The description of dreams in 5000 words of A Dream of Red Mansions and its significance

Dream, Illusion and Truth —— On the "dream" image and novel creation in A Dream of Red Mansions

This paper reveals the "dream culture" background of China's classical literature by tracing back to the "dream" image. Combined with this background, it is proposed that A Dream of Red Mansions is a masterpiece of the application of "dream" image in China's classical literature. Then, this view is proved by investigating the creative way and achievements of the "dream" image in A Dream of Red Mansions, and its key role in promoting the plot structure and shaping the character. Finally, the aesthetic value of the "dream" image in A Dream of Red Mansions is investigated from four aspects: tragic consciousness, symbolic meaning, yin-yang concept and subconscious mind. "Dream" image, dream culture, aesthetic value, tragic consciousness, symbolic meaning, yin and yang concept, subconscious mind.

In China's classical literature, "dream", as a special creative image, has always been favored by writers, and some scholars even call it the "dream culture" background of China's classical literature. (1) About the study of "dream culture" in A Dream of Red Mansions, the academic circles have long been divided into "macro" and "micro". The so-called "macro" study, Chen Jia's dream of a Dream of Red Mansions is prefaced by saying: "It is said that the story of the boudoir is related to fantasy, so the book is also called Dream ... The red chamber is rich in women, and the poem proves the fragrant hills, and the dream returns to the butterfly, which is called" Dream of Red Mansions "by writers. This kind of research focuses on the understanding that "a dream of red mansions is a big dream, but it is prosperous and traces the old". This research direction has always occupied a large area of "dream culture" research and has been widely accepted. But the disadvantage is that it often leads the audience's understanding to a negative "nihilism" and reincarnation theory, which is not worth advocating. The so-called "microscopic" research is a new research direction that has emerged in recent years. By analyzing the "dream" image actually described in the text and drawing lessons from the theories of psychology and aesthetics, we can further understand the plot structure, characterization and aesthetic value of A Dream of Red Mansions. At present, the research on "micro" mainly focuses on two important "dream" images: "Jia Baoyu's dream" and "Qin Keqing's dream", which have reached a considerable depth in character image, plot structure and theme revelation. However, after reading all the materials, the author found that few people paid attention to the other 30 "dream" images in the text of A Dream of Red Mansions except the above two times. This obviously affects the comprehensive interpretation of the image of "dream" in A Dream of Red Mansions. Following the routine of "microscopic" research methods, this paper attempts to expand the scope of attention to the interpretation of 32 "dream" images involved in the full text of A Dream of Red Mansions under the background of China's classical "dream culture", and to explore the outstanding achievements and aesthetic value of China's classical novel A Dream of Red Mansions in shaping the "dream" images.

First, the literary backtracking of the image of "Dream" A Dream of Red Mansions was first opened. According to the record of "Nu Wa refining five-color stones to make up the sky" in "Lan Mingxun of Huainanzi", the author gave birth to the myth that "the stubborn stone was abandoned". Zhen's dream expresses this myth, which is really meaningful. Dream, Shuowen is marked as "". Mozi interpreted it as "lying down and thinking about nature." Scientifically speaking, dreams are normal physiological phenomena produced by the interaction between the cerebral cortex and the central nervous system and people. In this sense, dreams are the shadow of human beings and witness the evolution and reproduction of human beings. Starting from the psychological and realistic basis of dreams, we can find the connection point between dreams and myths. Myth is the dream of human childhood. With the evolution and development of brain thinking, human beings produced a "dream", which seemed inexplicable at that time, but it was amazing. Ancestors firmly believe that the image of the dreamer is a temporary separation of soul and body. Thus, there is an idea that the human mind can exist alone without relying on the body, and the "phantom" of the soul just lives in the body. Under such a concept of "immortal soul", the ancestors personified all unpredictable natural forces and naturally conceived various "gods". As a result, the collective unconscious belief in human childhood-that is, the myth that "everything has God" came into being. Therefore, the formula "dream-soul-god-myth" truly records the production process of myth. In this process, of course, it is full of the primitive living state and psychological state of our ancestors, but it is completely true that dreams gave birth to the myth of the primitive form of literature. Therefore, along with the development of literature, it is not difficult to find that the Book of Songs and Songs of the South in the pre-Qin period sang a lot of things occupied by dreams, while Li Sao used half the space to describe the dreamland. With the advent of the literary "conscious" era, after the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the creation of "dream" images frequently appeared in the contemporary world. As far as poetry and music are concerned, there are Ruan Yu's Weaving Jade Fu, Li Bai's Walking in the Dream of Tianmu Mountain, Li He's Dream of Heaven, Su Shi's Dream of the 20th Month of the First Month, Lu You's My Dream, and Zheng Guangzu's Song of Double Hanging on the Moon. Are all world-famous works. In the field of novels and operas, from the legend of Tang Dynasty, Pillow Story and biography of Conan Taishou, to the history of customs, Jin Ping Mei in the middle of Ming Dynasty, and then to Love Letter and A Dream of Red Mansions. From the drama Butterfly Dream in Yuan Dynasty to Four Dreams in Linchuan represented by Peony Pavilion in Ming Dynasty, and then to Drama, Palace of Eternal Life and Peach Blossom Fan in early Qing Dynasty. The image of "dream" is linked with the 5,000-year-old literary history of China, which supports a vast sky of "dream culture". The image of "dream" in A Dream of Red Mansions is a masterpiece of its kind. 2. A Dream of Red Mansions, the representative work of "dream" image, continues to sort out the background of "dream culture" in China classical literature. The author thinks that the application of the image of "dream" in China's classic A Dream of Red Mansions has reached the peak of China's classical literature. Try to analyze the following.

