An Aesthetic Interpretation On Dreams Of The Red Mansion

This dissertation tends to give a general interpretation of Dreams of the Red Mansion from anaesthetic perspective in four aspects:The profound connotations of Dreams of the Red Mansion are not to be generalized with a matter ofone sentence and any attempts toward this end will only turn out to be contradictory along the way.Yet, "relief from love" and "intoxication with love", two terms employed in this dissertation, are thetwo sides of a kind of emotion that appear to be contradictory but are, as a matter of fact, the outcomeof the writer's meticulous observation of life, understanding of life, aesthetical expression and thepoetic judgment an artist makes about life. It is this pair of contradictions that shape the in-depthstructure of this work. With these two conflicting themes mutually penetrative and mutuallysupportive, the narration of Dreams of the Red Mansion proceeds in the form of a dialogue, making itan open text and an appealing structure and providing its readers with finite room for imaginationwhenever it is.The overwhelming artistic appeal of Dreams of the Red Mansion is attributable to the classicaesthetical judgments found in it. It focuses on the fate of people, bringing to fight the deep and richemotional experiences. The writer did not attempt to interpret a certain sophisticated and abstractphilosophical doctrine, nor did he intend to distort life and people. Therefore, Dreams of the RedMansion is shorn of abstract descriptions but rather, it is abundant in artistic cognitive values; it isdevoid of moral justifications but it gives people a sense of morality, which resulted from the writer'saesthetical comprehension of life or, more specifically, aesthetical comprehension of emotions. This iscoherent to generalization that a masterpiece is always concerned with emotions. One of the thingsthat characterize the artistic accomplishment of Dreams of the Red Mansion is the integration ofgenuineness and kindness on the basis of aesthetical judgment.The tragic aspect is the core of the aesthetical study of Dreams of the Red Mansion, which helps toshape the work itself and brings about the beautifulness of the work. Inspired by ArthurSchopenhauer's philosophy, Wang Guowei defined Dreams of the Red Mansion as a work ofself-torture, self-penalty, self-repent and self-relief, acknowledging the inevitability of tragedy and atthe same time giving a wrong perception of tragic values. Tragedy exists in the contradictionsbetween ideals and realities and between persistence and relinquishment. As a result, the conflictsdisplayed in the work are both general and specific, making it deep in thought and rich in historiccontents. Because of a considerable number of misinterpretations of tragedy-related issues overDreams of the Red Mansion, it is imperative to rediscover the tragic value, intension, meaning andpurpose of this work.The autobiographical nature of Dreams of the Red Mansion can only be perceived as a question ofextensive aesthetical experience which contributes to the aesthetical charm of the work, that is, thevivid description of various characters is the outcome of the writer's close encounter with thesecharacters who, in the work, are not necessarily the real ones in the writer's personal life experience.The application of this method of writing that is based one real life but transcends real life marks thetransformation of the writer's writing style and imbues the Jia Family with artistic generality.Therefore, apart from the awareness of the autobiographical nature, adequate attention should begiven to the criticism and satire of the writing style of Dreams of the Red Mansion.