an analysis of bao-yu’s romantic struggle in the story of the stone and its commentary on societal expectations in qing-era china.
Bao-yu’s development throughout the novel, The Story of the Stone, is framed through his struggle between the path of passion and the path of Confucianism, which reflect the distinct paths available in Chinese culture during the Qing Dynasty. Through Bao-yu’s development, Cao Xueqin expresses his discontent with Chinese society and the traditional path of Confucianism that most followed and provides commentary on the difficulties that lie in resisting this path. Bao-yu’s grappling with the path of passion and the path of Confucianism is reflected in his own conflicting feelings for Dai-yu and Bao-chai, and the choice he must make between them.
Before we begin to discuss Bao-yu’s first romantic encounter with Dai-yu and Bao-chai, it is important to describe a key influence on Bao-yu’s perception towards love and marriage: his parents, Jia Zheng and Lady Wang. Bao-yu’s father embodies the male virtues of Confucianism, while his mother demonstrates the female virtues of a Confucian woman. Both hope that Bao-yu will follow in Jia Zheng’s footsteps as a scholar and the eventual heir of the household, placing pressure and expectations on Bao-yu from a young age which originate from a Confucian value system. It is this value system that underlies the foundation of Jia Zheng and Lady Wang’s marriage, which leaves a psychological impact on Bao-yu that influences him growing up. Throughout the novel, Jia Zheng and Lady Wang rarely occupy the same space, tacitly enforcing an apparent separation between themselves which extended to a depicted lack of intimacy and romance between their characters. While this clearly originates from the “highly regulated position of wives within the Qing Dynasty” which “dramatically hampered” their “sexual role within marriage” (McIvor 10), their relationship still seemed unusually distant and dispassionate compared to the other pairings in the Jia household. Their marriage would have certainly left an impression on Bao-yu and his perception of Confucianism, while his concept of life as a future Confucian scholar would undoubtedly be shaped by Jia Zheng’s lifestyle. Thus, it can be inferred that Bao-yu would perceive such a lifestyle as missing an affectionate relationship as well as devoid of frequent interaction with women.
With context on the impact Bao-yu’s parents had on his development and perspective towards Confucianism, I will now proceed to analyze Bao-yu’s feelings towards Dai-yu and Bao-chai, which are introduced through his dream in the Land of Illusion. In the dream, the fairy Disenchantment introduces Bao-yu to her sister Ke-qing, or “two-in-one”, whose “rose-fresh beauty reminded him strongly of Bao-chai” while “something about her” reminded him of “Dai-yu’s delicate charm” (Cao 59 Word). These thoughts reveal that Bao-yu is attracted to both girls in the beginning of the novel for their sensual qualities. However, at this moment in the book we are not yet introduced to either girl’s spiritual qualities, and therefore cannot associate either Dai-yu or Bao-chai to the paths outlined previously. In this moment, we can see the blissful ignorance of youth in the Land of Illusion, where Bao-yu does not yet have to be concerned about such things. Shortly afterwards, Bao-yu and Ke-qing make their way to “the edge of a dark ravine”, which Disenchantment explains is the “Ford of Error”. While Bao-yu and Ke-qing stand on one side of the Ford, the other is only for those “fated to cross over” (Cao 61 Word). As Bao-yu is then pulled into the middle of the Ford, the imagery alludes to the fact that Bao-yu will have to struggle to find his own path through the rest of the novel and face human suffering, especially that of innocent girls, along the way. Thus, Bao-yu’s dream introduces the conflict that Bao-yu will experience in his feelings for Dai-yu and Bao-chai, which is explored throughout the succeeding chapters.
