, it can be reasonably suspected that this "Jia Mei" should actually be "Jia Zhen".
Since, because Jia Lian is called "Second Master Lian", some people suspect that he is the second son of Jia Huan. If he is not the second son, the so-called "Second Master" should have a reasonable explanation. However, throughout the book of "Dream of the Red Chamber", it is not given the reason why Jia Lian is called "Second Master Lian".
In order to give a reasonable explanation for Jia Lian's name as "Second Master Lian", there are two widely circulated theories.
The first is: put the Jia Zhen family and the Jia Shu family of the Ningrong Second House together for a big ranking, so that Jia Zhen is "Zhen Uncle" and Jia Lian is "Second Master Lian"; the second is: the sons of the two brothers Jia Zhen and Jia Zheng in the Rongguo Mansion are ranked together, because jia Zhu who died early is older than Jia Lian, so Jia Lian is "Second Master Lian", if this theory is true, Then Jia Baoyu should be called "Third Master Bao" instead of "Second Master Bao". Therefore, the author believes that the former statement is relatively reasonable.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="42" > (3) Is there a historical prototype for Jia Lian? </h1>
Jia Lian is a very good person to steal, which is a fight with his father Jia Shu, but Jia Lian never has to be strong, but uses his good skin bag and the advantage of coaxing women to let the women he targets take the initiative to take the bait. What about Jia Amnesty? As long as you have a crush on anyone, at any cost, no matter what means are used, you must get to his side. So from this point of view, Jia Yu is completely bad, and Jia Lian is not so completely bad, with a little bit of humanity.
Jia Lian and Wang Xifeng were entrusted with the heavy responsibilities of housekeeping and housekeeper of Madame Wang's family, indicating that Jia Lian still had some ability to manage the family and manage money. Of course, his ability to govern the family is not comparable to Wang Xifeng and Jia Tanchun.
As a character with a lot of ink and very complex in "Dream of the Red Chamber", Jia Lian cannot be imagined by the author out of thin air, and he must have a character archetype. So who is his possible prototype?
One theory is that "Dream of the Red Chamber" borrows a lot from "Jin Ping Mei" from the storyline and character image, of which the character of Jia Lian is born from Ximen Qing, in other words, Ximen Qing is the prototype of Jia Lian. There is some truth to this statement, because Jia Lian and Ximen Qing have too many similarities in terms of appearance, sister-stirring means, and degree of lust, but the character of Jia Lian is richer and fuller than Ximen Qing, and it can be said that it is better than Ximen Qing because of Ximen Qing.
However, in terms of being a bad man, Jia Lian is a small witch compared to Ximen Qing. Ximen Qing is a bad thing to do that kind of bad, as long as he can enjoy himself, the interests of others, life and death are simply not worth mentioning. What about Jia Lian? It is somewhat humane, and is a tragic figure worthy of sympathy.
Some commentators believe that "Dream of the Red Chamber" is written about the royal secrets of the early Qing Dynasty, and the key characters are all prototypes. Among them, Jia Lian and Wang Xifeng alluded to the regent Dolgun and Empress Xiaozhuang. In order to secure his son's throne, after Marrying Dorgon, the relationship between the two couples was a divine separation, there was both unity and struggle, and the feelings were maintained by the royal power. Jia Lian's "琏" character, left "Wang" and right "Lian", alludes to the union of the regent and the empress dowager.
There are, of course, various other theories. However, the author believes that as a complex character in a great work, Jia Lian's character archetype can never be just a single person, but should be a synthesis of a large number of character characteristics with a common social background.