The Substance of Fiction by Sophie Volpp

Author:Sophie Volpp
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Columbia University Press

The dizzying effect of seeing one’s own image in the mirror is part of the overall sensation of being disoriented and losing one’s way in Baoyu’s quarters, which at this point are not yet inhabited.54 Qiancheng Li has observed in the context of this passage that the character mi 迷, translated below as “lost,” refers in Buddhist terminology to “an unenlightened state of loss and disorientation, the opposite of awakened perception.”55 The spatial disorientation signals the possibility of a productive confusion. Jia Zheng’s lack of self-recognition before the Western mirror conceivably creates the potential for a fleeting recognition of the notion that there is no enduring essence to the self.56 The opportunity for realization passes, however, as Jia Zheng and his party circumvent the mirror without remark; the very sophistication that allows them to recognize the technology of the mirror forecloses the possibility of deeper realization.

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