In order to discuss Bao-yu’s conflicting feelings about Dai-yu and Bao-chai, it is important to first understand the relationship between these two characters at the start of the novel. Dai-yu is first brought into the Jia household at the beginning of Chapter 4, while Bao-chai arrived shortly after in Chapter 5. From the moment she is introduced, her “generous, accommodating disposition” is contrasted with Dai-yu’s “air of lofty self-sufficiency” (Cao 43 Word). These distinct qualities set the frame for the characters to be presented and developed in opposition to one another, starting with their core personalities and extending to their relationships with the Jia household, Jia Yu-cun, and Bao-yu. As a result, their divergent actions will shape Bao-yu’s feelings towards both of them, and eventually foreshadow his choice to follow the path of passion. My first analysis of Dai-yu and Bao-chai will pertain to their respective personalities, which are crucial to understanding their characters as well as their development throughout the novel. Dai-yu’s personality comes across as sensitive, fragile, and temperamental to most, especially as she spends a considerable amount of time weeping in response to situations involving Bao-yu. But she also possesses a rebellious instinct which cares little about rank or stature, which seems surprising given the broad adherence to Confucianism in the Jia household. For example, consider her response to Bao-yu’s gift of “fragrant Indian beads” given to him by the Prince of Bei-jing, an important and respected figure in the Empire: she responds by flinging the beads “back at [Bao-yu] disdainfully” and calling the Prince “a coarse man” (Cao 146 Word), emphasizing the word “man” to show her diffident attitude towards his rank. Dai-yu also possesses a strong connection to nature, specifically flowers, which she references frequently as metaphors in poetry and music. She uses these mediums to express her thoughts and feelings often in the novel, which demonstrates her role as the representative of the path of passion and nature. In contrast, Bao-chai’s personality is characterized as cautious and calculated, yet also devoted to helping others. She provides advice to other characters throughout the novel, dispensing it as though it were medicine. Indeed, Bao-chai’s relationship with medicine is alluded to several times as well, from the fragrance Bao-yu smells on her in Chapter 8 coming from a medicinal pill she took, to Bao-yu naming her house the “The Garden of Spices” given the relationship between spices, herbs, and medicine in Chinese culture. We are also alerted to Bao-chai’s sense of “conformity” (Cao 82 Word), which poses a trait in direct opposition to Dai-yu’s sense of rebelliousness. Bao-chai’s association with medicine along with her virtues paints a picture of the ideal Confucian woman, illustrating her function as the representative of the path of Confucianism, in sharp contrast to Dai-yu’s natural purity and association with unrestrained passion.
My next analysis of Dai-yu and Bao-chai’s development will focus on their relations to the Jia household, as well as what these connections reveal about their value systems. Dai-yu considers herself to be an outsider from the moment she is introduced to the family and retains this feeling throughout the story. Even when the characters have grown older, Dai-yu’s innermost thoughts reveal that she maintains this view, as she worries that she is not “a true Jia like the others” (Cao 874 Word) in a nightmare. Conversely, Bao-chai never seems to face these same feelings, as she sought to integrate and embed herself within the family from the start. As soon as she entered the household, the novel emphasizes that her “subordinates” adored her (Cao 43 Word), and we find a similar level of adoration towards her from the family members of the household later on.
As the novel progresses, Dai-yu and Bao-chai also take divergent approaches to interacting with the household which strongly reflect their respective “outsider” and “insider” statuses. While Bao-chai attempts to ingratiate herself with various members of the family in a seemingly calculated manner, Dai-yu focuses all of her attention and emotions on Bao-yu. Throughout the novel, Bao-chai is engaged with different relatives of the Jia family in conversations on a wide variety of topics, such as household finances and medical needs. Comparatively, most of Dai-yu’s conversations with others in the novel focus on Bao-yu in some form or another; she rarely, if ever, engages in household affairs, as Bao-chai does in Chapter 56. These distinct approaches to relationships within the family lead to separate outcomes for the characters. While Grandmother Jia continues to refer to Dai-yu as an “outsider” while arranging Bao-yu’s marriage to Bao-chai (Cao 943 Word), this “outsider” status also leads Bao-yu to feel a shared connection with her as he tells her that he is on his own, just like she is (Cao 279 Word). Conversely, the family’s plot to marry Bao-yu with Bao-chai indicates that Bao-chai has successfully embedded herself within the family; however, this connection to the family and its values only served to distance Bao-chai further from Bao-yu.
