"a Dream Of Red Mansions" Sheyue Image Study

A Dream of Red Mansions is a great novel of China, SheYue is a maid of BaoYu in this novel. SheYue's status is not high, but the author had written about her many times. During the previous eighty chapters of the novel, she appears 31 times. And she also appears many times in the later forty chapters. It is not easy to portray a minor character in words, such as SheYue. But there are no many systemic works about her until now.This thesis mainly divides four parts.The Introduction depicts the history and present condition of the research on SheYue.The first chapter concentrates on SheYue herself, including her family,her name and others.The second part expatiates on the relationship between Sheyue and other characters, including BaoYu , XiRen , QingWen, etc.The third chapter discusses the literature value of SheYue. SheYue is a sub-character in the novel, but there are many valuable subplots of her .The connection between TuMi(n. flower) and SheYue is closed.The last part introduces SheYue in the later forty chapters of the novel. The author of later forty chapters is not Cao Xueqin, but Gao E. SheYue had been changed by Gao as other characters before the whole novel was published in 1791. From Zhi Yanzhai's comments, SheYue should be a tragic maid as other characters in this novel.After the publication of A Dream of Red Mansions, the comments of the novel had been developed greatly. From JiaQing(1790's) to 1930's, there are many commentators in China. Their comments are valuable that will be used in this thesis.