Honglou meng is a book about enlightenment [or awakening]. ... A man in his life experiences several decades of winter and summer. The most sagacious and wise is certainly not submerged in considerations of loss and gain. However, the experiences of prosperity and decline, coming together and dispersing [of family members and friends] are too common; how can his mind be like wood and stone, without being moved by all this? In the beginning there is a profusion of intimate feelings, which is followed by tears and lamentations. Finally, there is a time when one feels that everything he does is futile. At this moment, how can he not be enlightened?
— A commentary on the novel by writer Jiang Shunyi, dated 1869[25]
The opening chapter of the novel describes a great stone archway and on either side a couplet is inscribed:
假作真時真亦假， 無為有處有還無。 Truth becomes fiction when the fiction's true; Real becomes not-real where the unreal's real.
This couplet is later reiterated, however this time as:
假去真來真勝假， 無原有是有非無。 When Fiction departs and Truth appears, Truth prevails; Though Not-real was once Real, the Real is never unreal.[26]
As one critic points out, the couplet signifies "not a hard and fast division between truth and falsity, reality and illusion, but the impossibility of making such distinctions in any world, fictional or actual."[27] It also symbolizes the peculiar Taoist religious tradition prevalent in Northern China since the Yuan dynasty as practiced in Cao's time, as well as Taoism's alternate roles in society such as doctrines for philosophical and intellectual rather than religious guidance and one of the schools of thought Buddhist sects in China syncretized with their own.[28] This theme is further reflected in the name of the main family, Jia (賈, pronounced jiǎ), which is a homophone with the character jiǎ 假, meaning false or fictitious; this is mirrored the surname of the other main family, Zhen (甄, pronounced zhēn), a homophone for the word "real" (真). It is suggested that the novel is both a realistic reflection and a fictional or "dream" version of Cao's own family.
Early Chinese critics identified its two major themes as those of the nature of love, and of the transitoriness of earthly material values, as outlined in Buddhist and Taoist philosophies.[29] Later scholars echoed the philosophical aspects of love and its transcendent power as depicted in the novel.[30] One remarked that the novel is a remarkable example of the "dialectic of dream and reality, art and life, passion and enlightenment, nostalgia and knowledge."[31]
The novel also vividly depicts Chinese material culture, such as medicine, cuisine, tea culture, festivities, proverbs, mythology, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, filial piety, opera, music, architecture, funeral rites, painting, classic literature and the Four Books. Among these, the novel is particularly notable for its grand use of poetry.[32]
Since the establishment of Cao Xueqin as the novel's author, its autobiographical aspects have come to the fore. Cao Xueqin's clan was similarly raided in real life, and suffered a steep decline. Marxist interpretation starting in the New Culture Movement saw the novel as exposing feudal society's corruption and emphasized the clashes between the classes. Since the 1980s, critics have embraced the novel's richness and aesthetics in a more multicultural context.[33]
In the title Hóng lóu Mèng (紅樓夢, literally "Red Chamber Dream"), "red chamber" can refer to the sheltered chambers where the daughters of a prominent family reside.[34] It also refers to Baoyu's dream in chapter five, set in a "red chamber", a dream where the fates of many of the characters are foreshadowed. "Mansion" is one of the definitions of the Chinese character "樓" (lóu), but the scholar Zhou Ruchang writes that in the phrase hónglóu it is more accurately translated as "chamber".[35]
The novel's mythological elements were also inspired by the services Cao was involved in at the Dongyue Temple.[28] The temple's most venerated gods came from Daoism, Chinese Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism and shamanic traditions from various regions within and outside of China, and the book's spiritual themes, prose stylization, and portrayals of mythical figures were inspired by the traditional stories told about these deities and other oral temple traditions from Beijing.[28] Much of this folklore was already popular during the Yuan dynasty and was retold in various ways in Cao's era in the Qing dynasty.[28]
