![]() ![]() Other editors subsequently give the novel other names, including a man called Cao Xueqin who works out of Nostalgia Studio. ![]() After approaching the Truth through the Stone’s powerful depiction of love, Vanitas changes the novel’s title to reflect his experience reading it. Vanitas, a monk who discovers the Stone, argues with it about the quality of its story, and then copies the Stone's story down. ![]() The magical Stone is acknowledged as the origin of the story, having inscribed its life as a human on its own surface. Though the use of a frame story was not new in Chinese literature ( Water Margin also begins with a frame story about the escaped spirits who become the novel’s heroes), Cao Xueqin uses surprisingly modern metafictional devices in the first chapter of his novel. The two helped the Stone reincarnate as a man so it could experience life as a mortal. One such stone, the only unnecessary leftover, eventually gained sentience and became the Stone, which was found by a Buddhist and a Taoist. Dream of the Red Chamber begins with a frame story that calls on ancient Chinese creation myths, specifically the goddess Nüwa, who created many stones which she used to repair the heavens. ![]()
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