Dream of the Red Chamber is a book that depicts the life of a Chinese aristocratic family. The novel describes the life of the women in Chinese aristocracy and their declining fortune. The story is full of dreams and begins with a myth of the stone. This story tells how the Goddess Nugua repaired the Dome of Heaven. She began with thirty six thousand five hundred and one stones, but had one left over. This stone would be reincarnated several times on earth. Pao-yu the hero of the novel is the reincarnation of the stone. He is even born with a piece of jade in his mouth. The main story is about the hero Pao-yu, and his relationship with his many pretty maids and female relatives and friends. He has a special love for his sensitive and fragile cousin Black Jade. The novel describes in detail the daily activities inside the mansion of the many family members and servants, organized into an unyielding chain of command officially controlled by the matriarch who is often manipulated by her conniving daughter-in-law Phoenix.
Dream of the Red Chamber describes the life and waning fortunes of an aristocratic Chinese family. The novel describes the dealings of the main characters as they kept up a grand appearance by spending money even while the family's financial and political fortune declined. Tzu-hsing criticizes the Chia family when he says “The whole family is accustomed to luxury and ease, but not one of them ever gives a thought to the necessity of trimming expenditures to their declining income.”(Tsao Hsueh-Chin pg.20) The aristocrats did not think about what the future might hold. When the collapse came, it was frightening and tragic. This novel is not merely a love story but details the characters personalities ...
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“When the unreal is taken for the real, then the
real becomes unreal;
Where non-existence is taken for existence, then
existence becomes non-existence.”(pg. 7).
Pao-yu hears of Chen Pao-yu who has the same birthday of the same year and looks exactly like him. They represent the real and unreal. Although they appear alike they have very different personalities. Chen Pao-yu is very studious while Pao-yu who has recently lost his jade has no interest in his examinations and seemed to be getting sicker. Then a monk came and gave Pao-yu his jade. Pao-yu decided to study and take his examinations. After taking the exams Pao-yu disappears but surprises everyone by finishing in seventh place. Honor is restored to the family and Pao-yu disappears with the monk and the priest because his “worldly obligations have been fulfilled.”(pg. 327)
One day an old man comes to join the family for supper-- he new Poh-Poh from Old China... the man is odd looking and Liang thinks him to be "the Monkey Man" from the ghost stories her grams is always telling. Regardless Liang and this man she comes to call Wong-Suk become great friends. They go to the movies together and get jeered at (I'm not sure if this is beacause 'Beauty and the Beast' or because they are Chinese); he tells her stories; and she dances for him.
ꀀ ꀀine a world of unequal social status. Envision a world where customs are different, whether that is through family or political standpoints. In America, in today’s day and age, every human being despite their gender is supposed to be seen as equal. In our modern world, gender equality is beginning to prevail, and men and women are looked at on the same level. However, there are still flaws in our society. Some of these flaws are exemplified through Cao Xuequin’s novel The Story of the Stone: The Golden Days, Volume 1. The Qing Dynasty, as depicted through the families in the book, portrays a life of unequal gender relations, through marriage, family matters, and education.
The novel is about two teenagers. "Luo, who is good a story telling and an unnamed narrator, "a fine violin player" who are sent to be re-educated after the Chinese cultural revolution. They are sent to a mountain called "Phoenix of the Sky because their parents were publicly denounced and recognized as enemies of people. The general idea behind the Cultural Revolution was element of control. And Mao thought that all intellectuals were a thread to his power. The reason for that was that most of the intellectuals had the ability to think for themselves. Mao foun...
The Dream of the Rood is the earliest dream-vision poem in the English language and one of the central documents of Old English Literature. This particular work is a monologue based on the point of view of the Rood ( also known as a cross) from the biblical story of the Crucifixion of Christ. The Dream of the Rood stands apart from other stories in that it is not only a monologue, but the speaker is an inanimate object (the Rood or cross), and not only that; but the object is also given a personality. The poem starts out with a vision of the Rood being raised up and adorned in gold and fine jewels.
The hunger for power lies within every one of us, yet most can have the strength to resist it. However, occasionally the temptation is so strong that it corrupts the brain. All the person can think about is achieving that power, no matter the cost. Ji-Li Jiang’s memoir, Red Scarf Girl, tells the personal narrative of a young girl growing up during the Cultural Revolution in China. Despite being a black whelp, the child of a family belonging to any of the “Five Black Categories”, Ji-Li Jiang is able to overcome the countless tribulations brought upon her and her family. Although Ji-Li’s naivety enhances her involvement in the Cultural Revolution, her constant loyalty towards her family perseveres; nevertheless, without her earlier devotion
is when one is afraid to face up to their phobia. HG Wells wrote the
How does the writer create tension and suspense in The Red Room? The writer is able to create tension and suspense through various ways in the short story ‘The Red Room’. The opening sentence in the story immediately mentions the supernatural, which immediately tells us that this is a gothic story. The first sentence is dialogue, but we do not know who is speaking.
