Bai Xianyong

"A Dream in the Garden" was published in 1966. The work describes the tragic fate of the widowed general's wife through the narration of the heroine Lan Tianyu's experience at a banquet. It reflects the changes in the situation of the upper class of the former Kuomintang after they withdrew from the mainland and the reality of Taiwan in the 1950s and 1960s. It depicts several characters with different personalities such as Lan Tianyu, and also expresses the characters' vicissitudes of life.

Introduction to the author of "A Dream in a Garden"

"A Dream in a Garden" is the representative work of contemporary writer Bai Xianyong. Bai Xianyong is a representative of modern novelists in Taiwan’s contemporary literary world. His novels are a unique presence in twentieth-century Chinese literature, and he is known as the "standard bearer of Taiwanese modern novels." The greater characteristic of his novel art is the combination of traditional classical literary techniques and Western modernist artistic techniques. Classical and modern are almost perfectly blended together in his novels. He is the author of short story collections "Sister-in-law Yuqing", "The New Yorker", "Taipei People" and the novel "Evil Son".

Artistic Features

The interludes in "A Dream in the Garden" play an important role in portraying the psychology of the protagonist Lan Tianyu. Because "Wandering in the Garden" is closely related to Lan Tianyu, the song "Wandering in the Garden" triggered Lan Tianyu's stream of consciousness. The officers Cheng and Jiang Biyue in front of them looked exactly like the officers Zheng and Yue Yuehong back then.

Symbolic technique

Symbolic technique mainly refers to the opera "A Dream in the Garden" in the novel. In Tang Xianzu's "The Peony Pavilion: Dreams in the Garden", the heroine Du Liniang was bound by feudal ethics and felt sad about spring while visiting the garden. She met the scholar Liu Mengmei in her dream and died of depression. Du Liniang's pursuit of love and her tragic fate have symbolic significance for the heroine Lan Tianyu in the novel. Although Lan Tianyu's upbringing, specific content of love pursuit and fate are different from Du Liniang's, they are consistent in terms of love pursuit and tragic fate.

Stream of consciousness technique

The stream of consciousness technique mainly refers to Lan Tianyu's free association and inner monologue when he is slightly drunk after drinking. This kind of free association is disordered, random, repetitive, and extremely jumpy. The past events are unfinished and the past events emerge. It is the original presentation of chaotic thoughts. This is a characteristic of the stream of consciousness technique, but it is also one of the characteristics of human thinking. Lan Tianyu's stream of consciousness concentratedly and profoundly expresses her contradictory and painful moods, complex emotional entanglements and tragic fate in her emotional life.