Another tragedy stems from having no desires or ambitions

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One of the tragic outcomes of A Dream of Red Mansions is the tragic love story between Baoyu and Daiyu. From the very beginning, Daiyu lived under someone else’s roof; she had a delicate and melancholic temperament, as well as lofty ideals. Liang Xiaosheng wrote an essay titled \"Daiyu Is Not Jealous,\" which is certainly good, but it underestimates Daiyu. In the Grand View Garden, the only man with the potential to be gentle and delicate is Baoyu. But that’s about all Baoyu had; born into a wealthy family, he had everything he wanted. He cannot set great ambitions. He has no desires or wants. Even after being with Xiren, he showed no particular preference for sex. He isn’t impotent; he thinks it’s some kind of defilement of women. Having grown up surrounded by beautiful people, he has an almost obsessive desire to protect beauty, refusing to let it be tarnished. This loses one’s manly nature. From ancient times to the present, men have shown their strength and masculinity through conquest, whether by wisdom or by physical power. None of these can be seen in Baoyu; they are not reflected in him at all. Therefore, he did not possess enough masculine nature to match Daiyu’s uniquely feminine nature. Daiyu did not want a strong man to roughly pull her into his arms, but after all that beauty and poetry, she still wanted to smell a man’s scent; even seeing the sudden masculine glow in Baoyu’s eyes could be inspiring. The tragedy stems from Baoyu’s lack of desires. It suited his environment, but it was a distorted one; it looked beautiful yet destroyed him.