Let's talk about Aunt Zhao again.

Aunt Zhao's identity is very special. She is called a half-master. She is Jia Zheng's concubine and the mother of Jia Huan and Tan Chun. It stands to reason that the feudal society attached great importance to mothers and children, but she still had to do housework, such as playing lotus seeds and moving a mat, which was nothing. Because Yingchun's mother, Aunt Zhou, wants to do the same, but Aunt Zhao's performance in A Dream of Red Mansions is very eye-catching. It can be said that all the good things in a dream of red mansions are not her. For example, many important activities, even the more decent girls are mentioned, and there are all her plays, but there is no aunt Zhao. In the first eighty chapters of A Dream of Red Mansions, among all the more important figures, she didn't have any bright colors, such as Jia Yucun, even Jia Zhen, even Jia She and even Xue Fan. Cao Xueqin gave him some bright colors, but Aunt Zhao didn't have any. She appears frequently, why is there no bright spot? How can a woman like Aunt Zhao become the concubine of Jia Zheng? Why did Cao Xueqin write like this? I feel confused.

Now let's have a look. Aunt Zhao is very skeptical. First of all, Aunt Zhao's identity rationality is very insufficient. She lacks sufficient identity rationality. In other words, how can a woman like Aunt Zhao be Jia's aunt? The Jia family has very clear standards for wives and concubines of male masters or important maids. There are two standards. Back in Zhang Daoshi, I told Jia Mu that when I proposed to Baoyu, Jia Mu had a very important remark. She said, "You can ask now, no matter how rich she is, as long as her appearance is worthy. Come and tell me, that family is poor, but only give her a few taels of silver, as long as her appearance and personality are rare. " We noticed that there are two standards, the first is appearance, and the second is personality. In this passage, Jia Mu mentioned appearance twice and character once. Appearance means, in our current words, artistic standards come first, and personality is a bit like political standards. This character should be more important than appearance. But the Jia family always does this when choosing a man's wife and concubines. Appearance comes first, character comes second. Why is appearance natural? I can't change it. At that time, there were no beauty salons or artificial beauties. Personality can be set-up, especially in Jia's environment. The etiquette system is very strict, and many things should be changed if they are not changed. So it's just the criteria for getting a wife for the master and finding a wife for Baoyu? No. Including concubines and maids, this is the standard. For example, Jia wants to marry Yuanyang and Mrs. Xing does the work for her. Jia she wanted to buy another one, and she looked for a lot, either because of her bad looks or her bad temper. Look at the two criteria of appearance and temper. Looks first, temper last. Let's take Li Wan and Mrs. Wang as examples. They talked about these big girls, such as Pinger, forty-four times, and the grandmother said what Pinger was, a beauty embryo. Back to 39, Li Wan said Pinger was so decent. And Pinger is kind, calm, fair and considerate, and is well-known in the Jia family. Why are the looks of these concubines and big girls so important? Because Jia Fu has a rule, Xing Er once talked with Second Sister You. That is, as long as the master of Jiafu is getting older and understands the love between men and women, he will shut one or two people in the house and will not let him go astray outside. That is to say, if you put one or two beautiful girls in his room, you can win the young master's heart, otherwise he will have an accident outside and get sick, which will have a bad influence. So this important girl, she must be very beautiful first, and then have a good personality. There is another one, like Jia Fu, who often has dignitaries to visit and sometimes enters the palace. She also wants to date other powerful wives. His wife and important concubines sometimes take part in some activities, so you must look good, or you will lose your dignity. As for personality, it is even more important, because some are not wives, and some important big girls, such as Pinger, sometimes exercise certain powers on behalf of their masters. If she lacks self-cultivation, she can't handle such complicated interpersonal relationships, so a good appearance and a good personality are the two criteria for the Jia family to choose a spouse, and they are also important girls for men.

