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Appreciation | Analysis | Characteristics of Jia Mu's Literary Characters

Jia Mu is a character in Cao Xueqin's Dream of Red Mansions. She has more names than any other characters in the novel: old lady, Mrs. Tai, ancestor, old bodhisattva, old birthday girl, ancestor old bodhisattva, and so on. The rich connotation of Jia Mu's personality is also worthy of the diversity of her appellation. As the highest matriarch of a feudal family, "old lady" is her standard title under the strict patriarchal system; She is also a young, kind and affectionate ancestor, and "ancestor" highlights her blood status; Externally righteous, she is also an "old bodhisattva" who respects the old and loves the poor, and is generous and kind ... There are many complicated factors in her personality, which are composed of many opposites. First of all, as a supreme feudal parent, a first lady of Guo Rongfu, a grandmother of today's imperial concubine, and an extremely noble lady, the basic feature of her personality is "wealth".

When the prologue of A Dream of Red Mansions began slowly, it was the time when Rong Ning and Er Fu were extremely prosperous. Jiafu, a feudal aristocratic family that flourished for a hundred years, has begun to turn from prosperity to decline. 80-year-old Jia has ascended the throne of the highest ruler of the palace. She has a large number of sons, daughters-in-law, granddaughters and great-grandchildren, countless maids, wives and attendants she doesn't recognize, and inexhaustible food, clothing, utensils and treasures. What's more, the old man is in good health, not as lazy as those dying old people, not fasting and chanting Buddha, and very quiet. She consciously wants to have fun. Her diet and daily life are quite luxurious and picky. The big kitchen prepared a special meal for her. "Write down all the dishes in the world and eat them every day." She never leaves her life blank, and she needs grandchildren around her every day. She can eat wine and tell stories, and likes playing cards and watching movies. The description of family happiness in A Dream of Red Mansions, led by Jia Mu, is rich and colorful. Without Jia's presence, we could not have such a lively reunion scene. Jia understands that others need her call and support, and at the same time, they also need others' ingratiation and ridicule. Many times, Grandmother Jia led Baoyu, Xifeng, Baochai, Daiyu, Tanchun and other sisters and maids to hold family dinners, watch plays, visit gardens, solve riddles on the lanterns, visit temples, etc. When necessary, she also kicked Jia Zheng out, so that everyone could enjoy themselves, especially to relieve Baoyu's pressure and accommodate Xifeng's jokes. She did this to protect young people and to satisfy herself. She is really a "old birthday girl" who enjoys the joy of the world.

Although hedonism has become the main theme of Jia Mu's life, she is not a fatuous old lady. Although she didn't ask many specific things of Jia family and dealt with them directly, she held the prestige of speaking last in this big family. Whenever something important happens, she will stand up and make an authoritative ruling. She once boasted that she had seen the world when she was young and was smarter than Wang Xifeng. In fact, she was born in the back door and married Jia Fu. At the peak of Rong Ning's fame, her husband Jia Daishan was sitting in his father's shadow. She also attended several occasions when Jinling took over driving. Nowadays, even if she is over eighty, she still has the aftertaste of "capable people". She is rigorous in giving gifts, flexible in sections and flexible in changes. Pay attention to reality, accept freely, know people well, be quick-thinking, make good use of them and control them properly. After Jia Lian's "stealing chickens and touching dogs", he held a sword in front of Feng. When this happened to Jia Mu, she downplayed it and was confused. It's easy to roll with the punches, easy to roll with the punches. But Baoyu lost his jade, and his family panicked. Jia Mu resolutely decided to reward 10000 yuan and tip off 5000 yuan, and adopted a lenient policy towards counterfeiters. That tolerance and determination are dwarfed by Xifeng, showing a politician's keen vision and determination to distinguish right from wrong.

