Red Chamber Love Rankings

Author: Zhan Dan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-06-01
Features: Opening Dream of the Red Chamber, one enters a bustling world of characters. We are both moved by the charm of this world and bewildered by the intricate relationships among its characters, losing ourselves in its vortex. A "Love Rankings" list incorporates important female characters into an organic sequence, reorganizing the clear threads of the character world. The individuals on this Love Rankings list, with women as the main focus and the sole male, Jia Baoyu, as the reference point for ordering, center on the various entanglements between Baoyu and them. In the emotional calculus between Baoyu and Daiyu, Baochai, Xiangyun, Miaoyu, and others, a new realm of emotion is expanded. The Red Chamber world is a world of love, and Red Chamber culture is a culture of love. Love not only fills the hearts of Red Chamber characters but also solidifies in their interactions, making them love, hate, rejoice, anger, dance with joy, or beat their chests in tears. Love also radiates across an infinitely vast and enduring space. In Cao Xueqin's portrayal, it bridges the divide between humans and nature, the difference between the celestial realm and the mortal world, and the separation between the past and the present. Because of love, they come together; because of love, Nuwa mends the sky; because of love, the stone gains sentience; because of love, the divine spring waters the lotus; because of love, the twin souls enter the mortal world; because of love, the sisters in the Grand View Garden either become obsessed, lose themselves, advance, or retreat, and Jia Baoyu, who has always been tormented by love, is either startled, sighs, becomes infatuated, or is left untouched. In the Love Rankings, the author assembles a powerful array of lovers, endowing love with an eternal divinity. At the same time, he does not hide his skepticism about this eternal nature of love. In the realm of the Unreal and Illusory, love becomes an element that is somewhat bewildering—it attracts yet repels, it is both substantial and ethereal, like mist that is visible from afar but invisible up close, or a tangled knot that cannot be cut or unraveled, an elusive and complex proposition. Discussing Red Chamber culture cannot avoid its love culture, nor can it avoid the "Love Rankings" in Dream of the Red Chamber. Although love is indescribable, we still speak of it. Perhaps the contradictions in what we say stem from the inherent contradictions of love itself.
Opening Dream of the Red Chamber, one enters a bustling world of characters. We are both moved by the charm of this world and bewildered by the intricate relationships among its characters, losing ourselves in its vortex. A "Love Rankings" list incorporates important female characters into an organic sequence, reorganizing the clear threads of the character world. The individuals on this Love Rankings list, with women as the main focus and the sole male, Jia Baoyu, as the reference point for ordering, center on the various entanglements between Baoyu and them. In the emotional calculus between Baoyu and Daiyu, Baochai, Xiangyun, Miaoyu, and others, a new realm of emotion is expanded. The Red Chamber world is a world of love, and Red Chamber culture is a culture of love. Love not only fills the hearts of Red Chamber characters but also solidifies in their interactions, making them love, hate, rejoice, anger, dance with joy, or beat their chests in tears. Love also radiates across an infinitely vast and enduring space. In Cao Xueqin's portrayal, it bridges the divide between humans and nature, the difference between the celestial realm and the mortal world, and the separation between the past and the present. Because of love, they come together; because of love, Nuwa mends the sky; because of love, the stone gains sentience; because of love, the divine spring waters the lotus; because of love, the twin souls enter the mortal world; because of love, the sisters in the Grand View Garden either become obsessed, lose themselves, advance, or retreat, and Jia Baoyu, who has always been tormented by love, is either startled, sighs, becomes infatuated, or is left untouched. In the Love Rankings, the author assembles a powerful array of lovers, endowing love with an eternal divinity. At the same time, he does not hide his skepticism about this eternal nature of love. In the realm of the Unreal and Illusory, love becomes an element that is somewhat bewildering—it attracts yet repels, it is both substantial and ethereal, like mist that is visible from afar but invisible up close, or a tangled knot that cannot be cut or unraveled, an elusive and complex proposition. Discussing Red Chamber culture cannot avoid its love culture, nor can it avoid the "Love Rankings" in Dream of the Red Chamber. Although love is indescribable, we still speak of it. Perhaps the contradictions in what we say stem from the inherent contradictions of love itself.