Therefore, Aunt Zhao is an aunt. She used to be a girl, so after having children, she was promoted to aunt and became a half-master. Therefore, it is obvious that these concubines of Jia's family were either formally married by their elders or put in his room and then promoted to concubines after giving birth to children. In these two situations, one is given by the elders, and the other is that you fall in love with yourself and like it until you have children. Let's see if Aunt Zhao meets these two standards, but Aunt Zhao doesn't. Let's take a look at Aunt Zhao's age first. Because there is no direct reference to Aunt Zhao's age, I can only do some textual research. Mrs. Wang said that because when Jia Zheng hit Baoyu at that time, Mrs. Wang said that I was almost fifty years old, which means that Jia Zheng should be about fifty years old, so once she wrote Aunt Zhao 60 times. She flew into the garden with a bag of jasmine powder and ran very fast. If Aunt Zhao is older than Mrs. Wang, that is to say, before Jia Zheng married Mrs. Wang, she was an aunt. Then she should be no less than fifty years old at that time. She can't fly, can she? She can't run so fast. This is a ... Second, Aunt Zhao was promoted from a girl to an aunt because she gave birth to this child, but her two children are younger than Baoyu. At the beginning of the novel, Tanchun may be ten or eleven, because Baoyu was only twelve or thirteen at that time. Therefore, Aunt Zhao's age at that time should generally be around 30 years old. That is to say, it was after Jia Zheng married Mrs. Wang for many years and Mrs. Wang was born for many years that Aunt Zhao appeared, or the woman surnamed Zhao was promoted from a servant girl to an aunt. Therefore, Aunt Zhao, when she became an aunt, could not have married this woman and made her a concubine because Jia Fu wanted to continue to burn incense, so it could not have been the idea of her elders, because there were two boys, Zhu Jia and Baoyu, so it was impossible. In other words, the elder was placed in his room, or the possibility that the elder was a concubine to him was ruled out.

So is it possible that in the second case, Jia Zheng himself fell in love with this woman named Zhao? Let's have a look. As early as seventy-eight, Jia Zheng once said that he used to be a poet, who loved to write poems, dance ink, drink, and celebrate birthdays. Generally speaking, this kind of literati who likes dancing and writing, drinking and reciting poems, and is informal, will only fall in love with two kinds of women. The first is a very attractive type of beauty, very beautiful. After seeing it, I fell in love at first sight, regardless of anything, and fell in love. Later, I had two children, so after having one child, the girl was promoted to be an aunt and became an aunt. So is Aunt Zhao a beauty? Obviously not. Why? The novel does not directly describe whether Aunt Zhao is beautiful or not, but we can prove that she is not. Of course, she may not be ugly, but we know that there is a lot of space between beautiful women and ugly women. Where can we make such an inference? We can see that Aunt Zhao gave birth to a son and a daughter, and Tanchun is very beautiful. It is said in the novel: cut shoulders and slim waist, slender figure, duck egg face, fine eyes, eager to fly, the essence of literary talent, forget the customs when you see it. Gee, she is very beautiful. Therefore, Tanchun Yingchun and Xichun are called Jia Fu Sanyan and Sanmei, and Jia Huan, the son of Aunt Zhao, is not so good. In the novel, I saw Baoyu 23 times through Jia Zheng's eyes. Where is Jia Huan? There are eight words of comments, Jia Zheng saw that Jia Huan was born "unshrinking and sparse in manners", meaning that his appearance and manners were vulgar and not generous. So you can be sure that although Jia Huan is not necessarily ugly, he is definitely not beautiful and looks very ordinary. Of course, it is also possible that Jia Huan resembles Jia Zheng, his father, Tan Chun and her mother. Let's further rule it out and see what he looks like. Jia Zheng and two women gave birth to several children. Jia Zhu is dead, and Jia Lan is a grandson. Let's not go to see him, because there is another Li Wan in the middle, so we should live to see him. Yuan Chun is absolutely a beauty. If she is not beautiful, she can't be elected to the palace or promoted to the imperial concubine. Needless to say, Jia Baoyu is a handsome man. She is a little feminine and beautiful, which is no problem. In this way, we can infer that Jia Zheng and his two women have given birth to five children, four of whom are still alive and three are beautiful. Therefore, in comparison, the probability that Aunt Zhao is beautiful is extremely low. Of course, I can't say anything, but I can infer from the probability that the probability is very low. In other words, Aunt Zhao may not be very ugly, but she is definitely not beautiful. She is definitely not a beauty, so this poet is the birthday girl.

