Comments on Jia Zheng (about 300 words)

Jia Zheng in Jiafu is the representative of feudal social forces in Jiafu, which combines patriarchy and theocracy. In Jiafu, it is extremely extravagant. Decoration, incomparable luxury, membership, spending money like water. Jia Zheng is the master and pillar of Jia family, the upper class of feudal society, the pillar of feudal "heaven" and the beam of feudal "building", also known as Master Jia. But he said nothing, hypocrisy, always pulling a gentleman's face. In fact, he is not only mediocre and mentally retarded, but also in a very low state of mind, such as getting along with Aunt Zhao, so he is known as a "false positive".

Jia Zheng was deeply influenced by Confucianism, and he was very filial to Jia Mu and strict with his children. Some of his son Jia Baoyu's "rebellious" thoughts and behaviors made him greatly dissatisfied. He wants to be a good official, but unfortunately, he is inexperienced, cheated and notorious. When describing him, the author also emphasized the word "positive". He was an orthodox tragic figure in feudal times. He is both the maker and the victim of the tragedy. Speaking of Jia Zheng, many people will see a stern, rigid and blunt face in their minds. Jia Zheng has always been regarded as a prude, pedantic, and a typical feudal defender.

He is a typical hypocrite, full of benevolence, morality and generosity. He is incompetent and lonely, and his children and relatives get together, talking and laughing. As soon as he appeared, everyone would hold their breath and become sluggish, so that the old lady had to "send him out to rest." When the Royal Guards came to inspect Jia Fu, he would only "kneel down and kowtow" and "jump up" and stamp his feet and sigh.

