Ba Jin and Cao Xueqin: dialogue through the centuries

Family novel is a fairly common genre in both the Chinese and the world literatures. It incorporates features of the universal and the specific that exist in a culture and traditions of a particular country. Chinese classical novel «Dream in the Red Chamber» by Cao Xueqin epitomizes universal and national traits of the genre and became the ancestor of the Chinese family novel. It has a noticeable impact on new generations of Chinese writers. The twentieth-century writer Ba Jin implemented a new idea for family novel based on «Dream in the Red Chamber». He retained typical time-space characteristics, and at the same time transformed the Chinese classical family novel by adding a social perspective. He portrayed the internal contradictions in the family of traditional type and its decomposition under the influence of changing social conditions and the formation of a hero-rebel of aristocratic origin under the influence of new ideas. The novel «Family» by Ba Jin has a lot in common with the «Dream of the Red Chamber». First, the scene of action of both novels is the confined space. Second, concentration on historical details is absent. Ba Jin and Cao Xueqin, using the same time-space, reveal the same topic, disintegration of the traditional feudal family. The theme of tragic love is depicted in the family background, and the denouement of the conflict of the protagonist with the family environment is expressed in the care of the protagonist of the family. Nevertheless, the novels «Family» and «Dream in the Red Chamber» have some differences. The former includes clearly prescribed psychological characteristics of the characters. Ba Jin transformed the classic novel of family and household, adding the social issues: he portrayed the internal contradictions in the traditional type of violence and its decomposition under the influence of changing social conditions. The writers belonging to different epochs, find common language with each other, because the problem of Chinese traditional family and relationship between its members has not lost its urgency. New motifs and techniques used by the writers of the twentieth century are closely tied to social life in their home country, and at the same time there is an active involvement of Chinese literature in the world literary context.