It has something to do with her unrestrained enjoyment of life, her elegant, well-informed, generous and kind character and her pity for the poor and the elderly. Grandmother indulges and dotes on the younger generation. She takes care of her grandchildren and even some relatives, caring about their food, clothing, housing and play. Her favorite are Baoyu, Daiyu and Xifeng. It was Jia Mu's doting on Baoyu that freed Baoyu from his father Jia Zheng's strict discipline and made Baoyu's rebellious character develop freely. In fact, Jia Mu is the protector of Baodai's love, not the chief culprit who destroyed Baodai's love, as described in the 80' s follow-up books and considered by some scholars. Returning to Qingxu Pass on 29th, Zhang Daoshi proposed to Jia, who said Baoyu shouldn't get married early in his life until his freshman year. No matter how rich you are, as long as you look good. The Lady Dowager revealed her heart melodiously here, because it was Lin Daiyu, not Xue Baochai, who was good-looking but lost her "wealth foundation". It turns out that the old lady also likes sharp-edged figures like Xifeng and Daiyu, and doesn't like people who are silent all day "like a gourd without a mouth". Xifeng, who is the best at guessing riddles and coaxing old ladies, once joked with Daiyu in public: "Since you ate our tea, why don't you be our daughter-in-law?" Grandmother Jia never shed tears at ordinary times, but she shed tears twice for Baodai's awkwardness and misunderstanding. How many rich subtext are contained in those tears. This shows that Jia Mu was unconsciously involved in Baodai's love entanglement and consciously defended Baodai's love.

When Jia Jia married Jia Jia for the first time, she was the wife of a great-grandson. Now she has a great-grandson's wife herself. There are three or four hundred men and women in Rong Ning's family, and everyone is in the shadow of this "ancestor". She witnessed and experienced the historical process of Jia family's rise and fall, so this image was endowed with the greatest historical capacity in A Dream of Red Mansions.

Compared with Yu, Zheng, Xing and Wang, he is the representative of the first generation of Jia family, and is the representative of the prosperity and progress of this family since its founding more than 100 years ago. Jia Mu's character reflects the self-confidence of the rising landlord class in an aesthetic way. Her prosperity, flexibility, humor, generosity and so on are all manifestations of self-confidence. After the property was ransacked, Jia Mu said, "Generally, a person, whether valuable or not, always has to endure wealth and poverty." This is the language of the entrepreneurial generation. She is rich and loves to have fun every day. "I don't care if I'm happy or not, I just talk, laugh and keep fit." After losing her family, her children and grandchildren panicked and were at a loss. She accepted it frankly and dispersed the rest of the money without complaining. A pioneering generation can have such tolerance and demeanor! Jia Zheng is always nervous in political life, and has no courage like Jia Mu. His rigidity and dogma show that he has lost self-confidence and has to maintain his shaky authority with a straight face. And that seemingly "not far from the old lady's footsteps", compared with the grand tolerance of the old lady, has a strong color of stealing rats and dogs. They are all branded as sons of the last days.

Of course, this difference is relative. Jia Mu was born in the heyday and came to the end of the world. She has gone through the journey of three generations in her life, and her mind has also experienced the process from prosperity to decline. This makes her character necessarily have the same characteristics as her children and grandchildren: her hedonism, her spiritual emptiness, her "neurasthenia" and so on, all of which are the projections of the situation in which this family turned from prosperity to decline. The old man is deeply touched by the changes of Jia family from the past to the present. When she first arrived at her home in Jia Jia, she saw two "entrepreneurial heroes", Jia Yuan and Jia Yan. Her husband Jia Daishan and younger brother Jia Dehua are not as good as the previous generation. When it comes to her own two sons, they are bad and retarded, which can't be compared with the previous two generations. Looking further down, the grandson's Jia Zhen and Jia Lian and the great-grandson's Jia Rong are all "dirty seeds" for stealing chickens and touching dogs. Faced with the family wealth of "one generation is worse than the next", this once-a-drop, conceited "too proud" parent who misses the past and does not give up the present is undoubtedly very disappointed. When the Grand View Garden has entered the stage of decline and exhaustion, Jia Mu fought hard and went to Tubi Villa to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival and enjoy the moon with wine. However, the empty atmosphere is nothing compared with the lively scenes of thirty or forty men and women in those years! A feeling of sadness welled up in my heart and enveloped the whole family. At this time, Jia Fu's huge and complicated patriarchal clan system is already full of contradictions, crises and teetering, and Lai Jia, the supreme idol, is still being maintained. Once Jia finally dies, the whole Jia family will "suddenly collapse like a building."

Jia Mu is the image of an old woman with the most personality connotation, historical significance and aesthetic significance in China literature.