How to understand the tragic features of A Dream of Red Mansions?

Many aestheticians at all times and all over the world always have such a basic feature when discussing tragedy: from happiness to pain, from pursuit to disillusionment, from value to destruction. According to this basic feature of the tragedy of A Dream of Red Mansions, we can see that its tragedy has three meanings. That is to say, from the superficial meaning of the writing theme, the book writes the tragedy of the times through the rise and fall of Jia's family and the love and marriage tragedy of Bao, Dai and Chai. From the deep meaning of the writing theme, it is to write cultural tragedy through the destruction process of several women; Judging from the symbolic significance of the writing theme, it is to write the tragedy of life through the transition process from good to empty. Let's talk about the triple meaning of tragedy in detail. 1. Tragedy of the times: If Wu's The Scholars reflects the spiritual tragedy caused by the ideological shackles of the Qing Dynasty from one side, then Cao Xueqin's description of the rise and fall of feudal aristocratic families fully shows the tragedy of the times caused by the decay and decline of the Qing Dynasty. Throughout the book A Dream of Red Mansions, we can draw several understandings-debauchery is one of the reasons for the decline of Jia family. On the one hand, most men in the Jia family are corrupt, immoral and bohemian, which is regarded as a common occurrence in this noble family. Jia Zhen's daughter-in-law's incest, Jia Lian's "keeping mistresses", Jia Forgive's attempt on Yuanyang, and even Wang Xufeng's affair with his nephew Jia Rong, etc., are all the words of old servant Jiao Da's "crawling with ashes, raising a brother-in-law, raising a brother-in-law". On the other hand, personnel disputes and even vicious killings caused by wine and color constantly shake this feudal building. Although many innocent daughters struggled in this evil quagmire, they all ended up with this decadent family, and almost none of them had a good end. Luxury is the second reason for the decline of this noble family. Not to mention how all kinds of beautiful treasures fill every corner of this family, nor how well-cooked delicacies fill every feast in this family. It's amazing enough to spend money on Qin Keqing's funeral and Jia Yuanchun's mother. Although Xifeng, Tanchun and others think that the family economic crisis is finally coming, no one can turn the tide and help the building down. "One generation is worse than the next" is the fatal wound of this noble family. When Jia Jing visited Tao, Jia avoided his lewdness, Jia Zheng was pedantic and incompetent, and Jia Zhen, Jia Lian, Jia Rong and other dude boys all indulged in debauchery, and so on. The Grand View Garden was everywhere. The decay of the family is hopeless, and only spiritual Jia Baoyu can only breathe this suffocating sad fog painfully. But his incompatibility with feudal tradition will inevitably lead to the tragic ending of Baodai's love. This era will not accommodate them, nor will it succumb to the tragic conflict of the times. As the decadent forces turn from prosperity to decline, the new forces will also move from germination to death. This is the tragedy of that era that A Dream of Red Mansions tells us, and no one can rule it out. From this point of view, at a certain stage of social development, "decay" may sprout "rebirth", but it is impossible to catalyze "rebirth" On the contrary, when the "decadent" power is still quite strong, it will stifle "rebirth". It can be said that the family and marriage life in A Dream of Red Mansions reflects the tragedy of the times from this angle. Throughout the history of China, it is all kinds of corruption that spread in the upper class, which inhibited the development of capitalism, hindered the economic and cultural development and social progress of the country at that time, and even led to the decline of national strength and dynasty. In this sense, Jia's tragedy is a mirror of the tragedy of the times. 2. Cultural Tragedy: Through the deep meaning of the work, we can see that not all the tragedies in A Dream of Red Mansions are caused by villains or confusion about the future. In the final analysis, it is a character tragedy caused by the deep structure of orthodox culture solidified for thousands of years. China's ethical traditional culture puts people in a high position, such as "the unity of heaven and man". However, the consciousness of "valuing people" in China's traditional culture does not respect individual values and individual free development, but emphasizes individual obligations to clan and country. This kind of "humanism" which lacks personality consciousness will inevitably lead to resignation and self-compression, resulting in a state of neither cold nor hot, neither birth nor death. We see this from the destruction of several women in the book. Yingchun, very kind, but also very weak. From the fact that the wet nurse stole golden phoenix, her snail, and her attitude, we can see that her submissive character often increases her tolerance for taking advantage of others and reduces her sensitivity to being manipulated, controlled and bullied. But also often condone and appease unreasonable things. As a result, Yingchun became a victim of feudal arranged marriage and a scapegoat for her father Jia She's debt repayment. She didn't realize her misfortune until her death. Visible, Spring Festival travel rush's misfortune, mostly due to personality. Looking at Daiyu's tragedy again, is it entirely caused by