The Silk Flowers
The story we’ve read so far in chapter 7 of Dream of the Red Chamber probably seems a little bit odd to you.
So far, the only thing that has really happened in the chapter has been Zhou Rui’s wife walking the length of the entire Jia family mansion.
She starts off looking for Lady Wang, who she finds together with Aunt Xue in the place where Aunt Xue and Xue Baochai are residing:
Aunt Xue gives Zhou Rui’s wife a set of twelve silk flowers, which I suppose are hair ornaments made of silk that are supposed to look like flowers.
Naturally, Zhou Rui’s wife asks why Xue Baochai doesn’t take them. Aunt Xue replies that her daughter isn’t intersted in trinkets like that.
Zhou Rui’s wife then leaves and starts looking for Jia Yingchun and Jia Tanchun:
The girls are both playing a game of Go, and seem uninterested in the flowers. They accept them gracefully and have their maids take them away.
Next, Zhou Rui’s wife finds Jia Xichun, who is playing with a young nun from a local convent.
Jia Xichun sees the flowers and makes a joke about how odd they will look behind her ears after she has shaved her head (i.e. after she has become a nun).
Jia Xichun then politely accepts the flowers and has her maid put them away.
Zhou Rui’s wife then looks for Wang Xifeng:
Now, Wang Xifeng is in the middle of daytime sexual activity with her husband Jia Lian. This is somewhat unusual, as it seems that Wang Xifeng gave birth sometime within the past three months. It’s also unusual for her and her husband to have sexual relations in broad daylight.
Wang Xifeng’s chief maid Ping’er (who happens to also be Jia Lian’s concubine) accepts the flowers, and Zhou Rui’s wife moves on.
Finally, Zhou Rui’s wife finds Lin Daiyu together with Jia Baoyu (of course). The two of them are trying to unravel a “nine linked rings” puzzle:
She delivers the two remaining flowers to Lin Daiyu. You see - Ping’er took four of the silk flowers, not two, and had two of the ones she took delivered to Qin Keqing over in the Ningguo Mansion.
Anyway, Lin Daiyu realizes right away that she has been given the leftover flowers, and she protests. She complains that she’s always given the scraps that are left over at the very end of the process.
Interestingly enough, nobody corrects her or tries to reason with her. Zhou Rui’s wife seems not to know what to say. And Jia Baoyu, who should be paying attention to how the girl he is obviously in love with feels, winds up ignoring what she says and instead staring longingly at the silk flowers.
Jia Baoyu loves the flowers, while Lin Daiyu clearly thinks nothing of them.
And that’s the genius of the whole situation.
You see - the flowers here aren’t really important at all. It could have been one of a thousand different small trinkets or objects. Freud would tell you that this cigar really is just a cigar.
The silk flowers here serve as a type of narrative lens. However, this is long before the concept of narrative lens was really all that well established - at least according to my own limited understanding of 18th century world literature. Cao Xueqin uses these silk flowers as a kind of background object to show us the character of every one of these girls.
What did we learn about them?
We learned that Xue Baochai doesn’t really care for ornamentation - which is kind of odd, considering how focused she is on outer displays of social gratitude and formality.
We learned that Jia Yingchun and Jia Tangchun are conventional girls that respond politely. It’s clear that they’re not particularly in love with the gift, but they know how they ought to respond.
We learned that Jia Xichun is not only willing to speak her mind, but really doesn’t care at all for the nice things of the world. It’s pretty obvious that she has her heart set on renouncing the world and embracing Buddhism.
We learned that Wang Xifeng has an extremely complex relationship with her husband. According to Chinese custom, she really should not be taking part in sexual activity so quickly after giving birth - and a woman of her important stature certainly had more to do in the light of day. As domineering as she seems, the truth is that Wang Xifeng is forced into submission within her own family. I strongly wonder whether she resents that fact, and suspect that her bitter outer exterior might be related to her frustration.
We learned that Lin Daiyu feels like an outsider in her adoptive home, and that she’s particularly sensitive to any circumstance in which she feels like she’s coming in second place. There’s a little bit of ambition in her thoughts, but there’s also a lot of fear of abandonment, as well as worry about being forever alone.
And, finally, we learned that Jia Baoyu really is immature and focused only on aesthetics. However, he doesn’t seem particularly concerned with how Lin Daiyu feels.
Jia Baoyu, by the way, is the only character in this entire mini scene that seems interested at all in the ornaments. And it’s not because there’s some gender confusion going on (at least that’s not how I read it; you might disagree). Rather, it seems to me that Jia Baoyu is interested because of the fundamental things he believes about women.
In other words - Jia Baoyu really isn’t that far removed from the other men of the Jia household, most of whom spend their time looking for illicit romantic affairs. He might think of himself as different, and might try to present himself as different. However, the fact that he lets Lin Daiyu’s complaint linger in the air without any response speaks volumes.
It’s an absolutely fascinating example of characterization. Note that we don’t actually know what any of these characters look like. We don’t need to. It’s enough for us to know who they really are.
Wow this is brilliant