From these interactions, it is evident that Bao-chai and Dai-yu possess quite distinct value systems which play a significant role in Bao-yu’s conflicting feelings about them. Bao-chai’s approach to the family portrays a Confucian attitude, which is centered around relationships and connections. As previously mentioned, Bao-yu is attracted to Bao-chai towards the start of the novel for her sensual qualities; likewise, Bao-chai is attracted to Bao-yu, and given her calculating nature is likely building the aforementioned relationships within the Jia household to position herself as his future wife. In contrast, Dai-yu has no interest in these tangent relationships, preferring to focus her energy and passion on the one thing that matters to her: Bao-yu. This illustrates how Dai-yu’s distance from the family enabled her to retain her purity and stave off Confucian influences, therefore maintaining her natural female virtues. However, Bao-chai’s frequent exposure to the household and desire to install herself within the Jia family intensified her adoption of Confucian values and “contaminated” her “pure” nature, bringing her closer to the male-dominated virtues of the Jia household (Cao 366 Word). As a result, Bao-yu’s gravitation towards Dai-yu over the course of the novel indicates his preference for her natural female virtues, while his incremental detachment from Bao-chai suggests an aversion to the Confucian values held by his family.
The next part of this analysis will center around Dai-yu and Bao-chai’s relationship with Jia Yu-cun, and how their different perspectives on the character help frame Bao-yu’s attitude towards him and Confucian society at large. For context, Jia Yu-cun starts the novel distantly related to the Jia household, but soon after interacting with Jia Zheng he is able to secure a position as magister in Ying-tian-fu. In this position, he proceeds to cover up a murder perpetrated by Xue Pan, the brother of Bao-chai, which establishes him as a trusted official to the family and portends his corrupt nature throughout the rest of the novel. Dai-yu’s experience with Jia Yu-cun starts with him as her teacher while she is young and still living with her parents. After her mother’s death, Yu-cun accompanies Dai-yu to the Jia household as part of a favor from her father to connect Jia Yu-cun with Jia Zheng and the family. However, after this point it appears that Jia Yu-cun ceases contact with Dai-yu, as she notes in Chapter 82 that “all the times he’s come to see Uncle Zheng he’s never once asked after me” (Cao 873 Word). This helps illustrate Dai-yu’s view of Jia Yu-cun as a grifter in the Confucian system, who leverages relationships and connections to bolster his own standing and career in the world. This depiction is in line with the novel’s own characterization of Yu-cun, as it says that he is “at heart a man who puts his career first” (Cao 1050 Word). While Dai-yu’s schooling from Jia Yu-cun preceded his turn towards corruption, it can be inferred that she is acutely aware of his corrupt and sleazy nature after learning about Xue Pan’s situation at the end of Chapter 3. On the other hand, Bao-chai holds a much more favorable impression of Jia Yu-cun, which most likely arose due to his saving her brother from charges of manslaughter. While she must understand that Jia Yu-cun’s actions were immoral, she also recognizes that Jia Yu-cun’s reliance on cultivating relationships and connections has produced good fortune for him and his career. Thus, by ignoring the depravity of Yu-cun’s prior actions and subsequently encouraging Bao-yu to foster a relationship with Yu-cun, Bao-chai displays her priorities of ambition and status, which are dictated by her Confucian values. With these opposing perspectives on Jia Yu-cun by Bao-yu’s love interests, it is important to analyze Bao-yu’s response to their viewpoints amidst the broader scope of what Jia Yu-cun represents: corrupt Confucian officials. In Chapter 32, Bao-yu has a conversation with Xiang-yun and Aroma where Xiang-yun extols the importance of relationships with figures like Jia Yu-cun (Cao 329 Word). In this scene, it is clear that Xiang-yun is acting as an emissary for Bao-chai’s thoughts on the matter, given that Aroma remarks on Bao-chai giving similar advice to Bao-yu previously. However, Bao-yu rejects Xiang-yun’s suggestion, stating that he has “no wish to mix with