Most readers know that "Dream of the Red Chamber", as the peak representative of China's classical novels, was actually called "Stone Record". According to the name, it can be seen that the novel mainly tells the story of what seems to be a stone.
Sure enough, at the beginning of the story, the author writes that when Nuwa made up the heavens, she refined thirty-six thousand five hundred and one stone, and the only one left was unused and discarded under the Qinggeng Peak.
I don't want this stone to gradually understand the spirituality, have the divine consciousness, and always feel ashamed to lament that I have no talent to go to the heavens. Later, when a monk came to visit together, he begged the two to take themselves to the red dust to enjoy it.
Therefore, it became a piece of psychic treasure jade that Jia Baoyu carried since he was born, and he followed the hero in the book to witness the rise and fall of the Jia Mansion of the Miao clan.
However, since Cao Gong intends to make him a clue throughout the book, he naturally does not just act as a bystander, and the image of "stubborn stone" evolved from the poetry of the Tang and Song Dynasties, representing the thought of some students who want to save the world but cannot.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="2" > a "hard stone" out of myth</h1>
Although the psychic treasure jade of Jia Baoyu in the novel is left over from Nüwa Supplement heaven, in the earliest legend about Nüwa supplementing heaven, there is no record that there is a surplus of Nüwa's five-colored stone, let alone described that the five-colored stone can be changed at will. Therefore, Cao Gong only borrowed the mythological story as the origin, covering the whole story with a layer of mysterious color.
The image of the stone later appeared repeatedly in the literary works of the ancients, and gradually had different literary meanings, and the more representative ones were the poems of Su Dongpo and Xin Shuyi.
Su Shi once wrote an article "Dan'er Mountain", "Suddenly the pass is empty, and his mountain is always inferior." When you look at the stones on the side of the road, you are all replenishing the heavens. ”
After Emperor Zhezong of Song ascended the throne, Su Shi was relegated to other places several times for political reasons, and this poem was written by Danzhou.
In the poem, the stone next to Dan'er Mountain is compared to the five-colored stone left by Nuwa to express the helplessness of his political ambitions that cannot be exerted, and he is expelled by the imperial court, like an abandoned heavenly stone, and has no reason to contribute to the country.
This was the first time that a poet gave the stone another meaning, and then Xin Zhiyi further deepened the imagery of the stone. He wrote in "Returning to the Dynasty Huan" (titled Zhao Jinchen Shiwen Jicuiyan): Making up for the heavens and laughing at the busyness of the nuns, but throwing this stone into idle place. The Zhao Jinchen mentioned in the title is a good friend of Xin Renyi, who was dismissed from his post at this time and went to Lead Mountain, and it happened that Xin Abandoned Disease was also here.
Two friends who were equally depressed and depressed met, and Xin Abandoned Disease left a lyric, and the last two sentences of this poem are the finishing touches: Careful consideration: Ancient Hanshi, do not meet sometimes.
The non-encounter here can be understood as the nostalgia for the non-encounter, so the image of the heavenly stone in the word also represents an indignation that the scholar cannot realize his ambition.
Cao Gong took the stubborn stone as an element of the opening record, and also called it "talentless to make up for the heavens" and "day and night sorrow", so this stone is not just to go to the gentle and rich countryside of the world to enjoy.
It actually represents a kind of salvation heart of the author, who has seen many impermanences in the red dust and seen the dark ills of society, but it cannot do anything about it.
Mr. Zhou Ruchang once reminded those who studied "Dream of the Red Chamber" to start from the mythical figure of Nuwa itself to understand a stubborn stone left behind by her. In all the legends about Nuwa, what she did had a relatively clear goal, whether it was to create man or to repair the heavens, the essence was to save the heavens.
Therefore, the stubborn stone she left behind also inherited the meritorious heart of Nuwa. Then Jia Baoyu, who wears it with him, is the anthropomorphism of the stubborn stone image, and the book says that he is stupid, sloppy, does not understand things, and is afraid of reading articles, which is actually just a kind of appearance.
He had seen and thought about many things, but he was almost desperate in this terminally ill world, so he had the attitude of abandoning the world.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > the former alliance of wood and stone and the good fortune of gold and jade</h1>
In the book, the love tragedy of Jia Baoyu and Lin Sister has always made many people sigh, Lin Daiyu first met Jia Baoyu when she first arrived at Jia Mansion, and both of them were secretly amazed in their hearts.
Lin Daiyu looked at Jia Baoyu and only felt that he was "so familiar with his eyes", and Jia Baoyu blurted out: I have seen this sister before.
They had indeed seen it, but only in their previous lives. In the setting of "Dream of the Red Chamber", Jia Baoyu was a divine attendant of the Heavenly Chixia Palace in his previous life, who accidentally passed by the bank of the Western Spirit River and watered a daisy immortal grass with nectar. Xiancao gradually cultivated into a human form, transformed into a female body, and in order to repay the favor of the god Ying waiter, she followed him to go through all the disasters.
This immortal grass is Lin Daiyu's past life, and she said that she had no manna to repay the divine attendant, but was willing to repay him the tears of her life. Therefore, Sister Lin in the story is always sentimental, and when she runs out of tears, it is the time to die.