He may fall in love with the second kind of woman. What kind of women are they? She is a lady, a gentle and graceful lady and a gentleman. The so-called lady is not necessarily beautiful, but not bad, but because she is very educated, bookish and good-natured. Therefore, he is not the same type as a beautiful woman. Of course, some beauty types may have very noble and elegant temperament, but beauty types must be very beautiful first. What about the beauty type? It is an inner beauty, and Aunt Zhao is definitely not. How can a young man like Jia Zheng, who lives his birthday with poetry as wine, be an orthodox official? Then how did Aunt Zhao, a vulgar, stupid, selfish and disgusting woman, become Jia Zheng's concubine? The rationality of her identity is very doubtful. This is the first question.

What is even more doubtful is that Aunt Zhao's artistic image does not conform to Cao Xueqin's consistent aesthetic principle of depicting characters. The slightly more important characters in A Dream of Red Mansions are not flat in a single line, but have strong three-dimensional sense, flesh and blood, and rich connotations in many aspects and levels. Cao Xueqin never simplified, masked or caricatured these characters. Obviously, ugliness is not ugly, and ugliness is not all ugly, which is an important aesthetic principle of Cao Xueqin's characterization. However, Aunt Zhao is a prominent exception. She is the only one of dozens of more important figures in A Dream of Red Mansions who writes very incisively. The evil is on the surface, but there is no bright color in the image. Compared with so many complicated characters, she is a single plane. The first eighty times, from her appearance to the end, almost fifty times. She always plays a lowly clown to set off others' light. To put it more bluntly, Aunt Zhao is simply ignorant and fearless, without the words of big noble's concubines. Aunt Zhao seems to be very scheming, such as her masterpieces, especially the scene with Ma Daopo, Baoyu and Xifeng. It seems that she is scheming and calculating others everywhere. In fact, she is simple-minded and stupid, and she makes a fool of everything. Even her representative works do not show the artistic image of such a shrewd and clever villain. The face of the bitch in the lower class, you see that the magic is dying on Baoyu, and Jia Zheng has been completely disappointed. At that time, Jia Fu was in a mess, and Jia Mu and others cried to death, and Jia Mu also died. What did Aunt Zhao say at that time? Aunt Zhao can't wait to tell Jia that the old lady doesn't have to be too sad. A brother is no longer important. It's better to dress my brother and let him go back early so as not to suffer, but I can't bear to part with him. This tone has continued, and he is also suffering in that world. At the time of grief, Aunt Zhao actually said this sentence. I was so angry that Jia spat at that time and scolded her. Aunt Zhao is nothing like big noble's aunt.

In addition, Aunt Zhao's language is vulgar and foul-mouthed, which is definitely the first in A Dream of Red Mansions. To swear, Wang Xifeng and even Qingwen sometimes use it occasionally, but this is generally a mantra. Aunt Zhao's swearing is really not heavy. You see, the scene where she quarreled and fought with a few little girls, 60 times, in this short 200 words, she scolded the little whore, the little whore, the little pink head, and there were more ugly and unspeakable swearing than this, no less than 10, 200 words. In a word, the image of Aunt Zhao has no rich connotation. Although she has many activities, as far as the scene is concerned, she is an important figure in A Dream of Red Mansions and can be classified as a second-class figure. However, this person has a shallow connotation and there is nothing to explore. It is particularly noteworthy that Cao Xueqin's novels are full of extreme disgust for Aunt Zhao.