1. A Dream of Red Mansions created thirty-two dreams with a large number of complex characters (this article is attached with thirty-two dreams selected from the whole book), involving twenty-nine times * * *, which is incomparable only in quantity to other works in past dynasties. Among them, in the first 80 chapters, * * * wrote 20 dreams of different sizes, four of which wrote two dreams in the same chapter (12, 13, 34 and 77), and two of them crossed a dream (24-25 and 48-49). In the last forty chapters, * * * wrote thirteen dreams, two of which were once (1 13, 120). Baoyu is the most frequently dreamt character in the book, * * * eleven times; Followed by Xifeng, * * * five times, Daiyu twice; In addition, there are 14 people, including Zhen, Jia Rui, Qin Zhong, Xiaohong, Xiangling, You Erjie, Miao Yu, Ma Daopo, Zhen Baoyu, Xiren and a girl. Taking care of previous literary works, most of them describe a dream, or a person's dream, but works like A Dream of Red Mansions with so many dreams and complicated relationships between characters are really unique at all times and in all countries. 2. Dream pen gives birth to flowers. The dream description in A Dream of Red Mansions is long or short, thin or thick, or spread out directly or indirectly, which is flexible and free. For example, the longest place, the fifth time Sleepwalking in Wonderland refers to the Twelve Women, has more than 5,000 words, and other long places include the first time, Zhen Meng Tong Ling, Jia Zhen Bao Yu's Love 56, Dai Yu's Dream 82 and so on. The shortest is the thirteenth time "Baoyu heard Qin died in a dream", with only a dozen words. Indirect dream writing includes 93 dreams narrated by Bao Yong and 170 dreams in which Miaoyu was killed by Ma Daopo. For example, in the fifty-first and seventy-seventh chapters, "Baoyu's dream is called xiren" and "Baoyu's dream is called Qingwen", which are two contrasting descriptions of dreams, and the author uses a pen extremely brilliantly. Qingwen xiren is a favorite maid. Jia Baoyu and Hua Xiren have long been "secretly trying to have sex", but Qingwen exists in name only. But in contrast to this dream, Baoyu's heart is light and heavy, and the author's pen is clear. The novel conceives a wedge-shaped structure with a dreamy color, starting with "Zhen's dream-knowing psychic" and taking a leading figure like Zhen as the perspective, putting a causal chain on the overall framework of the story. This causal chain begins with "irrigation with tears" and ends with "Lin Daiyu's return", starting with a dream and ending with a dream. In fact, this wedge-shaped structure created by "dream" is not the beginning of A Dream of Red Mansions. In the story of the Three Kingdoms, Sima Maoyin's intermittent prison, Journey to the West's dream of subduing dragons and subduing demons, etc., have long been the first. The skill of A Dream of Red Mansions is better because the author pays more attention to the close connection between the "wedge" and the whole story frame, and pays more attention to the beginning and end of the "wedge". Wang Xilian, a red scientist in Qing Dynasty, said in A Dream of Red Mansions: "A Dream of Red Mansions is also about dreams, which is innovative and innovative. Before and after the two big dreams are too illusory, and the first one is a real dream, although I am puzzled by books and songs; First, fugue, destined, clearly remember. " The so-called "two big dreams" involved here are the most exquisite conception of dream description in A Dream of Red Mansions. The author uses Baoyu's "two big dreams" to set an interesting line for the whole story, and uses "dreams" to describe it, foreshadowing again and again, creating early warning and suspense and attracting readers' attention. From the design of characters' names to the hidden meanings in poems and songs, these foreshadowing and suspense have played a very good role in the book, echoing the subsequent plots from time to time, looking forward to the future and falling in dreams, which shows the author's skill and intention. Compared with previous similar works, most of them simply regard the image of "dream" as a part of the plot, and rarely design such exquisite paving ideas. This is also a highlight of the success of A Dream of Red Mansions. There are some words in A Dream of Red Mansions that can't be classified as "dream" images strictly, so the author didn't include them in the 32 descriptions of "dream" after the text. But the characters in this part of the text are worth pondering, and the author tries to call them "daydreams" in A Dream of Red Mansions. For example, Baoyu's "stupidity" and "vacant" in the section of "Xue Baochai's shame cage and red musk deer string" in Twenty-eight Chapters; Thirty