people of [Jia Yu-cun’s] sort” (Cao 329 Word). While a shallow interpretation of this indicates that Bao-yu simply does not wish to interact with “career worms'', as he had previously expressed (Cao 194 Word), I propose that Bao-yu’s dislike of Yu-cun extends to his immoral and corrupt activity. This is because Bao-yu does not turn down requests to meet with other characters from Confucian society in the novel in the same forceful way that he does with Jia Yu-cun. This suggests that Bao-yu became aware of Yu-cun’s corruption at some point, and this dissuaded him from further interactions with the character. Bao-yu’s strong opposition to interacting with Jia Yu-cun, and more broadly engaging in the Confucian art of building official connections (guanxi), is mirrored in his subsequent responses to Bao-chai and Dai-yu’s perspectives on the matter. This reveals Bao-yu’s bias towards the path of passion over the path of Confucianism at this point in the novel. His feelings towards Bao-chai are revealed by Aroma when she states that he “seems to have fallen out with” Bao-chai (Cao 330 Word); this is further confirmed by his later castigating her for “imitating… career worms” and “bothering her head about ‘fame’ and ‘reputation’” (Cao 366 Word). Meanwhile, Bao-yu continues to respect Dai-yu for “never once” (Cao 366 Word) speaking to him about “stupid rubbish”, referring to relationship-building and other Confucian duties (Cao 330 Word). These contrasting responses suggest Bao-yu’s preference for Dai-yu’s value system and foreshadows his eventual inclination towards the path of passion.
Building on this, Bao-chai and Dai-yu’s relationship with Bao-yu is further characterized by their differing identifications with him as the “jade” or as the “stone”. Bao-chai identifies with Bao-yu as the “jade”, which is largely spurred by her connection to his “Magic Jade” through her own “Golden Locket”. Many characters in the novel perceive that this connection indicates a predestined match between “the gold and the jade”, which eventually becomes the impetus for the family’s eventual betrothal of Bao-chai to Bao-yu (Cao 897 Word). However, Bao-chai’s connection with the “jade” aspect of Bao-yu’s identity extends beyond this auspicious pairing. The jade represents virtues in Confucianism, which implies that the “marriage of gold and jade” alludes to Bao-yu’s affirmation of Confucian values and the scholarly lifestyle that his family desires for him.
Contrastingly, Dai-yu focuses on Bao-yu’s identity as the “stone”, which clearly references the events of Chapter 1 and their respective identities as the Crimson Flower and the Stone in the Land of Illusion. Rather than bestow Bao-yu with expectations and rules as the “jade” identity does, Dai-yu’s honest feelings for Bao-yu are for him to be his “own natural self” (Cao 305 Word). Her actions and personality mirror these thoughts, as her feelings towards Bao-yu may be perceived by others to be sensitive and fragile, but to him they are unfiltered and passionate. Bao-yu’s relationship with her is also depicted as much more emotional than his relationship with Bao-chai, and the two are described as “already of one mind” (Cao 305 Word) at a young age, illustrating the natural love present in the relationship through this identity.
Furthermore, Bao-yu loses interest in his “Magic Jade” once he is invested in Dai-yu. This is apparent from his attempts to “smash” it in order to preclude further talk of the “gold and jade” (Cao 305 Word) to his declaration to the maids that he has “no desire for it” after losing it in Chapter 94 (Cao 973 Word). This further accentuates how Dai-yu causes him to identify with his “stone” identity, as it represents the part of Bao-yu that doesn’t need the worldly objects, like nobility and wealth, that the “jade” represents. Additionally, this foreshadows Bao-yu’s eventual decision to renounce the world to take his place as a Buddhist Monk, fulfilling his commitment to the “stone” aspect of his identity. Therefore, in contrast to how the “gold and jade” depict the ideal Confucian match in the family’s interests, the “stone and flower” illustrate a natural, pure love in Bao-yu’s interest. This culminates in his declaration that he believes “in the marriage of stone and flower” instead of “gold and jade”, which foreshadows his eventual decision to follow the path of passion (Cao 370 Word).