For example, Cao Xueqin also wrote about people he didn't like, such as Jia She, Jia Zhen and even Mrs. Wang and Mrs. Xing. He didn't write so explicitly, including Xue Pan and Jia Lian. When Cao Xueqin wrote Aunt Zhao, that kind of extreme disgust was very, very obvious, which was different from other characters he wrote. In Cao Xueqin's works, Aunt Zhao Can is a ubiquitous life. Cao Xueqin showed no mercy to her, showing an irresistible dislike for Aunt Zhao. You see, no one in the novel says that Aunt Zhao is good. Aunt Zhao is the only important person in the novel who has no friends. Her daughter said she was bad, her son said she was bad, not to mention others, who all said she was bad. For example, Li Wan and Baochai said that every time Aunt Zhao was born with slander, she often did something to slander others. In this way, I am tired of Aunt Zhao in front of Mrs. Wang, which is to bring trouble. Pinger has a good temper, and Pinger doesn't praise or criticize people easily. Besides, she is a girl, and Aunt Zhao is taller than her. Anyway, Aunt Zhao is also a half-master. She is an aunt. Pinger has not reached this position yet. Pinger is not supposed to praise or criticize her casually, but Pinger can't help it. Pinger once criticized those daughters-in-law and women. She said Aunt Zhao was a little inconsistent. Supposedly, Aunt Zhao is only half a master, but after all, she is Jia Zheng's aunt, and she gave birth to a son and a daughter. According to her status, only Jia and Mrs. Wang Can reprimanded Aunt Zhao, but in the novel, Wang Xifeng rudely reprimanded Aunt Zhao. The twentieth time, Wang Xifeng took the opportunity to reprimand Jia Huan and gave her a solid lesson, saying that Jia Huan is a master now, but someone taught her anyway. What do you care? It's your mother. You are not qualified to educate your son. Search also said angrily to Jia Huan, if you don't listen to me, call these people instead. These people refer to Aunt Zhao, who will call them bad, evil and overbearing. If they don't respect themselves, they will go down. If they have a bad heart, they will blame others for their partiality. Wang Xifeng, this refers to cursing mulberry trees. Tanchun is very popular with Mrs. Wang. Xifeng knew Tanchun was very capable. She wants to pull her to be her right-hand man and her arm. After fifty-five times, Tanchun is a very distinctive girl. She has two characteristics, one is male consciousness, and the other is anti-ordinary consciousness. Ordinary is ordinary. She is not a concubine, so she is particularly unwilling. Aunt Zhao, however, always mentions that I am your real mother whenever there is any trouble. If you don't even care about your mother, you will care about your uncle and expose Tanchun's scar. Of course, Tanchun has her snobbish side on this issue, so we see that Aunt Zhao is annoyed, her daughter is annoyed and her son is annoyed. Moreover, in some places, Cao Xueqin obviously deliberately played tricks on Aunt Zhao and made her make a fool of herself. Cao Xueqin felt very happy and very happy. The most typical is the melee caused by jasmine powder, rose nitric acid, rose dew and poria cocos cream for 60 times. At that time, Aunt Zhao hit the housing management, and the housing management slammed at Aunt Zhao. As a result, Lotus Root Officer, Rui Officer, Kwai Officer and Bean Officer all have five senses, and five small players besieged Aunt Zhao, which made her very embarrassed. What is Qingwen waiting for? Qingwen was extremely happy on purpose. Qingwen's smile reflects Cao Xueqin's inner joy. Cao Xueqin wanted to use Qingwen and these little girls to beat Aunt Zhao, play tricks on her and punish her. So Qingwen's smile reflected that Cao Xueqin had designed this little farce for himself, and he was very happy.

