Xue Baochai is an important figure in A Dream of Red Mansions. Many poems in A Dream of Red Mansions make people applaud. Different characters express themselves through different styles of poetry. Xue Baochai's poems are naturally an important tool for us to understand him. Let's look at Xue Baochai through several poems.
Ode to Bai Hai Tang can be said to be Xue Baochai's masterpiece. The first sentence of the poem is "cherish the beauty and hide the door", which shows that Baochai abides by feudal women's morality and has great reservations about her status as a rich and powerful woman, so the poem is praised by Li Wan: "This poem has status." She also preached to Daiyu and Xiangyun many times that "a woman without talent is virtue" and "chastity is always the main thing". The "Embroidered Spring Capsule" incident occurred in the Grand View Garden, and she immediately moved out of the Grand View Garden on the pretext that her mother was ill, all of which were manifestations of her "loving beauty like a child and hiding from the door during the day". On weekdays, I don't like flowers or powder, and the clothes I wear are neither old nor new, which also corresponds to her "rouge washes out the autumn shadow." "A flower is more beautiful when it is light" is not only Bai Haitang's quatrain, but also fully conforms to her simple and elegant, clean and unpretentious character, which won the praise of Jia Fu, and also shows that she is full of reserve and confidence in her inner beauty and outer beauty. The fifth time, she said that she was "square in character and beautiful in appearance, and there were many people that Daiyu could not match." The word "Bai Di" in couplets refers to the natural meaning, the word "silent" shows Baochai's steadiness, and the word "clean" can better show her confident psychological state. The couplet seems to write a scene, but it is actually Baochai's inner monologue and self-portrayal.
Regarding the word Linjiangxian, Xue Baochai said: "I think catkin is a fine thing without roots and stumbles, but according to my idea, I have to say yes so as not to fall into the trap." So I wrote a song, which may not be to your taste. "Contrary to the sad tone of Daiyu's catkin poems, Baochai's poems are full of cheerful and optimistic emotions. From Baochai's point of view, this is consistent with her character of "being open-minded and keeping up with the times". Baochai has always been noble and self-contained, and "ugly disaster" will certainly not touch her, so she is proud of her "dancing" and "uniformity" in her speech. And can "let him get together" and take it lightly, and the last sentence "Good wind sends me to Qingyun according to its own strength" is pushed as "respecting the head", from which it is not difficult to see Baochai's positive and optimistic attitude towards life.
However, Xue Baochai, who was so calm, did something that disappointed Jia Zheng at the Lantern Festival. The Lantern Festival was originally an occasion for family reunion, but Baochai's "More Fragrant Mystery" wrote such a sad sentence: "Jiao Shouchao is still at dusk, and his heart is fried every day." Here, Baochai just borrowed the characteristics of fragrant burning and poured out her long-simmering sadness and depression. Baochai's poems are compared to those of a noble who went on strike and retired. After she retired and lived alone, she was not satisfied with the life on the edge of the piano, but worried that her ideal could not be realized. It is the contradiction between belief and reality that makes her "anxious" every day and "worried" every night, which makes her feel that "time flies". Why did Baochai, who is good at catering to her parents, write such a statement on the Lantern Festival? I think this also shows another side of Baochai's personality, which is the same as Daiyu's aloof arrogance, but the last two sentences still have Baochai's style, which is an indifferent philosophy.