世界名著《红楼梦》，是近几十年来一部很受欢迎的著作。因为它不是全由原作者曹雪芹完成的，因此这本书变得神秘，吸引了大量的学者略论和探究。今天大量的探讨作品已经出版，尤其是对于这本书的主角，如黛玉，宝玉，宝钗，熙凤，湘云等的探讨。然而，读者和学者都忽视了其中的一个特点，迎春很难被人提及。其实，每个人物创建都有一定的目的。因此，在本文中，从人文主义的角度来看，对这个可怜的女孩将有一个详细的略论，这也许是作者的意图。
Abstract
The masterpiece A Dream of Red Mansions has been known around the world and it is popular to make researches of this marvelous novel in the past decades. Since it was not completed by the original author Cao Xueqin, this book became mysterious and attracted lots of scholars to analyze and explore it. Plenty of researching works have been published nowadays, especially the researches about the main characters of the book, such as Dai-yu, Bao-yu, Bao-chai, Xi-feng, Xiang-yun and so on. However, there is one character which is always ignored by both the readers and scholars. It can be found that Ying-chun is hardly mentioned by people. Actually, every character was created with a certain purpose by Cao. Therefore, in this , there will be a detailed analysis of this poor girl in the perspective of humanism which is maybe the intention of the author.
Key Words: A dream of Red Mansion, Ying-chun, humanism.
1. Brief Introduction
A Dream of Red Mansions was a novel written in Qing dynasty by Cao Xueqin, a man who wrote only one novel during his life. It is said that the background of this novel was based on Cao’s own life experience and he was the archetype of Bao-yu. Therefore, the research of A Dream of Red Mansions can provide people with a huge number of resources about Qing dynasty.
“Bao-yu’s view on death (he would not hesitate to die if the tears of his female cousins and maids floated him to ‘nowhere,’ never to be reborn again as a human being), as we have previously examines, has such a cynical tone that it could probably have come only from a disappointed adult, such as the author, who has experienced a tragedy.” (Huang, 101)
Translations about this novel have been made early and there are many versions in the world now. However, those which are popular among people are The Story of the Stone translated by David Hawkes, a professor of Oxford and A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Hsien-yi and his wife Gladys Yang. In this , the version of A Dream of Red Mansions was chosen to be the reference.
There is no doubt that China has paid great attention to the research of A Dream of Red Mansions because the research has become an ideology which is named as Redology. Redologists have made great efforts to research this novel and have made great achievements nowadays. In the western world, the trend of researching A Dream of Red Mansions is also spreading. In 1967, American scholar Walter G. Langlois published the “The Dream of the Red Chamber”, “The Good Earth and Man’s Fate”, and “Chronicles of Social Change in China in Literature East and West”. In 1985, Marsha L. Wagner published “Maids and Servants in Dream of the Red Chamber: Individuality and Social Order”. In 2017, Erin L. Brightwell wrote a named “Analyzing Gender: Wang Xi-Feng and the Shrew”. Among all these research works, the analyses specializing the character—Ying Chun are rare. In the several researches of Ying-Chun, the authors mostly focused on her birth, personality and tragic fate. For example, the published in the journal “A Dream of Red Mansions” is “Ying-chun is the daughter of whom?” In “Contemporary Novels”, Wang Shu published “Analysis of the Personality of Jia Ying-chun and the Reason.” Therefore, it is significant to discuss the humanism showed through this mediocre girl.
2. Description of Ying-chun
In the novel, Ying-chun is an ordinary girl. She is very beautiful but there are too many beauties in the Prospect Garden to notice her. The description of her appearance is told through the perspective of Dai-yu. “The first girl was of medium height and slightly plumpish, with cheeks as white and firm as a fresh lychee and a nose as white and shiny as soap made from the whitest-goose-fat. She had a gentle, sweet, reserved manner. To look at her was to love her.” (Yang, 24) According to the impression of Ying-chun, it can be seen that she is a gentle girl. In China, there is a famous saying in the Confusion Classics “Wuchang”, Anityata^ -su^tra in Sanskrit which is a person’s face is shaped by its heart. It means that a person’s character can be seen from his or her appearance. “She had a gentle, sweet, reserved manner” shows that Yuan-chun is an affable person. However, compared with her sister Tan-chun, she is less attractable. The words commenting Tan-chun are that “To look at her was to forget all that was mean or vulgar.” The gentleness and fragility of Ying-chun can also be indicated through the verdicts seen by Bao-yu in the Land of Illusion:
“Paired with a brute like the wolf in the old fable, who on his savior turned when he was able, To cruelty not used, your gentle heart Shall, in a twelvemonth only, break apart” （Yang, 51）
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