Chapter 41 continues Granny Liu's adventures in Grand View Garden. When her turn comes to add a poetic line to the collective poem, she says, "A huge pumpkin forms when the flowers fall," and the whole party bursts into gales of laughter. The Chia family is having such a good time making fun of Granny Liu that they encourage her to drink more wine, and they plead with her to taste some eggplant cooked "in a special way." Clearly, they are showing off their superiority, riches, and wealth.
Later, when the author describes Granny Liu drunkenly collapsing onto Pao-yu's bed, he again points out this aristocratic family's extravagance and sumptuousness, an ostentation that is the result of years of exploiting the laboring people. Note, though, that the author is careful in these scenes to color his social criticism with humor. For example, Granny Liu sometimes makes a spectacle of herself because of her ignorance of certain "modern furnishings" — for example, the mirror which has Western-style hinges, enabling it to open and shut. The author describes these scenes in a thoroughly humorous way without idealizing Granny Liu's country ways, even though he means for her to be representative of the laboring people. Granny may be dirty, simple, and ignorant — but she is certainly charming.
Note also how the author deals with the prejudices of the aristocracy. In the conversation between Pao-yu and Miao-yu in Green Lattice Nunnery, Pao-yu says, "That bowl [used by Granny Liu] may have been contaminated . . . you'd do better to give it to that poor woman." Miao-yu replies, "It's a good thing that I never drank out of it, or I'd have smashed it." After the visit, Pao-yu offers to send some young servants with buckets of water from the stream to wash Miao-yu's floor (from Granny Liu's "contamination"). All of these details show that, at times, Pao-yu (as well as the author) has a tendency to be extremely critical of the unsanitary and unhealthy qualities of poor people.
Chapter 42 finds Granny Liu leaving to go back home, loaded down with many gifts and presents from Hsi-feng and Lady Dowager. Even Lady Dowager's maid Yuan-yang presents Granny with two sets of clothes. Granny Liu, of course, repeatedly expresses her gratitude to all of them before she takes her leave.
Having heard Tai-yu quote some lines from The Western Chamber the other day, Pao-chai lectures her, telling her to stick to her needlework and to read "proper" books. Her advice fully reflects the beliefs of a faithful disciple of feudal ethics (with its inherent prejudice against women). Pao-chai is so persuasive that Tai-yu seemingly yields to her social pressures and prejudices.