external forces and environment? In fact, people often see that she was born with excellent traditions, but she did not see that she died of the character of traditional culture. Due to the lack of personality consciousness in traditional culture, it is often manifested as human dependence in traditional literature, that is, the subjectivity of a weak person must often be attached to family, parents or a strong one. In the depths of her soul, she has been exhausted by this attachment, and always feels the pain of losing attachment, the desolation of running away from home, and even despair of life. So her illness became more and more serious and she was exhausted. Her life had come to an end before her love was destroyed. Therefore, the destruction of Daiyu's love is not only the destruction of his heartless world, but also the self-destruction of his tragic character. As for Xue Baochai's tragedy, it is generally believed that a person who tries to meet the times is not tolerated by the world, so it is a social tragedy. But from a cultural point of view, she is also the inevitable bitter fruit of the feudal cultural tree. Feudal culture requires every "individual" to do things that are best not in line with his inner desires, so as to get favorable comments from the society. Xue Baochai is one of those who consciously or unconsciously pursue this ideal of life. In love, intelligence and life, Baochai has been worn away by feudal culture. I dare not pursue the people and things I love too strongly, and I dare not break with the people and things I don't like. Life is in a chaotic state of neither birth nor death. This self-compression withered her life prematurely. From the destruction of this image, we can see how the deep consciousness of feudal culture erodes people's soul and stifles people's personality. Cao Xueqin's literary thinking in the gloomy history is indeed an awakening of national spirit. Third, the tragedy of life: the tragedy of the times focuses on dissecting the society at that time from the cross section, the cultural tragedy focuses on reflecting the national culture in depth, and the tragedy of life is to think about the essence of life from the philosophical level. The appearance of A Dream of Red Mansions has broken the basic philosophical problems about individual existence in China's ancient novels, which is also the ideological charm of A Dream of Red Mansions that can span time and space. "People are born with troubles." The joy of life is often realized in the pursuit of pain. The degree of this pain increases with the increase of knowledge. Take Baoyu as an example. Baoyu was not afraid of life at first, but faced life squarely and took a more positive attitude towards life and its specific existence value and purpose in life. However, "heaven and earth are ruthless, and everything is straw dogs." In this world, he always feels that not only things are impermanent, but life is easy to get old, and even feelings cannot be preserved forever. So he fell into the abyss of disappointment, realized the truth of cosmic life, and finally left everything behind to stay away from the hubbub. This is his decisive choice after thinking about his personal life value and life ideal. Life is always like this, always unhappy, always lacking, life should be constantly injured and constantly recovering, which is a tragedy that no one can escape. In fact, judging from Baoyu's image, this is the meaning of life tragedy. Judging from the whole work, there is also a layer of sentimental color from good to empty, which is mainly manifested in the recitation of many lyrics. For example, "a passionate son is involved in the air", "I like being just gorgeous, but I hate impermanence", "romantic cleverness attracts people's resentment" and "jade quality is poor and eventually sinks into mud" and so on, all of which are reflected in the destruction of beauty. There are so many defects in life that when we go beyond the superficial meaning of the theme to experience them, we will feel that the disclosure of such defects can encourage people to cherish time more and persist in this world, which has a strong exhortation effect. Of course, if we treat them negatively, we will go to the other end of loss of will and pessimism. This work seems to tell people that they must make the right choice. On the other hand, in such a tragic era, the children in Grand View Garden, as ordinary people, can have a good ending no matter how they choose? Cao Xueqin has deeply experienced the human pain and the "great sorrow" of life, so he can turn this pain into a kind of pain and make an artistic summary and expression. It must be pointed out that this tragic consciousness is different from the Confucian sense of hardship, which comes from the sense of responsibility and obligation generated by group consciousness, while Cao Xueqin is more directly connected with Zhuangzi's thought, and his worries about life are far greater than those about his home country. Therefore, this tragic consciousness of life is far more profound and universal than Qu Yuan and Du Fu's "parting from sorrow". From the triple tragedy in A Dream of Red Mansions, we can see Cao Xueqin's spirit of criticizing, reflecting and exploring reality, culture and life. However, after all, he lived in a feudal society and was inextricably linked with old, traditional and backward things. Therefore, criticizing reality and reviving hope, defending tradition consciously and subconsciously, and being born and entering the WTO have become three pairs of contradictions, corresponding to three tragedies.