Dream of Red Mansions is Cao Xueqin s autobiography, but the protagonist is not Jia Baoyu

Mondo Culture Updated on 2024-01-31

There has always been a view that "Dream of Red Mansions" is the autobiography of the author Cao Xueqin, and Jia Baoyu written in the book is actually the author himself.

This statement is actually unreasonable, because both Cao Xueqin and Yan Zhai have already told us that Jia Baoyu's matter is "fake".

In the first chapter of the book, the author says "hide the truth" and "use the fake village dialect to perfunctory a story".

In fact, there is indeed a character in **, and the author's description of him is basically Cao Xueqin's family affairs, and this character is Zhen Baoyu.

Do you remember that couplet that was too illusory?The correct interpretation of this sentence should be: what is false is what is false, and what is true is true, but if you take the fake as the true, the real will also become false.

This theory of truth and falsehood is actually from two levels: from the level of **, the matter of Jiafu is a fantastic lie, but the lie is the shadow of the truth. From a practical point of view, greed, hatred, and hatred in life are just a dream in the end, and they are also false and illusory, and the more you take it as "true", the more illusory it is.

Therefore, the Jia Mansion in ** is actually made up, and the real "Jia Mansion" - that is, Cao Mansion should be Zhen Mansion. In other words, Zhen Baoyu is the real Baoyu and Cao Xueqin herself.

In the second "Leng Zixing Speech Rongguo Mansion", Fat Yanzhai commented: "Whoever writes about the treasure jade of the Jia family is passing on the shadow of the real treasure jade", and when writing about the Zhen family, Fat Yanzhai said that he is the "real family", which shows that Zhen Baoyu is the author himself. It is worth noting that when Yan Zhai said Zhen Baoyu, he used "true" instead of "Zhen", which can be said to be very clear.

In fact, the so-called "true treasure jade" has an allusion source, Tang Xianzu's "Peony Pavilion" once had such a scene: the imperial court sent Qin sent Miao Shunbin to Guangzhou to spend a lot of money to buy treasures, and the protagonist Liu Mengmei, who had never met Huaicai, heard about it, and came to ask for ** treasures.

But when he saw the treasure, he showed disdain, and Miao Shunbin asked, "According to what you said, what is the real treasure?"Liu Mengmei replied: "To tell you the truth, Xiaosheng is the real priceless treasure." ”

The writing of "Dream of Red Mansions" was deeply influenced by "The Peony Pavilion", Cao Xueqin is a "real treasure", while the "fake treasure jade" in the book is illusory, a "fake" treasure in the eyes of the world. With this basic premise, what the author wants to tell us is: don't be fooled by the fame and fortune of society, what you are pursuing will eventually be a passing cloud.

Therefore, Zhen Baoyu is Cao Xueqin, and the affairs of the Zhen family are the true affairs of the Cao family.

We only need to compare the Zhen family described in ** and the Cao family in history, and we can easily find this fact.

First of all, in terms of location, the Zhen family and the Cao family are both in Jinling, while the Jia family is in Beijing. As a close minister of the Son of Heaven, it is normal for the Cao family to have a mansion in the capital, but the Cao family in the capital is only a shadow of the Cao family in Jinling, and it is also the most illusory prosperity of the Cao family. Therefore, when Cao Xueqin wrote about the illusory Cao family, she put the geographical background in Beijing, and the real Cao family in Jinling.

Second, from the perspective of official positions, Cao Yin once served as the accountant of the Shen Criminal Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and later went to Suzhou and Jiangning to weave, inspecting the two Huai Yancao to supervise the imperial history. And Jia Mansion started from Jia Yuan to Jia Zheng, all of them were Beijing officials, and there can be no similarity with the Cao Mansion in reality.

The position of the Zhen family is the president of the Qincha Jinling Provincial Tiren Institute, which is a position made up by Cao Xueqin, and Yan Zhai said that this is "set up by the heart", which shows that this position is compiled according to the position of the Cao family in Jinling.

The Cao family has a close relationship with the imperial family, in addition to serving as the position of the imperial merchant, he is also responsible for investigating the official voice and public sentiment in Jiangnan.

There is a Tiren Pavilion in Beijing, which was used as a satin warehouse by the Ministry of Internal Affairs during the Qianlong Dynasty. And the Cao family, as the enveloped servants of the royal family, originally belonged to the management of the Internal Affairs Bureau, and Cao Yin also served in the Internal Affairs Bureau, so the official position of "President of the Tiren Academy" is likely to come from the "Tiren Pavilion".

The third is to take over, Kangxi has six southern tours, five of which have lived in the weaving yamen, and four of them are Cao Yin is responsible for reception.

* Jia Fu is only "ready to take the car once", that is, it has not actually taken the driver.

And Mama Zhao in ** said: "Now the Zhen family in Jiangnan, oops, good momentum!."He alone took over the car four times. If you don't see it with your own eyes, tell no one to believe it. ”

It can be seen that as the Zhen family's four pick-ups, in fact, it is the four pick-ups of the Cao Mansion.

In the end, it is about copying the family, whether it is the Jia family or the Zhen family, in the end, they all fell because of the copying of the family, which is based on the real experience of the Cao family. Mrs. You of Ningguo Mansion said: "I heard your master say yesterday that the Zhen family committed a crime, and now they have confiscated the furniture and transferred the crime of entering Beijing", which is consistent with the experience of the Cao family.

To sum up, it can be concluded that "Dream of Red Mansions" is indeed created based on the real experience of the Cao family, but the Jia Mansion in ** is not the prototype of the Cao family, but only a shadow of the real Cao family. It is the Zhen family in Jinling who is really based on the experience of the Cao family, and the prototype of Zhen Baoyu's character is the author Cao Xueqin himself.

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