In the ancient cultural tradition of China, there is a strong rational spirit that dominates people's value orientation. It emphasizes the physical order of interpersonal relationship and the individual's responsibility for this order everywhere in life, but it often pays insufficient attention to the normal needs of individuals. In ancient times, family precepts were also notoriously strict. Jia's treatment of Baoyu embodies China's traditional thought. Selfishness is human nature. Although most people have their own selfish side, as human beings, we should also reasonably restrain this selfishness, and China people are more particular when dealing with this problem. When dealing with the relationship between "ego" and "me", people in China tend to choose the ego to obey the ego and forget the private for public. China people also pay great attention to dedication. When there is a contradiction between collective interests and individual interests, they often choose individual interests to obey collective interests. Although Jia Zheng loves Baoyu, when his personal love for his son conflicts with family interests, he does not hesitate to put family interests first. Jia Zheng's personality is briefly explained in a self-made lantern riddle: he is self-contained, self-rigid, and although he can't say anything, he can say everything-it is very appropriate to describe Jia Zheng with "inkstone". The first sentence said that he always demanded himself by the high moral standards of feudal society; The second sentence is that his behavior is hard to avoid, which is clear from the father-son relationship; The third sentence is that he is reserved and reticent; The fourth sentence is about his energy. Jia Zheng himself is not only not bad, but also devoted to pursuing elegant learning. It is not incomprehensible for a father to neglect his studies in order to make his son work hard and prevent his son from hanging out with women all day, and constantly scold Baoyu for his lessons. There is no mention of Jia Zheng's evaluation of Jia Yucun's character in the book, but Jia Zheng is very positive about his talent. Of course, Jia Yucun does have some extraordinary talents, despite his personality problems. But for Jia Zheng, who loves scholars, learning may be above everything else. Therefore, the Lins' father and daughter can please Jia Zheng anyway. On the surface, he is honest, humble and kind, and has the demeanor of an elder in the family. He always puts on a serious face and can hardly see him smile. But in fact, he is a hypocritical, uninterested and self-satisfied person. Influenced by Confucianism, it is inevitable to be too pedantic. He is filial to Jia Mu and wants to discipline his children severely. He wants to be a good official, but unfortunately, he is inexperienced, cheated and notorious. It can be said that he is both the producer and the victim of the whole tragedy. It is said that Jia also hates Baoyu for not turning iron into steel. Jia Zheng hoped that his son, as he thought, would embark on a "journey" to pass the imperial examination, embark on an official career and inherit the family business, but his son hangs out with his daughters all day, and I don't know which father can tolerate it. In this respect, he seems to know more or less about Jia Zheng's practice. To sum up, Jia Zheng is the defender of traditional feudal thought, but he is not a qualified head of the family. He is above others and ignores business, which cannot ensure the long-term stability of the extended family. The conflict between the old and new forces and Baoyu has also become a topic that later generations relish ... Originally, Jia Zheng was a serious scholar, based on Confucius and Mencius, whether he thought so in his heart or not, at least in appearance. Therefore, Jia Zheng did not believe in Jia She's superstition of ghosts and gods, and the doctors were helpless about Baoyu's illness. Jia Zheng had to let Jia forgive the Taoist priest for asking the immortal to treat him as a dead horse and try his luck. And Jia also believes in ghosts and gods. Even if Jia Zheng doesn't believe in ghosts and gods, he can't show opposition to ghosts and gods because of Jia's existence. Another point is that Baoyu was born with a piece of jade, which is beyond the understanding of ordinary people. Although Jia Zheng doesn't believe in ghosts and gods, he can't explain the strangeness of Baoyu's birth, so he doesn't fully believe in ghosts and gods. Such a gentle attitude seems strange to outsiders, but it has been reasonably placed on Jia Zheng. His belief in Buddhism, Taoism, ghosts and gods is not pious enough, and the Buddhism invited by Jia She and others is not clever enough. It is useless except to delay his illness, so this father is not annoyed. Jia Zheng's psychological activities, such as helplessness and anxiety about his beloved son's illness, resentment of Buddhism and Taoism, and obsession with Jia Mu and Jia She, are vividly expressed through the word "really annoying". Jia Zheng is a talented and occasionally humorous person. At the same time, he is a strict and loving father. Cao Xueqin intends to create an orthodox official Jia Zheng who cultivates himself with Confucius and Mencius. He is humble and filial to his elders, and strict with his children. He is full of expectations for his son's career economy, but he sincerely yearns for rural life; Being in a hopeless world, as the parents of a noble family, he not only can't live in an ideal way, but even covers up his natural nature with seriousness. The contradiction between life ideal and reality tormented him. With the growth of age and the decline of family wealth, he is only sad and helpless. Jia Zheng of Cheng Jiaben is a mediocre, rigid, stubborn and boring person. He is indifferent to his family and lacks sincere family care. The Cheng family originally intended to transform Jia Zheng described by Cao Xueqin into a stubborn and rigid feudal scholar-bureaucrat image. He was grateful to the emperor for his kindness, mindful of the virtues accumulated by his ancestors, obsessed with his career promotion, and imposed his expectations on his son Baoyu. Subjectively, Jia Zheng is strict with self-discipline, diligent in self-cultivation, cautious in housekeeping, and restricts his words and deeds with Confucian norms everywhere. He is filial when he enters, and filial when he leaves. He is sincere and trustworthy, loves the masses and is kind to others (The Analects of Confucius); He is "virtuous and changeable, serving his parents and doing his best" (ibid.); He is convinced that "a gentleman who is not heavy is not dignified and unsmiling." He tried his best to portray himself as Jackie Chan's son Jackie Chan's image of strict father, filial son and loyal minister. Unfortunately, he was in the complex contradiction of feudal eschatology, and all his efforts were in vain, and finally he got nothing. Therefore, he is destined to be a tragic figure of this era, but it does not hinder the development of his character. He was destined not to tolerate the social reality at that time, but he could live in the dream and ideal of writer Cao Xueqin, and Cao Xueqin would certainly arrange his characters in the ideal realm.