Ok, now let's go back to the question at the beginning, that is to say, how did someone like Aunt Zhao become the concubine of the Jia family? Obviously unreasonable, she can't, so why did Cao Xueqin write aunt Zhao like this? The simplest analysis is, of course, to highlight Tanchun as a contrast. This mother is very bad and disgusting. Of course, Tanchun was educated by Mrs. Wang and was excellent in all aspects. And Jia Huan, influenced by his mother, did a lot of bad things. But this statement can't stand scrutiny, that is to say, if Cao Xueqin wants to contrast, he doesn't have to write Aunt Zhao in this ugly, faceless and cartoonish way. He can write Aunt Zhao as such a calculating and shrewd woman. Then the artistic value of this image may exceed that of Aunt Zhao now. Then again, of course, it makes sense to put Aunt Zhao in A Dream of Red Mansions in a general novel or a general excellent novel, because Aunt Zhao is really vivid and no one can forget this woman. But this is a dream of red mansions, and this is Cao Xueqin! How could Cao Xueqin write about her like this? Cao Xueqin couldn't think that if she was written as a very smart and calculating woman, her image would be fuller, and the role of this contrast could be better played.

Then, the second reason may be explained like this. Cao Xueqin's description of Aunt Zhao has simple shortcomings, but then again, A Dream of Red Mansions has so many characters, so full, so many levels, so many faces, so it can withstand pondering and so many connotations are worth exploring. And why doesn't Aunt Zhao have anything to explore? It is such a plane figure that Cao Xueqin didn't write it. Of course, if you say she has shortcomings, it is not impossible. Cao Xueqin has no shortcomings. A Dream of Red Mansions also has shortcomings, but they are all very minor, especially the novel. Some shortcomings are inevitable. So many ailments, so many important people like Aunt Zhao appeared. There must be a reason to write this. It is good to eliminate mistakes in creation and highlight some people in order to set off spring.

Therefore, Cao Xueqin is obviously fond of writing about Aunt Zhao, but this feeling is not love, but hate, and will never be forgiven. However, because there is too little information about Cao Xueqin's life, we don't know why Cao Xueqin hates this woman so much and writes her like this. So I can only make a little speculation for your reference. Psychological research has proved that the behavior and personality characteristics of adults will be influenced by events that occur in the first few years after birth. This is the conclusion of famous American psychologists, and it can be said that it has been recognized by the majority of psychologists. Children's psychology is immature and fragile, their nature needs caress, and they are particularly sensitive and afraid of injuries, especially some particularly serious injuries, which often leave an unforgettable impression on children. This kind of scar can never be erased, so for a writer, it will not only affect his character and psychology, but also often reveal this psychology consciously or unconsciously in his works. A Dream of Red Mansions is not an autobiography, but it contains more or less the shadow of the Cao family, and also contains a lot of Cao Xueqin's own feelings and sentiments. So, we don't know Cao Xueqin's specific life experience, so I can only guess that Cao Xueqin followed his grandmother's wife, the prototype of Jia's novel, and followed her back to Beijing from Nanjing, living in seventeen and a half rooms at the mouth of garlic market outside Chongwenmen, and living a poor life. Then he may have heard something about his family, because he was very young at that time. How old is he? We're not sure yet. There are several versions. If he were older, he might catch up with the shopping in Nanjing property market. If he is younger, he may have heard something from his grandmother and his mother or other relatives and servants, so I think Cao Xueqin is likely to meet a very bad woman in his life. When their family was in decline, this woman used to hit people when they were down, taking advantage of the fire to rob them, and may even directly hurt Cao Xueqin when she was young. He left an indelible scar forever, so in his heart, in his subconscious, this woman is absolutely unforgivable. Even if he doesn't want to vilify her, his writing will develop in this direction. Hating this woman became an instinctive emotion that he could not solve. Only by writing this woman like this can he vent his hatred for many years, so Aunt Zhao finally became like this.