Preview

Dream of the Red Chamber

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
563 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Dream of the Red Chamber
Journal
Chapter 1:
In the first chapter, the author first writes about the origin of the stone. Then it comes to the very end of the story and writes a conversation between the stone and the Taoist called Vanitas. Next, it starts to talk about the story which first starts with the decline of Shi-yin Zhen`s family. When reading the origin of the stone, I find the description of the stone provides me with a great sense of mystery, which keeps me reading forward. Maybe it is because the stone is of magic power which makes it unreal from the reality. However, the story happens in the real world. As a result, it forces me to read and explore what will happen if the unreal meets with the real.
Then it continues to write about the conversation between the stone and Taoist after “countless aeons”. The conversation suggests a lot of clues about the whole book. According to the self description of the stone, the story`s main theme is love, and purpose of this story is to record the real events and make those who indulge in the eroticism aware of their wrongdoing. Although it gives some clues to the story, but it never gives the detail to readers. Thus, it is just like it gives you soul of the book, but it never gives the appearance or skin of the book, which makes the reader know something about the book but not everything about it. Consequently, as one of the readers, there is no doubt that I want to get to know more about the book.
It is very surprising that the whole story starts with the tragedy of Shi-yin Zhen`s family. Personally, I myself very compassionate him. Before I read the book, I thought the book should be very light and happy since it was a book about love among young boys and girls. It is widely acknowledged that the first impression about one thing will keep affecting your view for a long time. Maybe the author wants to suggest something about the later story, so he writes such a tragedy and makes the atmosphere sad and dark. Shi-yin is a good man

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The book tells the story of a farm boy named Eragon, who finds a mysterious stone in the mountains. Not knowing the stone's origin or worth, he attempts to use it as payment to a butcher. A dragon he later names Saphira hatches from the stone, which was really an egg. When the evil King Galbatorix finds out about Eragon and his dragon, he sends his servants, the Ra'zac, to capture them. Eragon and Saphira are forced to flee from their hometown, with a storyteller named Brom, and decide to search for the Varden, a group of rebels who want the downfall of Galbatorix.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author has a sincere way of telling the story. He knows how to engage every scene with another one and the setting he describes makes this story so real that the readers get involved really easily on this story. Many readers become part of the story through their imagination and this is a wonderful gift someone can have because being able to feel the story like part of your real life is not easy.…

    • 2390 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the readings for this week, from Mair entries 54-59, the various author’s wrote poems to describe the life in Song China. These poets shared their stories by using beautiful imagery to describe it for them. Stories that describe the noise of rats to the paintings of bamboo, the writings of the Song poets conveyed the outlook of the Song Dynasty. Although these poems served as an art for entertainment, the poems, in a deeper way, addressed the thoughts and views of the culture in the Song.…

    • 516 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    by Yi-Kang Feng, is the character that I am performing. He-Shen was the First Royal Duke (一等忠襄公), which was only level below the emperor of Qing dynasty. The first scene of Last Time and This Time starts with He-Shen describing his lake is his only friend and shifts to a tour guide (Unknown name) leading people to He-Shen’s mansion. The tour complains that he is not ready to marry his rich girlfriend, Coco, because he has another girlfriend. The second scene He-Shen shows audience the story of the stone and his step-mother, which I am performing, and the tour starts to talk his second girlfriend, Apple, who works really hard in her restaurant. Apple hopes one day she could buy an small apartment and marry the tour. The third scene He-Shen talks the story of meeting his step-mother and watching her death, and the tour starts to complain that he doesn’t know who he should marry. In the final scene of Last Time and This Time,…

    • 820 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    We start off learning about a Chinese American family by the eyes of Olivia, the main character. She talks about her full-blood family, and then she transits to her half-sister, Kwan. According to Kwan, she had "yin eyes"; she was able to see the dead. Olivia also talks about how her husband, Simon, is getting divorced, while Kwan tries to stop the divorce. Kwan also tells a story about a girl in China named Nunumu, describing her encounters and such.…

    • 1244 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Saboteur Essay Example

    • 350 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The story takes place in Muji, China during the Cultural Revolution. The setting and period of time is extremely important to the stories meaning. The point of view is third person limited. We only get to see Mr. Chiu's thoughts and feelings. There aren't many characters in this story that really make a difference in the story. The main characters are Mr. Chiu, his bride, the stout policeman, the Chief of the Bureau, and Fenjin. Mr. Chiu is definitely the protagonist of the story. He is described as being a well educated and polite man. We don't find out much about the bride or Fenjin. The only characteristics we find out about the stout policeman is that he is the one that started the fight. In turn we get the understanding that he is ignorant. The author gives us the same feeling towards the chief as the policeman. The only thing we know about Fenjin is that he was the student of Mr. Chui.…