The conflict between Jia Zheng and Baoyu is the core of his life tragedy. Because this is a conflict between deviant and feudal traditional morality. As the parent of a century-old family and the executor of Confucian culture, Jia Zheng thinks that he has the right, responsibility and obligation to discipline Baoyu for the benefit of the family and Baoyu's future, and Baoyu is a newcomer who wants to break through the shackles of feudal dogma and pursue personality liberation, which makes the relationship between father and son have a fierce conflict on the social and cultural level. Jia Zheng was indeed "tired of punishment" for Baoyu (23 times), which led to "all kinds of bad things" (33 times). In the plot of beating Baoyu, we should not only see the stern side of Jia Zheng's character, but also see through his inner contradictions and pains, and see his hatred of the twisted love hidden behind him. Jia Zheng stood in his own position, expecting his son to succeed and treating him as an ant. He loves Baoyu, so he has to beat him and treat his son as an enemy. He even wanted to find a rope to strangle him in a rage, "to avoid future trouble." Therefore, Jia Zheng, as a father who abides by the cultural tradition respected by the society, shows helplessness and despair when his son betrays the golden rule that he has always regarded as the standard of life. However, Jia Zheng is Jia Zheng after all, and his essence is also a romantic figure with poetic feeling. With the growth of age and physical weakness, and with the further understanding of official career and human feelings, his views and understanding of Baoyu are gradually changing, from hostility and disgust to tolerance, understanding and even appreciation. Another role of Jia Zheng is a dutiful son. As a son of man, Jia Zheng obeyed Jia's orders in the family and subjectively tried his best to make himself a model of filial piety in line with Confucian standards. In the first part of the book, there are frequent conflicts between mother and son on how to cultivate Baoyu, a major issue related to the future of Jia's family, which pushes Jia Zheng into a dilemma: in any case, Baoyu, who seems to be "a little hopeful", has actually become an unfilial son in the harsh reprimand of Jia's mother "I just didn't raise a good son in my life". His filial piety to Jia Mu is really from the heart, and he can temporarily accept the mask that has always been dignified and rigid; Put away the boring moral preaching and tell some jokes that many researchers and readers think are vulgar. However, he believes that the true filial piety, the greatest filial piety and the most urgent filial piety is to make the family prosperous, which is his most unshirkable responsibility as a descendant of Jia. Therefore, he not only wanted to educate Baoyu, but even forced him to study for the exam, and sent his eldest daughter Yuan Chun to the "dark palace". Not only has he always been cautious and never crossed the line, but even his granddaughter's coffin board should be considered comprehensively, and he should also pay close attention to the blows of family enemies and political enemies. He has been living in fear and trembling, without free and unrestrained joy, which is a great violation of his "poetic wine" nature. Loyalty and courtship are the ultimate goals of Jia Zheng's life. Strict father, the dutiful son, is only a foil to this goal. We can't know his brilliant achievements in running the country and keeping the country safe from the original work, because he was "born in the last days". At this time, the wheel of history ran to the end of feudal society, the landlord class had already lost its high fighting spirit in the early stage, the officialdom was completely corrupt, morality was completely declining, and faith was completely in crisis.

With the advantages of consanguinity and popularity, Jia Zheng does have a chance to be promoted. His daughter is an imperial concubine, and his brother-in-law Wang Ziteng is a good wife in nine provinces. His brother-in-law, Xue Jia, has been a royal businessman for generations. He recommended Jia Yucun, and a few years later he was promoted to Fu. But in that hypocritical officialdom, his moral conscience and rational conscience made Jia Zheng still maintain the moral standard and dignity of traditional literati. Lin Ruhai, Daiyu's father, said that he was "very modest". He was not a frivolous official, so he was always an ordinary administrative leader, because he had neither the cunning skills of politicians nor the strategic talents of politicians in officialdom. Although Jia's failure is an inevitable result, as the head of the family, he should bear certain responsibilities, whether it is his life standard or the tragedy that the traditional Confucian orthodoxy in the last days is not harmonious with the system and moral mechanism of the whole society.

During this period, Jia Zheng's thinking habits and behavior were orthodox, and his rigid and standardized educational methods and bureaucracy stifled his spirit. For the benefit of the family, he can go against his son's nature and sacrifice his daughter's lifelong happiness. He's really sad. In addition to his own imperfections, it is more the unreasonable restraint and distortion of human nature by closed cultural traditions and outdated systems. Jia Zheng is unable to change these personally, and he can't change them at all. He can only adapt to the social environment and then get limited freedom. Judging from the internal organization and operation mechanism of the feudal social system, he was forced, but when he was abandoned from within this social system, he was able to live a life in line with his nature of "drinking poems to celebrate his birthday".

