What expressive techniques are used to portray the personalities of the four noblewomen in A Dream in the Garden?

The novel not only inherits and develops the traditional techniques of classical Chinese literature, but also absorbs and integrates the expressive techniques of Western modernist literature, showing unique writing techniques:

I. Traditional Techniques

The technique of "play to point out the title". He said in the article "The influence of <Dream of the Red Chamber> on <A Dream in the Garden>" that "the technique of pointing out the title with a play is one of Cao Xueqin's highest artistic achievements in the novel technique of Dream of the Red Chamber." 2 And he recognized that A Dream in the Garden had learned this technique from A Dream of Red Mansions: "In terms of the technique of using a play to point out the title, A Dream in the Garden has undoubtedly inherited the tradition of A Dream of Red Mansions." 3 The kunqu drama "A Dream in the Garden" derives from one of Ming Dynasty playwright Tang Xianzu's most famous works, "The Peony Pavilion," which was adapted from the tenth play of "A Dream of Fright" from "The Peony Pavilion. "The play "Peony Pavilion" occupies a decisive and important position in the novel "A Dream in the Garden". No matter the novel's theme, plot, characters, and atmosphere complement the Peony Pavilion, and even the rhythm of the novel, the author tries to compare it to the melody of the kunqu of A Surprising Dream in the Garden." 4 In the novel, the rise and fall of Lantianyu's life's destiny is significantly related to the singing of the kunqu "A Dream in the Garden": General Qian marries her as his wife because he is overwhelmed by her talent after listening to his singing of "A Dream in the Garden"; more importantly, at a party of singing in Nanjing, when Mrs. Qian sings "A Dream in the Garden," she discovers violently that her lover, Staff Sergeant Zheng, is having an affair with her own sister Yueyuehong, and she loses her voice in her haste; at Mrs. Dou's At Mrs. Dou's banquet, when she listens to A Dream in the Garden again, the most painful experience of her life is evoked, and she loses her voice again. The plot and atmosphere of the classical drama contrast with the inner situation and tragic fate of the novel's protagonist.

The successful choice of imagery: the imagery of words and songs - Kunqu, Bai Xianyong said in his speech, "Creating Images for the Beauty of the Past", "Kunqu is one of the noblest and most exquisite forms of our performing arts, and the beauty of its diction, the beauty of its music, and the beauty of its stature can be said to be incomparable to any other form of theater. It seems to me to be breathtaking".5 The play A Dream in the Garden is representative of the genre of kunqu. And Kunqu is the essence of Chinese opera and also the essence of Chinese classical culture. In the novel, Mrs. Qian finally "dumbed down" and could not finish the opera, which is the author's hint that China's classical culture has come to an end today.

Character name imagery. Bai Xianyong in Tsinghua University lecture "for the passing of the beauty of the image", someone asked: "Lantian jade what special significance", he replied: "Jade, China is the most precious, the most beautiful thing. I liked the lead actress so much that I named her Lantian Jade, which is the best jade in the story 'Jade grows smoky when the sun is warm in Lantian'. When the name was chosen, I thought she looked like a piece of jade." 6 In addition, the sisters of Lantian Jade, such as Gui Zhixiang, Tian Chili, and Yue Yue Hong, are also suggestive: Yue Yue Hong, or Moon Season Flower, blooms every month, and is a cheap flower. The sky chili pepper alludes to Jiang Biyue's spirited character. Mrs. Qian is different from the sisters of Yueyue Terrace, and she is the only one who is "Jade". Jade originally represents a noble temperament or spirit. However, being a jade, does it mean that she can keep her beauty and luster forever? Mrs. Qian into the front hall of the Dou public house, stood in front of a "Nianqing" looking in the mirror scene. What appears in the mirror is faded Lantian jade - a piece of Lantian jade has been eclipsed. Here, the jade becomes an image of the decline of the Kunqu art.

The use of metaphorical rhetorical devices. In "A Dream in the Garden", Jiang Biyue's eyes are described as "a pair of eyes like hooks, stretching straight down to the stage", which compares the soul-stirring eye style to "hooks", highlighting its sharpness. "The whole dining room was decorated with silver, bright as a snow cave" rendering the white of the dining room. "His black and red face had long been drunk like a pig's liver" exaggerates the color of his face after drunkenness. The huqin player, Yang Ticket Friend, was about fifty years old, with "a pair of long fingers, white as ten tubes of white jade." The use of white jade as a metaphor for white fingers highlights the care and love of his hands. When Mrs. Qian's voice was muffled, "both cheeks rolled hot, and her throat seemed to be violently letting the razor blades pull it, a burst of stinging pain," rendering the pain in her throat and showing the pungency of the Hua Diao wine. At the end of the novel, when describing the osmanthus flowers on the terrace, it is written that "the aroma was much thicker than before, like a wet fog", using "wet fog" as a metaphor for the osmanthus flowers' aroma. These metaphors are rhetorical devices used to enhance the image, vividness and distinctiveness of the language, adding color to the language.

