meaning
I was saying that Dream of the Red Chamber is filled with the details of daily life, and this is true. It feels like something written by an author who actually lived there (and he did, sort of). Apparently many of the characters are reminiscent of people he knew.
But there's a lot going on underneath the events and conversations, the mending of torn clothes and gathering of supplies for a meal. Though the older generations have pretty much found their place in the world, and live on that basis, the young people in the Garden don't yet know what their place is. And they talk about it a lot... sometimes openly, sometimes by quoting works they've all read.
Because when they're not filling their lives with small and greater joys to distract themselves, they're genuinely curious about their place in it all.
What am I to you? To Grandmother? To my master or servant? To my cousin?
What are the books I'm reading turning me into, and do I like that person?
What does it mean to be a woman in this house, in this society?
Can I even accept any of these expectations as meaningful when they make no sense to me?
So surrounded by food and drink, books and their own writings, flowers and birds and the frowning elders, they ask each other these questions. They disagree. They lose control and weep for a few moments, or they look out for each other at unexpected times.
Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu feel they have an understanding beyond words, but they're so young, and they have no power at all. They just live. Xue Baochai is (like them) fiercely intelligent, but she holds tightly to the mores of the family and culture around her. And Jia Tanchun, now coming into her own, questions all of this but most of all wants to be trusted, believed in. I can do this. I can manage the finances of a (frankly insolvent) extended clan.
The elders (and some of the younger men) will continue to be who they are, who they know that they are. Domineering or nurturing or watchful or predatory. They don't seem to question.
But those who live in the Garden still wonder why.