C. Although history records that Cao Xueqin’s family, on whom the novel is based, did indeed suffer from demotions and confiscations following the accession of Emperor Yongzheng, the existing novel is carefully apolitical, appearing as it did during “Qianlong’s Literary Inquisition,” a period during which numerous writers were killed for supposedly seditious passages in their work. Indeed, some scholars believe that the original ending of the novel may have been suppressed because it contained passages that might have offended the Emperor. In The Red Chamber, I have reintroduced a fictionalized political subplot concerning the confiscation and Yongzheng’s succession based loosely on the experience of Cao Xueqin’s family.
While I have attempted to base my descriptions of food, clothing, architecture, holidays, etc., on the actual text, there are many times that I depart from historical accuracy in the interests of narrative fluency. One of my most drastic deviations from accuracy is the elimination of a large number of servants. For instance, in chapter 3 of the original novel, we learn that Daiyu, like Baoyu and the other girls in the household, is to be attended by five nannies, two body servants, and five or six maids for housekeeping. However, the presence of so many servants would have made it difficult for me to stage the private interactions that are so important to the development of the relationships between the characters.
A note on footbinding: While aristocratic Han Chinese women continued to bind their feet during the Qing dynasty, Manchu women did not. I follow David Hawkes, the eminent translator of the novel, in believing that the Jia women, as Bondservants with strong cultural connections to the Manchus, did not bind their feet, and thus could enjoy such activities as walks in the Garden and kite flying.
Acknowledgments
My deepest gratitude goes to Leo and Somiya, the sun and the moon, for daily joy and inspiration; and to Dad, Janet, and Stanley, for their love and strength.
Many thanks to Elyse Cheney, Sarah Rainone, and Jordan Pavlin, whose insight helped me realize my vision, especially to Elyse, for being so uncompromising about the quality of the book. Thanks also to Leslie Levine and Hannah Elnan for unfailing patience and professionalism throughout the process. To Sarah Stoll, Qiusha Ma, Sarah Kovner, Howard Huang, and Bill Petersen for years of friendship and support; to Jen Shults and Martha Ferrazza, for making Oberlin feel like home; and to Ben Howe for keeping me afloat with his encouragement and advice when I was sinking. To Andrew Plaks and Yu-Kung Kao for sharing with me their love and knowledge of Chinese literature. To Oberlin College for travel funds and the use of its library. For invaluable assistance and advice at various stages of the draft, I thank Gillian MacKenzie, Claire Messud, Ursula Hegi, Murad Kalam, Tom Downey, Mingmei Yip, Elizabeth Elrod, Sonja Boos, Jeff Bartos, Gary Lowitt, Shannon Jones, Oliver Schirokauer, and Laura Bentz. Thanks also to Dr. Peter E. Schwartz for helping me get a second chance, and to Dr. Shohreh Shahabi, Dr. Mert Ozan Bahtiyar, and the nurses on 9W in Yale–New Haven Hospital for being there in the silent watches of the night.
Although I worked from Cao Xueqin’s original text, the debt I owe to David Hawkes and John Minford’s translation The Story of the Stone (London: Penguin, 1973) is immense. In particular, David Hawkes’s monumental work in contextualizing the novel, in finding English equivalents for difficult terms, and in shaping and interpreting the novel in the process of translation, has been a never-ending source of inspiration.
The translations of Tanchun’s and Baochai’s lantern riddles in II.4 and Daiyu’s lantern riddle in II.5 are taken from The Story of the Stone, as well as the definition of a “bamboo wife.” In addition, the translations of the inscription in the reception hall in I.12, and of the line from Zhuangzi in V.2 are also from The Story of the Stone.
These passages also borrow language from Hawkes and Minford’s translation: the use of the term “career worm” and the description of the jade in I.11; the description of Baoyu’s clothes in I.4 and of his apartment in the legal terminology used for Pan’s case in I.6 and I.7; Silver’s words in I.14; the description of Pan’s gifts in II.2; the saying about the “beast of a thousand legs” in II.3; the description of the lanterns in II.4; the medical diagnoses in II.5 and II.8; Baochai’s remarks on Silver’s death in III.4; Baochai and Baoyu’s discussion of the “heart of an infant” in VI.3; and the description of preparations for Xifeng’s funeral in VI.6.
The translations of the poems at the beginnings of sections are my own, as is the translation of the quote from Mencius in I.5.
A Note About the Author
After studying classics at Harvard and law at Yale, Pauline Chen completed a doctorate in Chinese literature at Princeton University. She has taught Chinese literature, language, and film at the University of Minnesota and Oberlin College. She is the author of Peiling and the Chicken-Fried Christmas, a novel for young readers, and lives in Ohio with her two children.
The Red Chamber
by Pauline A. Chen
Reading Group Guide
About This Guide
The questions, discussion topics, and suggestions for further reading that follow are intended to enrich your discussion of Pauline A. Chen’s The Red Chamber.
About the Book
In her magisterial first novel, Pauline A. Chen reimagines Cao Xueqin’s great eighteenth-century Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber. Chen’s novel compresses the 2,500-page epic to a ferociously paced 400-page journey into the heart of a ducal palace, where the lives of three unforgettable women collide. Dayiu, an impoverished orphan adopted into the household, falls in love with Baoyu, the brilliant, unpredictable heir to the family fortune. Despite his love for Daiyu, the family betrothes him to Baochai, who hides her own passion under a dutiful exterior. Meanwhile, the young matron Xifeng struggles to protect the family from financial ruin, even as her husband spurns her for her inability to bear a child. Linking the three women’s fate is the jade, a mysterious stone said to have been found in Baoyu’s mouth at birth, which seems to foretell a strange and extraordinary destiny for him and the entire family.