In Jia Zheng's trilogy of life, the author's pen and ink are mainly spent on the second part above. What about the first and second parts? Especially in the third part, we can only compare and speculate from the clues left by Cao Xueqin in the first eighty times. . In my opinion, Jia Zheng's ideological character is unchangeable. In his trilogy of life, with the change of environment, the evolution track of his thought and character is clearly displayed. From this point of view, the characters in his works are fuller and have deeper cultural connotations than Baoyu.

What was Jia Zheng's ideological character before he became an official? The author adopts the method of fictional writing, which can only be carefully combed and checked from a few words. It can be summarized as lingering in poetry and wine, clinging to birthdays, being eccentric and loving reading. ) Leng Zixing language (the second time) "The second son Jia Zheng, who studied well since childhood, was the most painful for his grandfather. He originally wanted to be born in Corga-now he has been promoted to foreign minister. " The books that Jia Zheng read are not necessarily just the "Four Books and Five Classics", but can be understood as Baoyu's miscellaneous studies, including poems and songs, and there may even be banned books such as The West Chamber and Peony Pavilion. "Grandfather is the most painful" means that he was loved by his grandfather as Baoyu was loved by his grandmother at that time, which is also the basis of his nature.

After Jia Zheng became an official, he became a faithful believer and executor of Confucian dogma. How did this change come about? This is due to subjective and objective reasons. Subjectively, Jia Zheng was born in a well-known family, deeply influenced by the Confucian ideological and cultural tradition of joining the WTO, and restricted by values such as managing the family, governing the country and making a name for himself. If he wants to gain a foothold in his family and society, he can only take the road of being an official. Father Jia Daishan, "The last book was published, and the emperor thanked the first minister", "so he was awarded the title of master". The emperor's kindness made him grateful to tears. The honor of the family and the expectation of his grandfather made him "because he wants to take the right path among his sons and nephews." These can only ask him to be a dutiful loyal minister, dutiful son and strict father, and to appear in front of his sons and nephews in this way to set an example for them. From the objective factors, it is caused by the great power of traditional culture, and his life trajectory is strictly controlled by society and family. Now that he is an official, the norms of the imperial court and Confucian dogma restrict him to be a serious person and be an official honestly, and he will never be allowed to be biased again. The Confucian concept of "benevolence and filial piety" entrusts him with responsibility. He should obey the interests of his family in everything, and he should revitalize this "century-old family" that is heading for the end of the world. He wants to discipline his sons and nephews, especially Baoyu, who "can achieve great things with a little hope", is even more rude. This requires him to sacrifice his personal nature and appear as a dignified parent. How can he linger on poetry and wine? In this way, subjective and objective factors interweave and act on Jia Zheng's inner world, forming his strong sense of self-esteem, honor and responsibility, becoming a huge binding force, distorting and binding his "poetic wine" nature and destroying his "childlike innocence". China's traditional culture has always kept pace with Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and the two thoughts are particularly entangled in the literati class: after China's entry into WTO, it is its duty to "protect the world" and "help the poor", but once it leaves, it can be praised by the world. The seven sages in the bamboo forest are unrestrained, Tao Yuanming is calm and lofty, Li Bai indulges in poetry and wine, pursues immortality and Taoism, all of which can be the goals of life. This is Cao Xueqin's arrangement for Jia Zheng: the author shapes the image of Jia Zheng according to the Confucian cultural ideal, and Jia Zheng, an official, is the projection of Cao Xueqin's Confucianism in the book. Jia Zheng is simply a model of integrating all Confucian virtues pursued by Cao Xueqin. He designed the image of loyal minister, dutiful son and strict father for him, and his character was dignified and extreme. In Qin Xue's pen, the vigorous "Kanggan Prosperity" is the last time to come back to life. Society is a different society with black and white reversed. On the surface, the Jia family is full of flowers, but in essence, the building will fall down The author puts Jia Zheng at the intersection of Jia family and the end of society, and shapes his Confucian character. He has to let this dirty end of life destroy him and return him to the ideal destination of Taoist culture. Through this helpless life tragedy, Cao Xueqin's Buddhism and Taoism thought is derived: life is alive, everything is empty, and it is illusory after all. Only being born and returning to nature is the best destination.