by Connor Corcoran
The Characters from both stories pursue the seamstress and Pao-yu.
In the story The Red Chamber two young ones, Pao-yu and Tai-yu, both fall in love. Pao-yu is also getting attention from Pao-chai, another young girl. This book like Balzac takes you on an adventure of flirtation and social interaction of young adults. One major similarity is that two girls are interacting with Pao-yu. It is vice versa in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress as two boys do so with the little seamstress. Luo and Ma have a similar plot with the seamstress as Pao-chai and Pao-yu do with Pao-yu. Only one of the two “competitors” in both stories wins the heart of the seamstress and one wins Pao-yu’s. These writings make love seem painful and hard to achieve which many times it is. There is a real intense drama that these Chinese stories have through out the plots.
Like Luo did with the seamstress, Tai-yu mutually falls in love with Pao-yu. Unhappy endings destroy the poor young characters in Balzac and The Red Chamber. Due to arranged marriages in China, Pao-yu is forced to marry Pao-Chai which breaks the two lover’s hearts. This story of love is rough because no one gets what they want in the end. Tai-yu dies and then Pao-yu dies too. He dies from the pain leaving a lonely Pao-Chai on their wedding day. The ending in Balzac is sad too. The Little Seamstress, after lots of intimacy with Luo, runs away in the end never to return or see him again. He is hurt by this and Ma is let down too, as Pao-Chai was at the end.
There are major differences between the two books though. The Red Chamber takes place in the years way before Christ. Balzac takes place 60 to 70 years ago. Also the characters in The Red Chamber are wealthy unlike the poor characters in Balzac. Both books go to prove how the human nature of love today is what is was thousands of years ago. Both are great books to read to get more oriented with the culture of China. These books are special and unique literary works.
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