The Dream of the Red Chamber Reflection for Maintaining Status and The Role of Chinese Women in Feudal Society

Abstract

This article aims to discuss and analyze the protection strategies to aristocrat women in China’s feudal society about their status and rights and study the methodologies of composition of Cao Xueqin in the Dream of Red Mansions, in the aspects of their pursuit to their own protection and stable social life to reflect women’s desires in the Chinese society at that time, and also reflect the negative aspects of the feudal society in the end of the Qing Dynasty that Cao family became the epitome of feudal society and finally went to decline. In this article, the research mainly revolves around three aspects. First, the status and rights of women in Jia Mansion. Second, the measures taken by these women to protect their own status. Third, their families and the reasons for their entry into Jia Mansion. This article mainly study five aristocrat women: Jia Mu, Mrs. Xing, Mrs. Wang, Wang Xifeng and Li Wan. In the protection of their status and rights, these five women presented different characteristics. Jia Mu, who acquired respect of the whole mansion, was the woman with the highest status in a Dream of the Red Mansion. Although Mrs. Xing and Mrs. Wang had the same status, other people also had different performances to them as they came from different families and had different reasons for entering Jia Mansion. Then there were two main wives in Jia Mansion, Wang Xifeng and Li Wan, who had similar status, but showed completely different characters. What Wang Xifeng deserves our study is that Cao Xueqin's style of writing made Wang Xifeng become the representative of breaking the aristocratic female behavior in feudal society and made her attached great importance to Jia Mansion. Li Wan, on the other hand, scrupulously abided by the nature of feudal women. These five people all have certain rights in Jia Mansion. Therefore, it is not difficult for readers to see that in order to compete for rights and valued status, they were always looking for ways to protect themselves or compete for rights. In the end, they only lived well in the Daguan Gardens, and they were inevitably oppressed by feudal society in the outside society, which made them all have to go through the process of Jia Mansion from prosperity to decline.
In a word, it is hard for women in feudal society to escape the influence of look up to men and down on women. Although they paid much to fight for power, including power, money, and even their own lives, ultimately, it is inevitable for them to avoid the fate of the family's decline, and protect their own status and rights.