On The First Eighty Chapters' Prototypes Of "a Dream Of Red Mansions" And Cultural Interpretation

The prototype is a cultural heritage of the spirit of a myth. It is an important symbol of expressing national cultural psychology. It is a kind of national culture model which has the interpretative function of its origin. The prototype fundamentally restricts the scope, patterns and depth of our imagination during the literary creation. In this paper, the prototype in the first 80 chapters of A Dream of Red Mansions is analyzed by using the Theory of contemporary prototype criticism and new criticism of the Text Interpretation. Hence, we find that there are four myths in the first 80 chapters. They are the myth of Nvwa repairing the Heaven, the myth of the Attendant Shenying and the fairy Jiangzhu, the myth of Taixu Fairyland and the myth of Becoming Fairy. The first three myths can be found directly from the book, while the fourth one is usually be overlooked due to the different versions of the book. However, a Buddhist monk and a Taoist priest in the first chapter are not an accident. It contained the author's great intention to arrange the two persons in the first chapter. Thus the arrangement enriched and deepened the ideological connotations of the book. In fact, the fourth myth is not contradictory with the previous three fairy tales in the first 80 chapters. In other words, they four are closely linked. On this basis, we make a further study on the aesthetic implication which the author would like to express in the A Dream of Red Mansions, and then obtain the author's idea about the myths in it: the first, in the real world, reflected that the Monk must go through lots of hardships; the second, in the real world, referred the Goddess would pay Shenying's kindness; the third, in the real world, was an idyllic image of a paradise; the last, in the real world, implied the author's choice in the process of understanding the true meaning of life. The last myth revealed a truth that Life is a Dream. The author of the book wanted to correct people'minds with human emotion-love, but unfortunately, there are too many hardships in a man'life in the real world. Life is just like a dream, when you wake, all the things occurred in the dream have gone. The author persevered in love, meanwhile he felt desperate to it. In the end, with the influence of the model of prototype, the author had no choice but withdraw from secular life and became a monk to show he longed for the Heaven and a world which is full of love. At last, based on this series of "analyzing", we draw a conclusion which implies the fairy world and the real world in the first 80 chapters of the novel are created by love. Love is around in the world. Love exists between you and me. A work which will be handed down a good reputation to a hundred generations must be based on love, focus on it and conduct oneself with it. A Dream of Red Mansions has covered these three areas, so it is called the great classical Chinese literature to talk about "love" of all the masterpieces.