White description. Like "Dream of the Red Chamber" and other classical novels, Bai Xianyong's novels are good at accentuating and portraying characters through their appearance and clothing and environmental descriptions. This is often through the use of white description techniques. "Bai Xianyong is obviously no stranger to the artistic presentation of 'white description' in classical Chinese novels, and his long immersion in classical Chinese novels has in fact given him a good understanding of the artistic effect of 'white description'. This kind of understanding makes 'white description' almost naturally gain a kind of historical extension when Bai Xianyong constructs his own fictional world." 7 For example, in the novel's description of the main hall of the Dou Mansion, "upholstered sofas," "rosewood hardwood tables and chairs," "a large carpet brushed with two dragons grabbing pearls," " Ebony frame flow cloud bat inlaid mica screen" and so on, plus purple, black, drunken red, azure, gold, red, a variety of warm and cold colors intermixed, presenting a colorful, static and dynamic intertwined brushstrokes, all of which not only shows the master's identity, status, hobbies, but also allows Mrs. Qian to evoke associations with the scene, not only to show her nostalgia for the rich and noble life of the past, and effectively show the "sadness of the times", and the "sadness of the times". Sentimental" theme, but also predicted that today's Mrs. Dou rely on her husband's fortune and elegant, just like when Mrs. Qian rely on their husbands and the style of the same, Mrs. Qian today's downfall may be Mrs. Dou tomorrow. The combination of Chinese and Western room layout in the main hall also suggests that Dou Ruisheng is a budding bureaucrat and that Taiwan has entered a new era of capitalist industry and commerce. This writing style, which incorporates description into the narrative, is a borrowing from traditional novels.

In the novel A Dream in the Garden, written about four aristocratic women dressed differently, Bai Xianyong uses the technique of white description to outline the different images of several ladies in a few strokes. Mrs. Qian Lantianyu wore "a knee-length cheongsam of a slightly blackened color"; Mrs. Dou Guizhixiang wore "a muslin cheongsam of silver and grey sprinkled with vermilion", and wore "a diamond ring as big as a lotus seed". "The left wrist also caged a pay a platinum with broken diamonds strings, hair but inserted a coral hairpin, a pair of inch-long Purple Eagle pendant hanging straight down the foot of the hair", so that her "white face more and more graceful and noble up". Mrs. Lai wore a "pearl gray cheongsam, wearing a jade"; Jiang Biyue wore "a fiery red forged cheongsam", two wrists "straight wear eight twisted money bracelets", "a head as fluffy as a chicken's head", "a pair of inches long Ziying pendant straight hanging down the foot of the hair", so that her "plump white face more and more graceful and noble up". "A head of hair fluffy like a chicken nest", from these few strokes, we can infer their different status, background, personality and state of mind: Mrs. Qian's down and out; Mrs. Dou's graceful and reserved and complacent; Mrs. Lai's old and dignified; Jiang Biyue's frivolous debauchery.

II. Western modern techniques of expression

Stream of consciousness. "The Western literature that Bai Xianyong received has also had a significant impact on his novels. The most prominent feature is the use of stream-of-consciousness techniques in Western modernist novels." 8 "Stream of consciousness is the main and most direct method and way for Western modernist novelists to open up people's inner universe, a creative method and way to express people's subconsciousness." 9 The stream of consciousness of the heroine, Mrs. Qian, runs through the whole of A Dream in the Garden. The novel sets up two lines of light and dark (real and imaginary), the bright one is that Mrs. Qian rushes from Tainan to Taipei to attend Mrs. Dou's banquet, from the time she ascends to the door until the seat disperses and leaves, and the dark one is the state of mind during the whole process of attending the banquet, and her complex state of mind is shown through her own stream of consciousness, which in turn is expressed by means of the echoing of her mind on and off the stage by watching A Dream in the Garden. The whole process of the banquet is also the flow of Mrs. Qian's consciousness. Among them, Mrs. Qian and Zheng Yanqing in the Zhongshan mausoleum horse "live once" that part of the stream of consciousness is the most wonderful writing. This paragraph can be identified as a sex symbol of Mrs. Qian and Zheng's loving intercourse. "Joy without lust, sorrow without sorrow" is a cryptic way of describing sexual activity, using a series of sexual symbols such as "riding a horse" and "sweating" to convey the meaning, with the help of Du Liniang (杜丽娘) and Liu Mengmei (柳梦梅). Du Liniang's dream and Liu Mengmei's rendezvous are expressed through the singing of the song. "This sexual association of Mrs. Qian in Bai Xianyong's writing, with its fresh and lively imagery, appropriate and precise, its meaning of blazing boldness, in line with psychological theory, its connection or coherence, the natural smoothness of the association, its unifying **** effect and originality, I'm afraid that there is no precedent in the history of Chinese literature."

Parallel technique. The author utilizes the parallel technique extensively in this novel. As Ouyangzi points out, "Parallelism (平行技巧) as a deliberately arranged means of presentation actually runs through the whole Journey into the Garden of Dreams." In the novel's characterization, plot arrangement, location establishment, choice of narrative point of view, and structural setup, the author places the characters in a parallel contrast between the "past" and the "present". As far as the characters are concerned: in the past, the rich and powerful Mrs. Qian and today's popular Mrs. Dou; both have snatched their own sister's man, both "choose their own sister to kick", not only the same personality style, even the appearance of dress is also similar to Jiang Biyue and Yueyuehong; attentive and careful staff sergeant Cheng and handsome and affectionate staff sergeant Zheng Yanqing; playing the huqin Yang Ticket Friend and Wu Sheng Hao, who played the huqin, and so on. The two banquets before and after are almost crosswise, only that the characters and time and space change when they are in progress. The two banquets cross, overlap and compare from time to time, which is basically the latent manifestation of the author's parallel technique. The author's practice is undoubtedly to show people the fact that the same banquet is a different host: Mrs. Qian's tragic fate pattern is in fact the epitome of the whole human fate pattern. In addition to the above analysis of writing techniques, other techniques such as symbolism, irony, contrast, metaphor, pun, and smooth flow of succession are also fully demonstrated in The Dream of the Garden.

In short, Bai Xianyong combines the essence of Chinese and Western literature in his novel A Dream in the Garden to form his own unique artistic charm. He combines the skills of traditional Chinese novel writing with the artistic techniques of Western modernism, which can be said to be the artistic crystallization of the fusion of East and West.