It’s Not Business, It’s Personal
One of the most fascinating aspects of Dream of the Red Chamber is how lifelike the characters are.
I should note that they’re not lifelike because they are described as if they were real people. Rather, they are lifelike because they have complex motivations and personalities.
The old adage about this book, repeated by numerous scholars over the centuries, is that there are really no heroes or villains. The protagonist, Jia Baoyu, is so overcome with his emotions and feelings that he’s honestly just as sexually profligate as his older male relatives. Lin Daiyu, the main female love interest of the novel, flies into rages from time to time. Meanwhile, Wang Xifeng, who people tend to think of as the villain, seems more like a victim of the male dominated society she lives in than an evil person.
But the other fascinating thing here is the motivation. And it’s not entirely clear to me whether Wang Xifeng is actually motivated by money, or if what she really cares about is prestige and power.
This is the passage that kind of confuses me:
