This essay aims to explore the transformational writing of ¡§emotion¡¨ and ¡§women¡¨ embedded in The Peony Pavilion and The Dream of The Red Chamber in the field of Chinese women study during the Ming and Qing Dynasty of China, attempting to testify that text is writer¡¦s grand work to establish humanitarian caring. The research purposes lie in the following areas. First, the contemporary research leans toward the integrative approach. Hence, how can traditional text and contemporary research subject be well blended to generate continuous interpretations? Second, in light of text, what is the most significant meaning of the text while deciphering The Peony Pavilion and The Dream of The Red Chamber from the perspectives of time and space? Third, how to evaluate the continuality and transformation of the textual spirit embedded in The Peony Pavilion and The Dream of The Red Chamber? In terms of the scholarship, this essay hopes to expand the author¡¦s early work entitled ¡§Illustrated Fine-lined Portrait Novel of The Dream of The Red Chamber in the Qing Dynasty¡¨ (1992), which investigates the aesthetic views of illustrated fine-lined portrait novel of The Dream of The Red Chamber. On the other hand, this essays combines the author¡¦s recent research on Chinese gender study. Consequently, this essay attempts to study two ¡§Romance¡¨ Classics¡XThe Peony Pavilion from the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty in the 17th century and The Dream of The Red Chamber from the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty in the 18th century. The essay deepens its caring about emotion and women in order to discover the consistent remote sound of life value crossing from the Ming-Qing era to the contemporary period, highlighting the humanitarian significance of text. Moreover, it explores the theme of caring to pinpoint the meaning of text, providing an innovative approach for the frequent but weak interpersonal caring attitude in our contemporary life. This essay examines texts in an attempt to integrate texts and gender with field of caring ethics to some extent, expanding the plausibility of interpreting texts to multiple explanations and extending rich and coexisting meanings. In particular, it analyzes female images written by male writers. It first probes into the emotion writing and women writing in The Peony Pavilion and The Dream of The Red Chamber respectively. Then it compares and contrasts the emotion writing and women writing of these two classics as well as the comparison and continuality of activity space. These two classics are known for its emotion characteristics. For instance, the emotion of Du Li-niang and the emotion of Jia Bao-yu both denote writers¡¦ experiences and status, the components and levels of endorsements, emotion between Du Li-niang and Liu Meng-mei, background, ending, and application of emotion between Jia Bao-yu and Lin Dai-yu, as well as Du Li-niang¡¦s and Liu Meng-mei¡¦s female experiences, activities, space, and skills. Put differently, this essay respects and promotes women¡¦s consciousness. The main characters in The Peony Pavilion and The Dream of The Red Chamber, such as Du Li-niang, Liu Meng-mei, Jia Bao-yu, and Lin Dai-yu, speak for the writers and turn themselves into ¡§ideal lovers.¡¨ ¡§Typical Lady¡¨ is the ¡§ideal woman¡¨ created by the writers for the female roles. While shaping the ideal image for Du Li-niang and for Lin Dai-yu, the long-term gender dilemma of women is also highlighted as the important description of the texts. In addition, the earlier studies on Ming-Qing women¡¦s situation and image have biased conclusion that male texts tend to be presented with flair of patriarchal domination. In contrast with female texts, male texts deserve further exploration. Furthermore, some men held positive views on women during the Ming-Qing era. Coincidentally, these men overlapped with the writers who stressed the importance of emotion. Consciousness often takes precedence over implementation. Scholars remark that prior to the booming of Western feminism in the 18th century, women¡¦s consciousness was already popularized during the Ming-Qing Era in the 16th and 17th century, which not only paved the way to the new women¡¦s thinking but also set up foundation for introducing Western feminist concepts. This essay is divided into five chapters. Chapter One includes research purpose, research focus, research methodology, and research questions. In particular, it discusses writers¡¦ psychological basis of caring via emotion and women, including the discussion and molding of emotion and women in the long-term Chinese thinking. The focus of this chapter consists of impact of Confucianism, politics, and education on emotion writing and women writing, thinking background of writing on emotion and women in late Ming Dynasty, positive views of emotion, as well as women¡¦s confinement, reflection, and representation. Chapter Two investigates writing and caring about emotion and women as described in The Peony Pavilion. The focus of this chapter includes Tang Xian-zu¡¦s life story and his life-long emotion-oriented writing transformation and determination, the content and level of emotion theme in The Peony Pavilion as well as the pursuit of true emotion process and aesthetic significance occurred between Du Li-niang and Liu Meng-mei. Chapter Three discusses writing and caring of emotion and women, including textual pursuit of Grand theme emotion as described by writer Cao Xue-qin, implication and level of theme emotion as portrayed in The Dream of The Red Chamber, the pursuit process of emotion alliance and aesthetic significance occurred between Jia Bao-yu and Lin Dai-yu as well as significance of female artistic ability as found among Lin Dai-yu, Wang Xi-feng, and Jia Tan-chun. Chapter Four compares these two classic texts, including text inheritance, meaning and difference of emotion and women caring, and transformation and contrast, such as meaning of transformation among emotion, ideal emotion, ideal women, and women space. Chapter Five concludes male texts of The Peony Pavilion and The Dream of The Red Chamber, analyzing its value on oneself, female caring, and contemporary meaning.

In 2004 Japanese author Ashibe Taku published his novel Murder in the Red Chamber, in which he adapted Cao Xueqin’s eighteenth-century Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber as a compelling murder mystery. In 2008 I would take on the challenge of translating Ashibe’s novel into English. This required me to draw on a wealth of primary and secondary materials. Not only did I have to familiarize myself with the novel’s peculiarities, but also with those of its Chinese source. Over these layers of text I fashioned yet another from my own engagements with Western detective fiction. In order to reconcile these disparate cultural understandings of detection and law, I assumed the role of detective myself in navigating at least two cultural milieus at any given time. Consequently, I found myself empathizing with Ashibe’s characters in an entirely new way. This thesis is a case study that investigates two questions: (1) What does it mean when the translator’s method mimics—in the target text—that of the author of the source text? (2) How have murder mystery paradigms been displaced and/or embedded in my chosen text through this process of cross-cultural rewriting? In exploring these questions I have developed a kinship with Ashibe, for we are both rewriters seeking to flesh out the evidence laid before us into admissible testimony. Whether or not I “solved the case” of this translation matters less than the adding of another layer in another language with the intent of enriching the whole.