Dai-yu's Oversensitive Personality
Dai-yu is Bao-cousin yu's who extols beauty in The Tale of the Stone. She is an orphan, and she is constantly conscious of it, which adds to her despair. Apart from her sarcasm, she is also overly sensitive and connects emotions to practically everything that happens. For example, when Bao-yu allows her to read the narrative he was reading, she becomes engrossed, and each sentence makes her want to read more. Her misguided rage in response to Bao-enquiry yu's about her viewpoint demonstrates her overly sensitive personality. Cao Xueqin has, in chapter 23 of The Story of the Stone, put a spotlight on this oversensitive nature by extracting references from other works, The Story of the Western Wing and The Peony Pavilion, that clearly speak to Dai-yu’s. Instead of telling the reader about the oversensitive nature, he lets the reader conclude that for him/herself by putting Dai-yu in interactions that bring out her feelings.
Depression and Despair
The line “Here multiflora splendor blooms forlorn Midst broken fountains” describes her feeling of depression. The author says that the words strangely move her. She is moved because the words describe her feeling of being miserable. Her broken fountains are the losses she has had that have greatly affected her life. It includes the loss of her parents which has made her an orphan. This status of her being an orphan has contributed to her being depressed because she is constantly aware of that status. This has, in turn, contributed to her oversensitive nature and her almost constantly unhappy demeanor. The lines ‘And the bright air, the brilliant moon Feed my despair. Joy and gladness have withdrawn To other gardens, other halls -’ Describe her feeling of having nothing to live for anymore. She feels like no one is there for her and that the efforts she is making are futile. Cao Xueqin uses these lines to describe that she feels that her happiness has all been taken from her. She feels like those surrounding her are luckier and are happier than her. She watches the blooming in the garden and feels like nature is mocking her and laughing at her misery which makes her even more depressed. Her tending to the gardens and the blooming flowers is supposed to make her feel like she is protecting and taking care of something just as she wishes someone would do for her. She is supposed to feel better after that, but she feels the same or even worse. The beauty of the garden feeds her despair.“Because for you, my flowerlike fair, The swift years like the waters flows” this line describes and reminds Dai-yu of the little things that make her happy and help her to face each day hopefully no matter the kind of depression she is going through. These things or people make her days, and these include the garden, the flowers, and Bao-yu. Her happiness feeds off the beautiful surroundings, the poetry she reads and creates, and the interesting conversations she holds with Bao-yu and few other people. Cao Xueqin here shows us that Dai-yu puts an emotional attachment to everything she associates herself with which sometimes makes her misunderstand people’s intentions when they say something on a light note, but she takes their words more seriously. She holds everything she likes the flowers so dear to her heart and she spends most of her time with them which makes her days flow swiftly like the water. She loves them so much that she even thinks of what will happen to the petals if they are thrown in the river, and she looks for a better way to dispose of them. She cares so much for them that she thinks that these petals should go back to their own. The earth. They should go back to the soil which is part of its family. This again points to her desire that she should be together with her family which is the main cause of her depression. “I have sought you everywhere, And at last, I find you here, In a dark room full of woe—” Describes the depth she has looked at her situations. In her ‘misery,' she has found solace somehow. She has found things that she connects to emotionally or rather she has created emotions of affection around the things that surround her. She has gone after them; she has approached them and created a relationship with them. There in her dark world of depression as Cao Xueqin brings out in the borrowed line, “And at last I find you here, In a dark room full of woe-`` she has found what she seeks. Love, responsibility, and belonging.
The Relentless Flow of Life
“Relentlessly the waters flow, the flowers fade” This line reminds Dai-yu of the flower petals that she is protecting from being carried downstream where they will be spoilt and infused in undesirable waste. The waters of the rivers do not take into consideration the damage the petals could face if they are dragged to the harsh conditions downstream. They do not care. They adamantly flow and carry the petals o those adverse conditions. That is why she finds the reason to protect them and chooses to bury them in those silk bags. This brings out the feelings she has towards her condition. She feels that life is unfair. That it goes on to let bad things happen to someone without caring. It does not stop to cater for the situation. Relentlessly, it goes on without even giving attention to what will happen to a person if they are taken through a certain condition. The conditions of the person deteriorate, but life goes on.
The Cruelty of Life
“The blossoms fall, the water flows, The glory of the spring is gone In nature’s world as in the human one.” These lines further emphasize her feelings about life. She compares the river water to life. She has lost her mother and father. She is an orphan. All the good times are now just memories, and her probable future of happiness has been taken from her. Instead of life being pitiful with her or providing some consolation to her, she feels like life has left her with the darkness to deal with. It does not care. It goes on.
Fantasies as an Escape
“As flowers fall and the flowing stream runs red, A thousand sickly fancies crowd the mind.” Dai-yu is a wishful thinker too. She in certain moments thinks of the things she could be pleased to have and the different adventures she wishes to do. From the two lines that she clearly remembers from her reading of The Western Chamber, one can deduce that Dai-yu has been doing a lot of fantasizing to keep herself company. It shows that Dai-yu has had long moments of loneliness that have bred depression and down that line of depression and loneliness she has been escaping the two worlds through fantasies that prove to be amusing to her. That is why she remembers the line. Because she identifies herself with what it means. The river-life relentlessly carries her downstream to harsh conditions but while this happens, the imagination of beautiful things keeps the dread abbey.
The Swift Years and the Feeling of Lack
“Because for you, my flowerlike fair, The swift years like the waters flow…” This line she remembers twice, an indication of the double thoughts about it. Both positive and negative which we have spoken of the positive already. The line also explains that she does not feel like life has been moving swiftly. Her beautiful world, her flowerlike fair, her family, which she lost has made every minute of her life drag. Days do not slip through her hands because she spends most of them being happy because she does “not” have people with whom she can create those happy moments with. “I have sought you everywhere.” This line demonstrates the feeling of lack that lingers within the soul of Dai-yu. She is heavy with loneliness and has been seeking someone to provide her with companionship and comfort. Someone, she could vent out her predicaments to and feel her heart become less burdened with sadness. Dai-yu recognizes this lack, and apart from being depressed because of constantly being aware of her orphan status, she is also depressed because she is constantly aware of her need for company. The feeling of loneliness, the feeling that the flowing current of life is against her and does not care about what state or condition she ends up in, the feeling that she lacks a person that she calls family which leads her to burying flowers in soil, the feeling that life flows people downstream to turn them into waste instead of putting these people in conditions that turn them into something beneficial to their kind and the constant wishful thinking lead to the overwhelming emotions that almost make Dai-yu breakdown but she is stopped by the pat on the shoulder. On a shallow note, we also learn that Dai-yu is an avid fun of poetry.
