Student’s Name Professor’s Name Course Date Compare and Contrast Essay: Don Quixote and The Story of the Stone Each literature canon of any culture has particular works that are defined as turning points of the whole literature process of the epoch. Western Europe claims that such novel that depicted the human nature of the time is The Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Meanwhile Eastern tradition believes that the novel that changed the course of Chinese literature was the The Story of the Stone (or Dream of the Red Chamber) by Cao Xueqin. However, despite the cultural differences of between worlds where these two tremendous works were created, both novels illustrate the common experience of human being reality that every person …show more content…
The novel Dream of the Red Chamber is the first in the history of Chinese prose is entirely the author's work, filled with unique experiences that human faces in everyday life. Thus, both Cao Xueqin and Cervantes offer innovative views in the social and philosophical problems, as well as the innovation of artistic methods. Dream of the Red Chamber combines the characteristic features of the European essays and the traditional Chinese commentary tradition (Anthony). Both Don Quixote and The Story of the Stone offer a reader the cross-cultural and universal principles of literary creativity and national identity. Thus, the protagonists of these novels, even despite the cultural differences between West and East, face the ruthless reality and are looking for the ways to avoid it, or, in other words, to correct it. Thus, Don Quixote lives in his own imaginary world where he fights against evil and changes the reality to better. Baoyu is also finds it difficult to resignedly accept the fate. However, both heroes are doomed to live in the conflict between the reality and the imaginary picture of the world they want to live