The known ending: narrative closure and reading experience in Dream of the Red Chamber

Abstract

Different from most traditional Chinese full-length novels, Dream of the Red Chamber紅樓夢written by Cao Xueqin 曹雪芹 (1710?—1765?) begins its narrative by declaring that the whole story in its entirety has been finished and completed. This essay approach this narrative design from a different perspective, namely, the temporal structure and explore how the emplotments with a predestined ending point right at the beginning of the novel are constructed and their effects on the reader's experience. To better illustrate this mechanism, I will first examine the indication of a known ending in the framework of narrative theory and then look into the twofold layers that the novel adopts in its first chapter to persuade its readers that the whole story is built on a recollection and remembrance. In doing so, I explore how the construction of a known ending beforehand affects the reading experience at the cognitive and affective levels.