From the petty gossip of the servants quarters to the political turmoil that will overthrow the dynasty and plunge the once-mighty family into grinding poverty, The Red Chamber is at once sweeping and intimate, a grand historical fiction that provides a singular lens through which to view contemporary culture, and the social, political, and romantic mores of our times.
Questions for Discussion
1. In the introduction to Dream of the Red Chamber, the eighteenth-century novel on which The Red Chamber is based, the author states that an important impetus for writing the novel was nostalgia for his pampered and carefree youth. How is the theme of nostalgia also central to The Red Chamber?
2. At the beginning of the novel, do you feel that Baochai is presented sympathetically, while Xifeng is not? Do you feel that these two characters “switch places” toward the end of the book, with Xifeng becoming more likeable and Baochai less so? If so, what is the process by which Xifeng becomes more sympathetic? Does Baochai retain your sympathy at the end of the novel?
3. Were you shocked or dismayed by Baoyu’s decision to run away from his family to become a monk at the end of the book? Do you feel that he was abdicating his responsibilities to his wife and family, or did you sympathize with his decision? Do you feel that The Red Chamber can be read as a coming-of-age story, with characters like Baoyu and Daiyu achieving a higher level of understanding or maturity by the end?
4. What are the sources of tension between Baoyu and his father, Jia Zheng? Can you imagine a father and son today experiencing similar types of tension? Do you consider Jia Zheng’s beating of Baoyu to be abusive, or does it seem understandable given the cultural context?
5. There is some controversy among scholars as to whether the female characters in Dream of the Red Chamber have bound feet. The Red Chamber follows David Hawkes, the eminent translator of Dream of the Red Chamber, in presenting the Jia women as adhering to the traditions of their Manchu conqueror
s and not binding their feet, as most Chinese women of the period did. (The Manchus were known for their athleticism and horsemanship, while Chinese culture was considered to be more highly refined.) Would the story have unfolded differently if the characters did have bound feet? Would it have affected your perception of the characters?
6. An alternate title for the original novel upon which The Red Chamber is based is The Story of the Stone. What is the significance of Baoyu’s jade to the story? If the jade is the family’s luck, how is Baoyu an asset to his family?
7. Does Lady Jia’s favoritism toward Baoyu affect how the other members of his family—the women, his father and brothers—see him? How does being her favorite shape his life? In what ways it is advantageous, and in what ways does it create unique obstacles and difficulties?
8. What type of male ideal does Baoyu represent? What is desirable or attractive about him? How is he different from a modern Western ideal of male beauty?
9. Is Baoyu a romantic hero or an antihero? How and why?
10. Discuss the relationship between Daiyu and Baoyu. Is this a relic of youth or true love that might have had great longevity and sustained them both had circumstances not intervened? Baoyu’s love for Daiyu proves to be deep and all-consuming, yet Daiyu feels herself to be forsaken. Does Baoyu love better than Daiyu? Would the two have achieved happiness together?
11. Baoyu and Baochai are believed to be destined to marry each other because of his jade birth stone and her gold pendant: “Gold and jade make a perfect pair” in the words of an old saying (this page). What is the notion of destiny that is in evidence in the family, and in the society? In what ways might this notion serve the purposes of the aristocratic class to which the Jia family belongs? Does it inform marriage choices, for example?
12. Discuss the character of Ping’er and how she is transformed by her journey over the course of the book. Is she a sympathetic character? Why or why not?
13. Could it be said that the central relationship of Xifeng’s life is with Ping’er? How are they linked by bonds of friendship, rivalry, and sisterhood? How are these bonds broken, and in what ways do they ultimately survive?
14. Baochai is rigorous in observing the social codes and mores of her times. Does her propriety serve her well or poorly in a society that is undergoing political change? What does she gain by suppressing her emotions and serving her elders according to expectations? In what ways does she pay a price for doing so?
15. Daiyu and Baochai are paired in friendship and rivalry, as are Xifeng and Ping’er. Xifeng and Baochai win out in the Jia family, but it is a hollow victory. In what ways are Ping’er and Daiyu better off for having lost?
16. In the eighteenth-century novel Dream of the Red Chamber, the original ending was lost or suppressed, possibly for political reasons. What elements in the story could have been politically dangerous? If the novel reflected the life of the author’s family, what aspects of their private life might they have wished to conceal?
17. Compare and contrast Daiyu’s eventual marriage with that of her mother and father. What social and economic sacrifices did both Daiyu and her mother make for the sake of either love or marriage? Would Baochai or Xifeng have made those types of sacrifices?
18. Does The Red Chamber feel to you more like a classic or more like contemporary fiction? In what ways could The Red Chamber be considered truly a story for our time?
Suggestions for Further Reading
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy; Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha; Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan; Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic; Cao Xueqin, Dream of the Red Chamber
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Dedication
Author’s Note
Major Characters
Jia Family Tree
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Part Two
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part Three
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part Four
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part Five
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Part Six
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part Seven
Chapter 1
Epilogue
A Note on the Text
Acknowledgments
A Note About the Author
Reader’s Group Guide
The Red Chamber Page 44
