Cao Xueqin: The Story of the Stone
(Volume D)
Cao Xueqin
The image is a statue of Cao
Xueqin in suburban Beijing.
Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty ruled
China until the
Republican revolution
of 1911.
Qing intellectual
culture rejected the
radical individualism
of the later Ming,
when personal
freedom had been
celebrated at the
expense of social
responsibility. They
treated sacred texts
as historical
documents.
Confucius
• Jia Baoyu has little interest in learning the
Confucian Classics.
• moral education: poetry both as a beautiful thing
that pleases humans and as an instructive,
serious source of knowledge and understanding
• Daoism - the reluctance to commit his ideas to
writing may show Confucius’s Daoist thinking,
which sometimes doubts the reliability of written
and spoken words
• Classic of Poetry - Confucius importantly
emphasizes proper thought and encourages all
moral learning through study of the Classic of
Poetry.
Dreams versus Reality
Dreams versus Reality
• The family name, “Jia,” is a homophone
for a Chinese word meaning “false,” while
“Zheng,” the name of another prominent
family in the novel, is a homophone for
“real.”
• Pay attention to the interplay between the
fantasy frame narrative and the realistic
main narrative.
Prospect Garden
• What other important gardens in Literature
can you recall?
Prospect Garden
• Gardens offer refuge from the rest of the
world.
• The Prospect Garden serves this function, as
it is a place of refuge for Jia Baoyu and his
female cousins. It is a place in which Jia
Baoyu can play with his cousins and engage
in his love of poetry and art without the
disapproving interference of his father.
• It represents a liminal space between the
“real” world and the metaphysical world that
Jia Baoyu and Daiyu come from.
Jade Symbolism
• Jade represents nobility, beauty,
grace, and purity.
• Due to its connection to beauty,
jade is typically a symbol
associated with women, so it is
appropriate that the effeminate
Jia Baoyu is born with a piece of
jade in his mouth left over from
the magical jade stone that he
originally was.
• Both Jia Baoyu’s and Daiyu’s
names are derived from the
Chinese word for jade, “yu,”
which is also a pun on the word
for desire, prefiguring Jia Baoyu
and Daiyu’s romance.
Discussion Questions
In what ways does Jia Baoyu challenge
traditional ideas about gender and
sexuality?
Discussion Questions
Why does the author frame an essentially
realistic story with the fantastical story of
Jia Baoyu being born from a magical
stone? What does this add to the novel?