times, "Young officials paint Qiang, but they are infatuated outside", "They have been infatuated inside, and they have painted thousands of Qiang characters, but they are also infatuated outside, and their eyes just follow the hair clasp"; Thirty-two times, "I told my heart that I was fascinated by Baoyu", "Baoyu stood and stayed at first", and regarded xiren as Daiyu, "I can't forget you in my dreams" until xiren said that she was possessed and "just woke up from a dream". These "daydreams" are fascinating illusions. Goethe said: "The highest task of every art is to create an illusion higher than reality through illusion." (3) A Dream of Red Mansions has used this daydream brilliantly, created a "higher reality" dream image and formed a unique artistic style. 3. The development of "dream" image and the plot structure of the novel. It is generally believed that A Dream of Red Mansions has completely broken through the single-line structure of China's ancient novels, and adopted a network structure in which multiple clues keep pace, are interrelated and mutually restricted. The hard rock under Gengqingfeng was brought into the world of mortals by a monk, experienced joys and sorrows, and was brought back to Gengqingfeng by a monk. This is a mythical world covering the whole world. On the other hand, the tragic line of Baodai's love is staged on the stage of the ideal world in Daguan Garden. Third, the process of Jia Fu and the whole society from prosperity to decline is a concern for the real world. The book is composed of the mythical world, the ideal world and the real world, which constitutes a grand structure of three-dimensional overlap. In the process of crossing these three lines, the image of "dream" plays a vital role. (1) Mythological world: Looking back at the whole book, we can easily find that A Dream of Red Mansions generally includes two parts in the mythological world, namely "Green Ridge Peak, Buddhism and Taoism" and "Wonderland", and these two parts are represented by the dreams of Zhen and Jia Baoyu respectively. "Zhen's dream is psychic", as mentioned above, is a wedge-shaped summary. When writing this book for the first time, Zhen fell asleep and saw a monk carrying a stone to the world, which led to his next series of joys and sorrows. This monk, together, has repeatedly become the "dreamer" in Baoyu's dream in the book. "Jia Baoyu is dreaming in a dreamland" is a fantasy mythological world carefully carved by Cao Xueqin. In this dream, the police illusion made Baoyu familiar with the lifelong books of the third-class women in Jinling, and even "made him drink lewd illusion again." The mythical world in the dream foretells the life track and ending of the main women in the book and sets the tone of the book A Dream of Red Mansions. Therefore, the first clue of A Dream of Red Mansions, the mythical world, can be said to be completely created and developed by the image of "dream". The author uses an ingenious surrealism technique to promote the development of the plot structure of the novel at the level of the mythical world. (2) Ideal world: In the ideal world with the Grand View Garden as the background, Cao Shi mainly described the tragedy of love between Baoyu and Daiyu. Baodai's love is the ideal love in the author's mind. And the image of "dream", like a joint, is firmly anchored in this love line. Please see: at first glance, "Zhen is a psychic in a dream" and "irrigation with tears" is undoubtedly the beginning of Baodai's love for past lives. Only in this way can Baodai's "She looks familiar" and "I have seen this sister before" be repeated for the third time, and Baoyu's "I can't forget you in my dreams" can be repeated for 32 times. Thirty-six times, "Embroidering a dream of a mandarin duck is like a dream of a crimson cloud", saying, "What is a golden wedding? I prefer to talk about the dream of "wood and stone karma", which is a close alliance between the crimson pearl fairy and the waiter Shen Ying. Eighty-two times, I was "sick and crazy, and my nightmare disturbed me." In eighty-nine times, Daiyu heard people calling Baochai "Grandma Bao" in her dream. These "dream" images are the predictions and signs of the tragic ending of Baodai's love. In the ninety-eighth episode of Baoyu's Dream of Death, I paid a return visit to Daiyu's sweet soul, and rendered the sadness of "looking for a blue sky on the top and looking for death on the bottom, but I couldn't find it in either place" to the extreme. It was not until the end of the book that 1 16 times "realized fairy tales in psychic dreamland" and classified Lin Daiyu as a fairy that Baodai's love line became complete. Throughout the whole article, when expressing the second clue of A Dream of Red Mansions-the ideal