Dream of the Red Chamber

Dream of the Red Chamber

Commentary

Locked Dreams

Jia Baoyu caught between two poems

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Daniel Evensen
Jun 27, 2025
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Locked Dreams

As you’ve probably guessed by now, the two rooms and two poems that Jia Baoyu visited are opposites of each other. And this tells us a lot about Jia Baoyu’s personality.

The first poem is pretty easy to understand and is relatively straightforward, as I explained in this commentary post.

The second, however, is a lot more difficult. It’s also the sort of poem we’re going to see a lot of in chapter 5. So let’s jump right in.

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