dream of red chamber
...een her and Bao-yu would not be beneficial to any of the family. This is very important because the four families are dwindling in power and it is essential for Bao-yu to prosper. They think Bao-Chai, who has royal ties and smart and well educated can reform Bao-yu to be a qualified successor of the Jia family. Dai-yu on the other hand, is a rebel just like Bao-yu: sharp-tongued and disapproves many of the families’ feudal ideas, often critizing the Jia family. Her carefree manners and poor health resulted disfavors as a bride to the future of the families. Bao-yu and Dai-yu loved each other dearly. They are both rebels who despised the feudal family ideologies. They both wanted a simpler life, often wishing themselves as sons of a poor scholar. Their love is based on common interest and thus grew strong. However, despite the resistance Bao-yu put up against his family, he was eventually tricked into marrying Bao-chai. For Dai-yu, her only love was for Bao-yu. After receiving the news of the marriage between Bao-chai and Bao-yu, she eventually collapsed. The feudal forces eventually won because the power differences. The progressive forces, represented by the love between Bao-yu and Dai-yu, ended in tragedy. Because of the need to succeed in the feudal clan system, the parents put the happiness of their children after any prospect to become more powerful. In today’s China, where a clan of family does not have the power to be anything significant would not have the needs to arrange marriages. Not only that, the old feudal ideas are often being looked down upon as “Luo Ho” or backward and described as “old society.” People have the freedom to choose whoever they want to marry without any restraints. Dream of the Red Chambers also portrays an oppressive family or clan system consists of the rich and powerful families. In the novel, the Jia, Wang, Hseuh and Shih are four powerful families of the region. In the feudal system, the local officials have a list of the most rich, powerful and influential families in the province to be put on the Official Protective Charm. The local officials have to protect these families interests, sometimes even at the cost of justice. Not only that, if some of the lower officials offended the families, he might as well lose his job. These clans of families are extremely oppressive and often make decisions solely based on the opinion of the leading husband, head of the house hold. In the novel, Hsueh Pan, a master of the Hsueh family and his followers have beaten Feng Yuan, the song of local gentry to death in broad daylight over a dispute for a girl. The local official, being advised by his secretaries, decided it is in his best interest to let Feng Yuan go free unpunished because the Hsueh family is on the Official Protective Charm. The only penalty is to pay for the victim’s funeral. Another case was when one of the family members killed someone with a tea cup with a wound on the head. The local official effectively ruled it as an “accident.” These families, knowing that they have the protection of the local officials, can do whatever they want, exploit the poor and walk outside of the law. The four families are represented as parasites to the society. They do not do any work and their education level is getting lower by the generations. As incompetent each generation is, their “purses” is getting smaller every year. However, they do not stop spending lasciviously. They still use the best of the gold wears and wear the smoothest silk. Their fortunes are filled with peasants’ sweats yet they treat them cruelly. In order to gain more money, many of the servants, especially female ones were forced to have sex with the masters and many are driven to commit suicide. They also have to pay extremely high amount of levies and taxes and interest rate to the families. When Bailiff Wu come to represent levies, Chin Chen said to him that only eight or nine manors is left and two are claimed to be suffered from flood and drought, how would they get through the New Year? The statement represents the families’ insatiable greed, only concerning their won needs and not knowing the sufferings of the peasants. Corruption in the judicial levels are rampant in the feudal system...