In the forty-ninth time in the book, Lin Daiyu once said that although she has been bitter recently, her tears are less than in previous years, which is the foreshadowing given by Cao Gong in advance.
One stone and one wood is the agreement made by the two protagonists in the book in the past life, but in this life, their agreement ushered in a "golden jade good relationship" that threatened the most. Jia Baoyu was born with jade, everyone in Jia Province regarded this piece of jade as a treasure, only he himself did not care very much, and some Daoists once said to the people of Jia Province that Jia Baoyu would have to find a woman with gold in the future to match.
Therefore, when Xue Baochao, who was wearing a golden lock, appeared, Lin Daiyu's sense of crisis was born. In the book, the two have several disputes, the source is the rumor of jin yu liangyuan, Lin Daiyu is worried that Jia Baoyu will empathize, so she repeatedly uses words to tempt. However, Jia Baoyu thought that the two had been grinding since they were young, but Lin Daiyu did not know her own intentions, and she was angry and said, "I recognize you in vain."
The golden jade good fortune represents a kind of etiquette standard of feudal society, and it is a marriage that is favored by the secular vision. When it fell on Xue Baochao herself, it also meant that a girl of her type was a good wife who met the requirements of that era.
She would advise Jia Baoyu to pursue the career economy, and thus met with Jia Baoyu's cold eyes, they only had two seemingly matching dead things, in fact, there was nothing in common in thinking.
The former alliance of wood and stone is truly rare and compatible love. It does not rely on the connection of some external thing, but on the fate that the souls of two people can resonate and are already doomed in the underworld.
Jia Baoyu has always adhered to his inner wooden stone alliance, and it is he who refuses to work with the world, is not afraid of the eyes of others, and always sets an example for himself.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="6" > the stubborn stone character carried by Jia Baoyu</h1>
When Cao Gong portrayed the role of Jia Baoyu, he gave him a lot of his own thoughts. He once criticized Jia Baoyu through the mouth of others, saying that he was "eccentric and obedient" and "hopeless in the country and at home."
But Jia Baoyu is not really stupid and reckless, on the contrary, his father Jia Zheng once said that he just refuses to use his heart, but he can do everything with his heart.
So he's not really untalented, he's talented but doesn't want to do anything. He carries the author's temperament, has a deep hatred for the feudal society of the last days, and is unwilling to study human relations and economics with the tide.
He only works on things he likes, such as being with his sisters and girls in the family for a long time.
When Xue Pan first came to Jia Province, the author wrote about the corruption of the male relatives of Jia Province through him, and Xue Pan was initially reluctant to live in.
Because he was worried about being disciplined in his uncle's house, after he really became familiar with others, he found that most of the young men in Jia Province were some alcoholics and meat lovers, and they were very compatible with him, and xue pan was even worse at the instigation of these people.
This is the author's hint at the world outside the Grand View Garden, but it is generally muddy and muddy, so Jia Baoyu will be incompatible with it.
In the book, Jia Baoyu has several episodes of jade wrestling, all related to Lin Daiyu, and when he first saw it, he was very fond of Daiyu's character, but he was mad because Daiyu did not have Peiyu.
The author borrowed Jia Baoyu's mouth and said: Even people are high and low, noble and inferior, and they also say that they are psychic and unintelligent. Later, when the two of them were talking about gold and jade, Jia Baoyu also gambled and fell jade, and at this time, this piece of jade seemed to have become his bondage, more like a feudal shackle that followed him like a shadow, and he repeatedly wanted to get rid of it.
Therefore, Jia Baoyu has always been a stubborn stone, not a beautiful jade that can be listed and glorious in the eyes of the world.
He enjoyed the glory and wealth of the human world for nineteen years, but he could not turn the tide when the Jia Fu Mansion was about to fall, and he finally chose to return to the Qinggeng Peak and stay away from the filthy feudal end times.
Cao Gong inevitably substituted his own fate and the difficulties he faced into the book. He originally grew up in the prosperous qianlong dynasty, and his family was also prominent for a while, but he encountered two family disasters, and his family often drank and ate on credit. After experiencing great changes and gaps, Cao Xueqin saw clearly the hypocrisy of the rulers and the corruption of feudal society.
His Jia Baoyu is stubborn, beaten and starved, and it is Cao Gong who is expressing his chest. He had the talent to repair the heavens, but in this world, in this world, in this world that was about to be destroyed, any talent would be forced to wither. Under the hardships of the general environment, either you will give up your body and merge with the same stream, or you can only die in the process of life.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="8" > conclusion</h1>
In a state of poverty and destitution, Cao Gong still spent more than ten years to create "Dream of the Red Chamber", and every word and sentence condensed his painstaking efforts and expectations.
He takes the hard stone as the origin of the story, and shows the character and fate of the character with the hard stone as the feature, giving this image a strong vitality, conveying his own profound thoughts, and is the soul core of the whole book.
Adhering to his dashing personality, he will only travel in the next life, and eventually return to the Immortal Realm. This layer of mythology has become a rare gentle stroke of Cao Gong, so that these spiritual children of the Red Chamber still have a place to live. Perhaps in the hearts of Chinese scholars who encountered ups and downs, they also hoped that their souls could rest outside the nine clouds.