Baoyu(宝玉)'s Resistance to Feudalism: Reading Red Chamber Dream(紅樓夢) Again

Abstract

A highly autobiographical narrative, Red Chamber Dream(紅樓夢) portrays a graphic panorama of early Qing Dynasty, detailing the domestic life of the aristocratic Jia family across three generations. It also critiques the values and ideas of old China. The author's criticism of the feudal system parallels Baoyu's own life. An intelligent, rebellious, introspective, compassionate adolescent, Baoyu questions the Confucian assumptions of nation, community and family placed before individual desires and pursuits. Baoyu's resistance runs throughout the narrative. First, he rejects Jia Zheng's command to take the civil exams, and become a bureaucrat, thus challenging patriarchal authority as well as the contemporary success-oriented approach to Confucian scholarship. Second, he resists patriarchy and gender-roles. Dwelling with girls and maids in the Grand View Garden helps him identify with them, hating his own gender. Baoyu's extreme pro-feminine views duly reflects his criticism about prejudice toward women in feudal China. Third, for family's sake, he reluctantly follows Grandma Jia and Lady Wang's scheme for him to marry Baochai. But he has strong crush on Daiyu, another rebel. Baoyu's insurrection clashes with and worries the Jia family. They can be interpreted as an attack on, or subversion of, feudal Confucianism which emphasizes filial piety to ancestors and loyalty to emperors. Baoyu rejects Confucianism, and embraces Taoism and Buddhism which stress the futility of human actions and mutability of the worldly affairs. Hence, the elegiac tone within the luxurious narrative. Cao Xueqin's formulation of such a provocative, awakening consciousness in Baoyu is Chinese literature's most outstanding feat ever.