With right and wrong themes in the literature, the one theme that really stood out was “the dreams are the central of The Alchemist actions as well as its meaning”.
Every character in the novel has moments of feeling happy and endures a moment where they believe that they are about to achieve their dreams. Naturally everyone dreams of being a better person, having better things and in 1920’s America, the scheme of get rich quick. However each character had their dreams crushed in the novel mainly because of social and economical situations and their dream of happiness becomes a ‘dead dream’ leading them back to their ‘shallow lives’ or no life at all.
The author, Gloria Ladson-Billings, discusses in her book, "The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children," how African American students perform at lower academic levels in part due to teacher approaches and attitudes. She performed a study on eight teachers of different races and backgrounds and their approaches to teaching African American students. The purpose of the study was to identify what approaches or techniques have been most successful in helping African American students to achieve academic success. She also focuses on the idea of "culturally relevant teaching" and how it can positively impact students when teachers are aware and incorporate a student's culture and backgrounds into the classroom. Throughout the book, the
The romance of Liang Shan-Pai and Chu Ying-Tai is as popular as Romeo and Juliet in the United States. It has been made into a play, movies, and even ballads. It is the story of an smart, ambitious young girl who wants to pursue an education in China. However, being a girl in China at the time prevents her from achieving that goal. So to make her dream a reality she dresses as a young man to disguise herself at school. In her years at school she manages to keep her disguise intact and fool her peers. While she is at school she falls in love with another male student, whose name is Liang Shan-Pai. Chu Ying-Tai feels that it is time to go home and she leaves the school. Chu Ying-Tai is in love with Liang Shan-Pai, but knows she must leave the
Out of times of societal conflict, art arises like a phoenix from the ashes left in the wake of injustice. A piece of literary art entitled Red Scarf Girl, is a memoir of author Ji-Li Jiang’s life during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The novel details her youth during the rise of communist China and is directly inspired by events that transpired in Jiang’s life. As evidenced by Jiang’s, Meeropol’s, and my art, one can see that art is often motivated by the creator’s desire to shed light on wrongdoings gone unnoticed by the masses.
In Pa Chin's Family, he portrays a traditional Confucian family battling to keep their traditions and their way of life in tact, amidst the deep upheaval and civil disorder gripping China. Pa Chin clearly portrays a family of which the Venerable Master Kao rules supreme at the expense of his family. The Kao family runs into several set backs such as suicide, death, depression, unhappy marriages, family conflict, and lack of respect for elders that undoubtedly lead to the unraveling of the Kao family. One significant reason the Kao family fails to maintain its integrity and way of life is because of the clash between Confusion traditionalism and Chinese cultural modernization. One of the main driving forces in disruption in Kao family tradition would have to be the rebellious youth, Chueh-min, Chueh-hui, and Chin in particular.
The book is divided into four sections, and in each section, four of the characters speak. The middle two sections are narrated by the four daughters, and the first and last sections are told by the mothers (Tan 2). The mothers’ stories are separated from their daughters’ because their lives and thoughts are disconnected at first. As the story goes on, the mothers influence the path of their daughters’ stories more and vice versa. The mothers start and end the book because although their children are at more critical moments in their lives, the mothers are more conflicted internally. Jing-mei bridges the gap between the two generations by introducing and concluding the novel, appearing as herself and her mother’s voice. Jing-mei takes her mother’s place on the East side of the mahjong table (Tan 27). This symbolizes the beginning of her physical journey east to China and her new understanding of her heritage. Tan also includes the mah-jong table to tie Jing-mei to her mother even as all the mothers and daughters renew their relationships and retrieve their identities. Each narrator is the central figure in her own story as well as a supporting character in other stories. Jing-mei hears the story of her mother leaving her twin daughters in Kweilin from Suyuan, Suyuan’s husband, and Suyuan’s friends (Tan 243). Tan chose that method so that the reader would experience many
William Shakespeare presents his story of a midsummer night’s dream as a play. Within this play is another play named “Pyramus and Thisby“. The two similar stories share the same basic idea of how the course of true love never seems to run smoothly. Chaos seems to be normalcy in both of these stories, and although they seem vastly different, they share the same quality of blocked love and eventual serenity. These shared qualities of love show how the theme of “Pyramus and Thisby” relates to the main story of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”