In A Dream of Red Mansions, the suicides of Third Sister and Second Sister demonstrate that falling into the temptation of lust can ultimately cost one’s life. With the removal of those pollutants away from the Garden, Baoyu and Daiyu, the two true lovers, successfully guard their qing. In Chapter 70, such a triumph is celebrated when the two lovers find expression of their innocent feelings via writing poetry and flying kites. Yet the easily entangled nature of the kites hints at a rather ominous omen, raising a doubt about the strength of the Garden as a final reserve of the kids’ purity.
As a punishment for indulging in the light and fleeting kind of sensation that violates the Garden’s tacitly guarded rule of pure qing, Second Sister is at last driven to suicide. She is eternally banished to the “World of the Precious Mirror-the world of incest, debauchery, and intrigues-against which the sentimental self defines and defends its purity” (Lee, 101). Indeed, the girls in the Garden announce and symbolically rejoice at both the spatial and temporal removal of the corruption with the following remark: “Now it’s early spring, a fresh star, for all living things and high time to bestir ourselves to get it going on again” (Yang, 1507). This show of relief indicates that there is a safe distance between the World of the Precious Mirror and the sentimental world of the Garden that now they can enjoy all the fun and pleasure that their new poetry club has to offer. Baoyu, who has been dejected by the series of misfortunes that befell the Jias and himself, lightens up at the news.
For Baoyu and Daiyu, the act of writing poetry is more than just a leisurely enjoyment. With the infinite range and depth of honest emotional expression that its peculiar nature permits to its reader and writer, poetry is a method of communication between them. As “the two lovers in the novel must gradually create their own means of communication” to “explain the notion of ‘passion,’” they ask of and respond to each other’s qing through the descriptive language of poetry (Lee, 108). In Chapter 70, Baoyu reads a poem titled “Peach-Blossom” and suspects that it is written by Daiyu by looking at the plaintive spirit and style of the writing. Despite the denial and mocking of Baoqin and Baochai, Baoyu maintains that it is his lover’s work, because the overuse of the word “tears” throughout the poem reminds him of “crying,” the way by which they frequently confirm their love for each other when words can’t contain their feelings. In this regard, poetry can be considered as one of the most authentic forms of art, for it not only exposes the identity of the writer, but also their true emotions.
Another form of art that reveals the artist and participant’s authenticity is kite-flying. When the kids of the Garden fly kites, they experience genuine happiness that they need not feign for anyone. Letting go of themselves in such a sincere manner, the kids also send off their bad luck: “‘Kite-flying is just for fun, that’s why we call it ‘sending off back luck,’ said Li Wan’” (Yang, 1522). For instance, when Zhijuan tries to steal the unidentified kite that gets entangled in the bamboo, Tanchun makes sure that Zhijuan does not commit such a misdemeanor. It shows that the kids of the Garden, as opposed to the corrupted adults in the World of the Precious Mirror, not only are protected from, but also attempt to chase away the evil forces on their own. Behind the seemingly peaceful Garden, however, lurks an impending danger of a possible threat from the outside world when the kites of Baoyu, Tanchun, and another in the form of the character “good-luck” get entangled midair. A reader is yet to find out whether it signals a disturbance to the innocence of the Garden or not. However, one thing is certain; the Garden is a utopia of pure emotions that would remain intact as long as the two lovers-Baoyu and Daiyu-live.