Research On Rhetorical Narration Of "the Dream Of The Red Chamber"

In this paper, narratology is defined in the overall context of "narrative rhetoric",which focuses on examining methods and laws for organizing and outlining all factors in a narrative work. With the "Dream of the Red Chamber" as example, its "narrative rhetoric" is analyzed from the perspective of "narrators","plots","characters" and "intrinsic elements of characters". Firstly, a multilayer narrator polysystem was composed of direct and indirect narrators in the "Dreams of the Red Chamber", which broke with conventional simple collective system, whereas a multi-layer three-dimensional narrative polysystem was constructed to illustrate stories from multiple different perspectives. Secondly, narration was completed through "characters" and "plots" which were organized based on traditional Chinese "couplet-style" thinking. Chapter titles and plot narration were larded with "couplets" while external forms of "couplets" were slightly indicated from the organization of "characters" and "plots", so that characters and plots were organized like couplets, composed profound multi-layer structure of the novel and made up a meaningful form. Thirdly, more than400characters were shaped in the "Dreams of the Red Chamber". These characters didn’t only have various social relations, blood ties and kinships, but also had "rhetorical relationships" of non-blood and non-sociological significances. Such relations were not simple, unidirectional and apparent rhetorical relationships, but are usually multi-directional, superimposed and group-based relationships like grids. These relationships didn’t only reflect the writer’s conception and intention of the novel, but also play an important role in plot structures and make up a sub-system of a large system. Fourthly, concerning Jia Baoyu who was the core figure in the novel, his inner image was composed of multiple images according to certain implicit orders and a compound image was thus created for him. As regards the entire novel, a story of "stone" was narrated in the "Dreams of the Red Chamber". Stones have existed since the creation of the sky and the earth. Later, they were evolved into "gods" which were incarnated and entered the earth. Then, they were evolved into "people" and "jades". Authentic and fake (Zhen Jia) jades respectively represented "the ordinary" and "monks". What Cao Xueqin expected to express was that a story where "species" evolved into "gods","gods" evolved into "people" and "people" strove to get rid of all external constraints to gain spiritually unprecedented independence and freedom to become "people" in a true sense. The story of stones is the knowledge of a life about its survival situation, taste and pursuit in different space. What Cao Xueqin advocated originated from Sima Qian’s narrative spirit of "studying the relationship between heaven and men and the changes from the ancient to today". Based on this, the author demonstrated that Jia Baoyu was a compound image made up of multiple images according to certain implicit orders. The compound image was independent and integrated, so that the image of Jia Baoyu was both profound and lofty, which served as "mirror" for human beings to review and reflect upon themselves.In the "Dreams of the Red Chamber", the rhetorical narration was intricate, complicated and diversified, which composed a three dimensional network. In this work,"a pen was used for multiple purposes and a stone had several sides with rhetorical relationships","the move of which would impact the whole". Such skills which had been vividly described by critics were original economy with aesthetic values. Once they were abstracted or separated, its taste and flavor would lose. The paper’s attention has been mainly shifted to examine and study how to organize and outline various factors in a narrative work by different skills. What are deeply hidden in such rhetorical behaviors for dominating such methods are the writer’s narrative spirits and principles. It is necessary for people to analyze the rhetoric narration of the "Dreams of the Red Chamber" based on this fundamental point.