The Study Of The Suicide Characters And Phenomena Of A Dream Of Red Mansions

In this thesis named the Study of the Suicide Characters and Phenomena of A Dream of Red Mansions,We will study all kinds of the suicide plot and phenomenon shown in the novel,as well as thirteen Suicide characters including Qin Keqing,Rui Zhu,jin Ge,the son of the General of Chang’an, Jin Chuan,Bao Er’s wife,You Sanjie,You Erjie,Si Qi,Pan Youan and Yuan Yang. The article define,classify and summarize these suicide phenomena from a psychological perspective,focusing on analyzing the reasons for these suicide figures and phenomena from the sociology and psychology perspective,and finding out why the writer set up so many suicide characters and plot in this novel.This paper consists of four chapters,and there are introduction in the beginning and conclusions at the end of the paper.The introduction explains the significance and value of the topic, provides a brief summary of current status on the research of the suicide characters in A Dream of Red Mansions, and raises the problems we should solve in this dissertation.Chapter Ⅰ is an overview of the general notion concerning the problem of suicide in ancient times,including four sections. Firstly we generalize the consensus and controversy about the problem of suicide in the classics of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism,and then we try to understand the viewpoint of suicide in Xi Yuan Ji Lu,the most famous forensic documents of the Song Dynasty.The above work laid the foundation for later study.Chapter Ⅱ including four sections,is mainly about psychology and the suicide in A Dream of Red Mansions.In Section I we summarize the expression relate to suicide in the novel.By knowing the scientific definition of suicide in psychology,we distinguish suicide from three other kinds of phenomena that appears to be suicide but actually not.The first one is accidental death.The second one is threaten others with suicide,mainly appear in three types of people including mother,shrew and male.The third one is a kind of suicide only exist in one’s mind and without any action.In Section Ⅱ we devide the suicide type into active,passive, intellectual and emotional by the standard of the method and process. In Section III we try to summarize the characteristic of suicides in the novel,such as the Rational and sober state of mind of people who committed suicide, the conversation relate to death,the farewell,the different suicide plan and state of mind. Section IV analyzes the views on suicide of Baoyu, Daiyu and Jia Zheng in the novel.In Chapter III,we analyse the causes of different types of suicide.This is the most important part of the paper,including three sections. Section I try to explain that both physical illness and mental disease is the biological factors of suicide,take Daiyu and You Erjie for example. Section II analyse the sociological factors of suicide through women’s concept of chastity,the phenomenon of accompanying burying for one’s possessor, the characteristics of law, religion and families during Ming and Qing Dynasties. Section III has several Innovative Points.We use psychological theories to explain the reasons for suicide, focusing on the cognitive problems,the personality,and the specific motivation.Moreover,we discuss suicide contagion and suicide bundle in the novel.In Chapter IV we compare this novel with others. Section I analyse the Similarities on the suicide female characters of A Dream of Red Mansions and Jin Ping Mei. Section Ⅱ analyse the difference between A Dream of Red Mansions and Gu Jin Xiao Shuo on women’s concept of chastity.In conclusions of this paper,we discuss function of the suicide figures and phenomena in the novel,including shaping the character, pointing to the theme of the novel and reflecting the tragic characteristic of the whole story.