On Emotion-centered Theory In A Dream Of Red Mansions

In Cao Xueqin's times, both Confucian belief (inner sageliness and outer kingliness) and Taoist belief (body-protection and valuing life) had stranded, which were two most important traditional beliefs in China. Before Cao Xueqin, in order to rebuild belief, philosophers in later Ming Dynasty launched the emotion-centered ideological trend, among which Tang Xianzu's"most emotion"doctrine and Feng Menglong's emotional education thought influenced widely. And A Dream of Red Mansions'philosophical basis can trace back to Taoism, including Laozi and Chuang-tzu's natural theory of human nature, emotionalism in Wei and Jin Dynasty. Of course, hsin hsuen , which was nearer to Cao Xueqin inspired him much, such as Wang Yangming, Wang Gen, Li Zhi, Liu Zongzhou, Huang Zongxi's thought. In this procedure, traditional idea—"Nature is structure and emotion is function"and"Nature is good while emotion is evil"—changed gradually. Meanwhile, emotion was elevated and considered to be not always evil. Huang Zongxi even proposed its goodness. Much more, contrasting to Liu Zongzhou's attaching emotion to nature, Cao Xueqin viewed emotion as nature.This paper aims to interpret the emotion-centered theory in A Dream of Red Mansions. Therefore, it's necessary to analyze"emotion"from some aspects such as character, pronunciation, meaning, etc. Concerning its character,"emotion"originates from"green", so it bares its basic meaning that is"true","authenticity", including its goodness. Studying pre-qin's doctrine, we will also find emotion's basic and original meaning is"true"and"authenticity". So"emotion"implies"what is true"."Emotion"in A Dream of Red Mansions shows its complex meaning at least four aspects: First, it includes all kinds of feeling, not only that between people, but also a person's sentiment and impulsion when facing outside world. Second, it is human's feature accompanying their life, saying in detail, it means human's authenticity and intelligence. Third,"emotion"in A Dream of Red Mansions shows a kind of world view and philosophy, that is to trait other people, outside world and ourselves with earnest emotion and to live authentically. Last, it means the metaphysical Tao according to its transcendence and being as the ultimate meaning. The real significance of"emotion-centeredness"lies in not only emotion's being the topic of this novel, but also the emotional ontology which Cao structured in the novel. Refer to Chinese ontology, emotion which could be the noumenon owns to its universality, transcendence and apriority .And it is a concept integrating"heaven"and"human". Meanwhile, Cao structured an emotional cosmology.Facing to traditional beliefs'difficult, Cao Xueqin began to rethink about human nature and outside world. He considered emotion as human nature, which was different form Confucian and Taoist theory on human nature, the former thinks human nature is nihilistic and quite, the latter believes virtue is human's basic nature. Furthermore, Cao established the emotional ontology to reconstruct foundational belief, that was to trait other people, outside world and ourselves with earnest emotion. Authenticity and goodness which are implicit principles in emotion are the reasons why it could be the basis of the new belief and why it is worthy trusting, which is especially important under that circumstance with Confucian and Taoist belief's illusion. However, emotion-centered theory destined to fail because of its limitation. The first difficult is that emotion is subjective and difficult to be universalized and externalized, therefore, emotional conflicts between individuals are inevitable. Secondly, to realize emotion-centered theory, it is necessary to base on some social conditions. Thirdly, emotion-centered theory cares only for individual action but ignores harmonizing group relationships and establishing outside systems, consequently, it is at most a dream.