ABSTRACT
A Dream of Red Mansions is a celebrated Chinese literary novel written by Cao Xueqin during the Qing Dynasty. This Eastern version of Romeo and Juliet concentrates more on the inevitable law of change rather than just teenage love. The novel tells the story of two star-crossed lovers: Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, who are first cousins. The Family (Jia) was written by Ba Jin and published in 1933 as the first of his epic trilogy The Torrent (Jiliu). The novel is a vivid portrayal of the young people whose aspirations and love were crushed in an old family of three generations under the reign of the patriarch, grandfather Gao. When Ba Jin published the novel in the 1930s it inspired a lot of educated young people to examine and rebel against the old feudal society of China. The Family was adapted into a four-act play by Cao Yu.
