Characters
Dream of the Red Chamber contains an extraordinarily large number of characters: nearly forty are considered major characters, and there are almost five hundred additional ones. The novel is also known for the complex portrait of its many female characters. The names of the maids and bondservants are given in the original pinyin pronunciations and in David Hawkes' translation.
Read more about this topic: Aunt Xue
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“It is open to question whether the highly individualized characters we find in Shakespeare are perhaps not detrimental to the dramatic effect. The human being disappears to the same degree as the individual emerges.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Of the other characters in the book there is, likewise, little to say. The most endearing one is obviously the old Captain Maksim Maksimich, stolid, gruff, naively poetical, matter-of- fact, simple-hearted, and completely neurotic.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Socialist writers are made of sterner stuff than those who only let their characters steeplechase through trouble in order to come out first in the happy ending of moral uplift.”
—Christina Stead (1902–1983)