world, the author used the image of "dream" again and again, which constituted Baodai's past love, and finally led to a helpless tragedy. (3) The real world: The author clearly stated in the first sentence at the beginning of A Dream of Red Mansions: "After experiencing some dreams, I concealed the truth. I wrote this book" The Stone "as a' psychic'. "Dreams are illusory and have no truth at all, but the art of" dreams "in literary works is the realm of dreaming about real life or realizing dreams, which expresses rich real life content and the author's life ideal and aesthetic significance in an absurd and bizarre way, and so is A Dream of Red Mansions. On the practical level, the greatest reality of A Dream of Red Mansions lies in its strong criticism of the feudal system itself. This kind of criticism can be shown in all directions through the love in Bao Dai's Where Are You Going, the misfortune of the Twelve Golden Maidens and the decline of the Jia family, and at the same time, it has achieved the effect of revealing the inevitable extinction trend of this system. "Dream" image has irreplaceable practical significance because of its strong criticism. For example, Qin Keqing dreamed of search for the 13th time. Although this dream is not long, its content is very important. Through the mouth of Qin, the Jia family was revealed. Although it was full of oil and salt, it was prosperous in an instant. " "Banquet must break up and be happy" has become the inevitable development trend of Jia family. In the face of this crisis of "buildings will collapse", the retrogressive measure should be to build more granges, houses and acres of land nearby to prepare funds for sacrifices, supplies and family studies, instead of "thinking about the future with endless pride." "In fact, this is the care of Jia Fu, a real millipede. For another example, in the sixteenth Qin Zhong's dying dream, the ghost sentenced him to dreaming. At first, the ghost sentenced him to pretend to be impartial and seemingly fair, but when he heard the name "Jia Baoyu", he was too busy to reveal the truth and was willing to bend the rules. Ironically, ghost judges, like real people, are flattering and afraid of powerful people. The realistic significance of the novel itself determines the shaping of the image of "dream", and such a description of "dream" occupies a large proportion in A Dream of Red Mansions. Therefore, from a realistic point of view, the creation of "dream" image has really greatly promoted the development of the plot structure of the novel. 4. The image and characterization of "dream" A Dream of Red Mansions conceives nearly 100 characters to be portrayed in different degrees, and unfolds the story with the formation and development track of characters' ideological character. An important purpose of the application of a large number of "dream" images in A Dream of Red Mansions is to mold and deepen the ideological character of typical characters, and to find the internal cause for the plot development from the logic of characters. On the one hand, through the description of "dreams", the explicit personality level of characters can be made clearer. The most typical example is You Sanjie's two dreams. You Sanjie is a woman in the lower class, but she doesn't want to be fooled by Wan. She tries to defend her personality and bravely pursues her marriage. Because of Liu Xianglian's misunderstanding, she refused to die in order to resist social injustice and safeguard her dignity. Sixty-six times, Liu Xianglian dreamed that You Sanjie was holding a mandarin duck sword, which showed a woman's unswerving pursuit of love and dignity. Back to sixty-nine, before Second Sister You was persecuted to death by Wang Xifeng, You Sanjie's words of "cutting a jealous woman with this sword" clearly showed You Sanjie's strong rebellious spirit. So to be fair, no matter which dream is removed, You Sanjie's image will not be so radiant. On the other hand, through the description of "dreams", we can find the deep psychology of the characters and reveal the hidden aspects of their personalities. For example, in Fifty-six Chapters, a dream about Zhen and Jia Baoyu was described. Some scholars wrote that this dream reflected Baoyu's relatively secret and lonely character. (5) As pointed out above, writers often fabricate plots based on the logic of characters' personalities, and the trajectories of characters often extend into "dreams". It is from the traditional dream culture that A Dream of Red Mansions draws lessons from this creative method of linking "dream" with the whole character, and regards "dream" as a "behavior field" to develop the character's ideological character, showing its comprehensive and profound ideological characteristics.