A Comparative Study Of Female Tragedy Between A Dream Of Red Mansions And The Tale Of Genji

"A Dream of Red Mansions" and "The Tale of Genji" are called to the pinnacle ofancient literature in China and Japan. The two works describe a large number of femaleimages,and the female images of the detailed and vivid description clearly highlight theconcern of women’s groups by both authors. Women in "A Dream of Red Mansions" and"The Tale of Genji", almost have tragic destinies. In these two works, however, the tragicperformances exist similarities but also different points. The similarities are mainlymanifested in two aspects, one is the persecution of the political system of the feudalsociety on women, including the loss of female marriage autonomy, the shackles of thewomen thought, the insult of patriarchy violence and concubinage system, and thedecline of their family; the other is that women’s own character defects led to their owntragedy, these characters include greed, indecision and jealousy. Dissimilarities of thetwo works are mainly in four areas：first, the hero’s perspectives on females are different,second,the hero’s aesthetic capacities of the female image are different, the third, womenin these two works are at different social classes, and the fourth, the attitudes towardstheir own tragic fate are also different. Because the two works exist similarities anddissimilarities, it is worth to compare these two works."A Dream of Red Mansions" and "The Tale of Genji", can be said the great blendsof the ancient female tragedy in China and Japan. By comparing the two works, we canclearly find the similarities and dissimilarities in the political and cultural between Chinaand Japan and play a complementary and strengthening role of literary creation.