Finally, the novel uses Bao-yu’s conflict between Dai-yu and Bao-chai to illustrate the binary nature of his choice between the path of passion and the path of Confucianism. This is first hinted at when the trio is young, as Dai-yu jokes that all three characters cannot be in the same room at the same time (Cao 84 Word). As they grow older, Dai-yu expresses this sentiment once more through a jealous frame, stating that “as soon as Cousin [Bao-chai] comes along, Cousin [Dai-yu] gets forgotten” (Cao 293 Word), asserting that Bao-yu only has a place in his heart for one of them. Even in situations where the characters do find themselves together, the novel introduces external forces which compel them to split apart, such as the commotion in another room just after the three start playing with each other at the end of Chapter 19. Bao-yu’s conflicting feelings reach a climax on his wedding day, where he is under the impression that he will be marrying Dai-yu, although he is actually being tricked by his family into marrying Bao-chai. This alludes to the conflict which Bao-yu faces with his family concerning the path he will choose, as his love for Dai-yu illustrates that he has chosen the path of passion, while his family’s deceit demonstrates their willingness to discard his natural choice in favor of their own Confucian expectations for him. Additionally, this scene represents a turning point in the novel, not least because “Dai-yu breathed her last” at the same moment that Bao-yu and Bao-chai were married (Cao 1005 Word). The importance of this timing is understood by analyzing the underlying connotations of marriage from a Confucian perspective. According to Confucianism, marriage is a commitment to the “cultivation of virtue”, which signals Bao-yu’s parents’ desires for him to adopt Confucian values and adhere to its expectations as a result of this marriage (Cline). Furthermore, it was “unethical” for children to “make any sort of protest” against marriage “legitimised by the parents on both sides” (Shan 820). As a result, Bao-yu’s marriage to Bao-chai indicated the expiration of Bao-yu’s possible romantic ties to Dai-yu, which is reflected in her death. These two events further allude to the expiration of his opportunities to pursue the path of passion in this world, leaving Bao-yu with a stark realization. This realization is the fact that the “marriage of stone and flower” is not meant for the real world, and instead only exists in the Land of Illusion. Thus, the novel illustrates to Bao-yu that his struggle between the path of passion and the path of Confucianism is intertwined with the parallel conflict between illusion and reality. As a result, it becomes clear that his ability to choose his own path outside of Confucian norms is an illusion in the real world, indicating that he must renounce this world and therefore Confucian society in order to truly pursue the path he desires. At the end of the novel, we discover that Bao-yu does indeed renounce the world and becomes the Monk of Passion, thus concluding his struggle and fulfilling his conversion to the natural ideals and path of passion towards which his love for Dai-yu encouraged him.
As Bao-yu seeks to determine his path between the path of passion and the path of Confucianism, the novel illustrates his struggle through his conflicting feelings for Dai-yu and Bao-chai. At the end of his journey he chooses Dai-yu and the path of passion, but discovers that in order to follow this path he must renounce the world. Bao-yu’s odyssey and development illustrates Cao Xueqin’s commentary on issues that arose under the Confucian hierarchy and customs of the Qing Dynasty, while Bao-yu’s conflict between the ideal Confucian woman and the natural woman that he truly loves exemplifies the struggle to forge one’s own path in the conformist Confucian society.
Cao, Xueqin. The Dream of the Red Chamber.
Cline, Erin. Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. “What Can We Learn From Ancient Chinese Views of Marriage?” Berkley Center For Religion, Peace and World Affairs, 2014.
McIvor, J. “Women and Marriage in China”. Footnotes, Vol. 12, Apr. 2019.
Shan, Chun. “Marriage Law and Confucian Ethics in the Qing Dynasty.” Frontiers of Law in China 8, No. 4 (2013): 813-833.