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Chapitre d'ouvrage Année : 2019

Expressing Desire Through Language: The Paradoxes of the ‘Baodai’ Relationship

Aude Lucas
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Résumé

In the landscape of classical Chinese literature, wordly-famous Qing novel Hongloumeng 紅樓夢 by Cao Xueqin 曹雪芹 has been praised for its numerous innovative aspects. Among these original features stands the outstanding ability of the author to give its characters realistic forms of human psychology, especially in what constitutes two main aspects of subjectivity: personal desire and communication with others. Cao manages to depict human relationships, with all the subtilties, complexities, and contradictions these relationships encompass, especially in the way he describes the connection between the main characters of the novel – Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu. What characterizes best the “Baodai” relationship is the difficulties both cousins have in communicating with each other. In spite of their mutual attraction, they constantly fail at expressing their affection to the other, and even end up conveying the opposite of their feelings. In this paper, I suggest we may adopt a Lacanian reading of the relationship between Baoyu and Daiyu. In this interpretation, it appears that both cousins cannot disclose their mutual desire by language simply because they do not “know” it – they are barely conscious of it. How both characters cannot be aware of their own desire and sometimes express the opposite may be understood in the light of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s “schema L”. To analyze Baoyu and Daiyu’s struggles in disclosing their affection, I scrutinize specific passages of the novel in which it contradictorily appears that both cousins fail at saying out loud how they feel for each other when on the other hand they claim to share a “language of their own in which no one else may intrude” (別人是插不下嘴去的). I also pay special attention to passages in which Baoyu and Daiyu react in a way that is completely antagonistic to their affection for each other – numerous in the novel are their childish quarrels, in which one may perceive that each one handles the object of his/her desire by rejecting it. A brilliant example of how the cousins rebuff each other in spite of their inner thoughts is to be read at chapter 29, where Cao Xueqin offers proof of his mastery in depicting the paradoxes of human relationships. Besides, one hypothesis I formulate is that the fact that the cousins should often receive from the other the opposite message of their true feelings does have a consequence in their psyches. I argue that the scene in which Baoyu opens his chest and cannot find his heart in Daiyu’s dream at chapter 82 is influenced by such inconsistent behaviors. This “reversed message” is akin to what Lacan described in the psychoanalytical field as one feature of intersubjective communication. Using Lacan’s theory as a methodological approach may offer us a new reading of this peculiar scene that specialists struggled to understand and analyzed in very various ways.
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Dates et versions

halshs-03228465, version 1 (18-05-2021)

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  • HAL Id : halshs-03228465 , version 1

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Aude Lucas. Expressing Desire Through Language: The Paradoxes of the ‘Baodai’ Relationship. Ming Qing Studies 2019, 2019, 978-88-85629-71-4. ⟨halshs-03228465⟩
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Dernière date de mise à jour le 07/04/2024
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