Androgyny in Late Ming and Early Qing Literature

Chapter 7. The Dream of the Red Chamber: A Shattered Dream of Androgyny?

The Dream of the Red Chamber A Shattered Dream of Androgyny To probe into the fictional world of the Dream is to venture into a realm of sex/gender (con)fusion, where males and females often deport in manners deviating from their prescribed genders, hence are mistaken for the opposite sex. This prominent sex/gender aberration has fascinated scholars for centuries and has engendered several full-scale inquiries in recent decades.1 Representative of the Republican commentary is Jing Meijiu’s observation: “Baoyu’s gentility takes after female bearing, whereas Tanchun’s resolution partakes of male carriage.”2 The paradigmatic statement in contemporary criticism is made by Angelina Yee when she indicates that Baoyu occupies “the center of the feminine world”3 while Xi-feng “proves superior to men” in the masculine world of the novel.4 From our perspective of androgyny, Baoyu’s existential struggle in the novel can be decoded as his persistent endeavor to resist culturally dictated gender dichotomy both in constructing his own gender identity and in shaping his society. More than any case examined thus far, Baoyu’s inclination toward gender freedom finds expression in the relation between the self and the other, i.e., his spiritual union with his soul mate, Daiyu, his sympac h a p t e r 7 thetic identification with the female world, over which he reigns as a “crown of the beauties” (zhuyan zhi guan),5 his egalitarian relation with his subordinates , and his espousal of the philosophies of diVerent hierarchical orders .6 In all of these aspects of his characterization, the yin-yang dichotomy traditionally dictating the relationship between the sexes, ranks, and ideologies is either dissolved or transcended to a certain degree. In the narrative structure, gender deviation is tropologically projected through the magic stone on which is inscribed the hero’s identity, presented in the Garden of Total Vision—where the walls “muZe” the dictates of convention —and catalyzed by the force of qing, which frees human souls from gender imperatives. Accordingly, the following exploration of its theme of androgyny will focus on these three aspects: love, stone, and garden— winding up with an association with the author’s identity. Two Types of Androgyny in Love: Gender Significance in the Daiyu-Baoyu-Baochai Triangle In recent decades, with the introduction of feminism into the study of literature , Baoyu’s relation with his two fated female mates has often been designated as one between a master identity and its two gender components. Both Liao Xianhao and Louise Edwards associate the feminine principle/ values with Daiyu and the masculine principle/values with Baochai, and both identify their symbolic function in projecting Baoyu’s existential dilemma .7 In constructing their gender paradigms that relate Baoyu with his two cousins, both turn to an episode in chapter 5: In a dream Baoyu is initiated into what critics term “puberty rites” or “adulthood rituals” to make love with a fairy, Combined Beauty, who possesses both Daiyu’s grace and Baochai’s charm. Liao Xianhao interprets this episode as a “dream of androgyny ” that projects the hero’s attraction to the two girls and foreshadows his incorporation of the gender principles that they respectively embody , in his growth.8 While such gender designation of the two heroines may carry conviction to a certain degree—given Daiyu’s excessive sentimentality, musical/poetic propensity, and her apathy toward career in contrast to Baochai’s stern rationality , pragmatic bent, and career enthusiasm9—the complexity in their characterization begs for modification. In fact, discordant voices can be heard even from some Qing critics, as in the following note by Tu Yin: 156 c h a p t e r s e v e n If one asks, “Between Baochai and Daiyu, which one is superior, which one is inferior?” My answer goes: “Baochai is soft, Daiyu is virile; Baochai bends her back, Daiyu keeps her body straight.”10 The associations of virility with Daiyu and of malleability with Baochai explicitly relate the former to yang and relegate the latter to yin. Similarly, in his recent seminal study on the Dream, Anthony Yu questions Edwards’ stand by perceptively pointing out: “For Baoyu at least, his two beloved cousins represent in actuality two kinds of ‘the feminine’: one that openly subscribes to the norms of the Confucian discourse and an emergent one that reflects a more resistant and skeptical attitude.”11 The...