    • 350 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tan identifies herself with the protagonist of the story sharing with the readers her mixed feelings and her relationship with her mother. After the death of Jing-mei's mother, she went to China with her father to meet her family and her twin sisters. Jing-mei met her family for the first time while arriving to China. Because of the family reunion, Jing-mei's father talks about her mother and the story about how she left her twin sisters behind. He also explained the power she put in to look for the twins, and how she never gave up. Therefore, Jing-mei realizes she is fulfilling her mother's dream; she is meeting up with her sisters after many years. When meeting with her sisters, she finally understands why her mother always said she had Chinese in her. Tan uses photographs as a symbolism, Jing-mei takes pictures of the family and later of her sister making her realize the three of them made her…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Despereaux Theme

    • 307 Words
    • 2 Pages

    This book was very interesting to me because I had never read a book like it, where the author repeatedly breaks the fourth wall. And it is not in a condescending manner, or to belittle the reader, but to give the reader information, to direct their…

    • 307 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The author emphasizes the tone and the theme of the novel by using a variety of diction words that include repetition of words, archaic words, connotation, and abstract diction. Primarily, the usage of repetitive words reflects on the influences a mother has on her daughter and also on the melancholy tone. In the story, many incidents describe Ying-ying and her daughter, Lena, as "ghosts" and unseen. Ying-ying, after experiencing the pains of her first marriage, willingly gives up the soul that causes her so much pain and becomes a mortal ghost. Lena, having perhaps influences from the traditional Chinese views of her mother, Ying-ying, also experiences similar grieves in her marriage and eventually becomes "a ghost" and the shadow of her husband (Tan 177). The repetition of words relate them together in a sense of lacking recognizability by others and how the daughter seems to act from the awareness of her mother's behaviors; it also indicates the effect of the melancholy tone on the sorrows the characters experience and suffer. In addition, Tan also uses an assortment of archaic words to demonstrate the theme and tone. Occurring in many places of the novel, the usage of early Chinese words illustrates the influences of the mothers to the daughters of growing up in a Chinese family; they are able to share a bond that enables them to understand the meanings of the Chinese words. Specifically, in the story of Rose Hsu, the mother…

    • 1601 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Pair of Tickets Essay

    • 1427 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The story takes place in china. The setting of this story is very important as it all revolts around the Chinese culture. One as a reader can be able to place oneself in the same situation and experience the feelings that are being presented in this story. The story is being told from a first person point of view. The narrator is Jing-Mei “June May” Woo. She is the 36-year old American born daughter of Suyuan a women who made the big decision which was to abandoned her twins, however she did it for love because at the time she thought she was going to die. June May is the one telling the story. We only know what the narrator thinks. We can only make inferences about the rest of the characters in the story by the way they behave. The narrator embarks an adventurous journey. Along the way she learns many things about her real roots she discovers things that she never knew before.…

    • 1427 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the first 15 pages, while the plot is still forming, at least eight basic ideas are introduced: a spiritual awakening is occurring in the world (p.4); humanity is evolving into a higher spiritual consciousness (p.4); seek the experiential (p.5); coincidences have spiritual significance (synchronicity) (p.6); the knowledge contained in the manuscript's insights has been hidden from most of the world (esoteric, secret knowledge) (p.8); anti-Christian attitudes (p.9); discover truth through experience (p.10); and when the student is ready, the teacher appears (p.15). These ideas are not always expressed in so many words, but their principles are. For example, the basis of the story is that the spiritual insights humanity needs are hidden in an ancient document, and must be uncovered if mankind is to advance spiritually. Not everyone, according to the story, is ready for or able to comprehend these teachings. The insights are for those spiritually ripe, the spiritual elite. The book implies that in time others will accept these ideas but for…

    • 1488 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Joy Luck Club

    • 2104 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The plot of the story is simply the trials that women endure in order to become happy or fulfilled. The plot concentrates on empowering women most especially minorities, further sub-divided into two groups, the mothers who eventually surpassed the suppression of Chinese culture, and the daughters who led lives as the children of immigrants and had experience the life of an adult American female, including marital woes and parental relations. It is the story of eight…

    • 2104 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Long Walk

    • 1692 Words
    • 7 Pages

    novel. To understand this story one would need to understand the author himself. As his…

    • 1692 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Arlt: Chinese Imagination

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages

    A while later in the story, the young man fails to find Li Wa and her aunt. He has been roaming about and at some point close to death due to illness. He ends up being employed by the mortuaries to sing. On one occasion, the young man¡¯s father happens to be there and an old servant recognizes the young man. His…

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Sethe a Slave to Her Past

    • 1974 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The novel starts with Sethe's life at 124, the house which is haunted by her murdered daughter's ghost. Although noticing this fact might thrills the reader, nevertheless you find out that the characters of the novel are coping with this ghost .So that you can see Sethe and her daughter Denver are leading their lives normally , moreover they enjoy having this spiritual…

    • 1974 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays