The Story of the Stone is full of personal narratives, third person description of other’s stories, and conversations. These narratives, stories and conversations initiated the whole novel, introduced the main characters, and also allowed readers get to know the background and the relationships of the characters. The magical story of Jia BaoYu which is “at the moment of his birth he had a piece of beautiful, clear, colored jade in his mouth with a lot of writing on it” (535) was described by Zhen ZiXing during the conversation between Jia YuCun and Zhen ZiXing. Moreover, the novel is also mixed with poems and verses. These poems and verses help the readers understand the content better, some of the poems or verses are hints foreshadowing later developments in the story. “Pages full of idle words, Penned with hot and bitter tears” (526) this poem that the author used to describe The Story of the Stone tells the readers that this story is so distressing, full pf sadness. It set up the keystone of the whole story.

Speaking of symbolism, the author used a lot of it throughout the novel. The most important symbol in the first three chapters is the “stone”. The stone is a unique, magical used piece rock by the goddess. It became a “beautiful, clear, colored jade” (535) that came out from Jia BaoYu’s mouth. Jia BaoYu has same exact personalities like the stone. He is remarkable, extraordinary. He is someone special, and someone who doesn’t being seen so often in the society that BaoYu lives in. Besides, “Yu” means “jade” in Chinese. Actually, a lot of characters’ name has another meaning. For example, the last name “Jia” has the same pronunciation as the word “fake” and the last name “Zhen” has the same pronunciation as the word “real” in Chinese.  It is a pity that we can’t notice this easily because of the translation.

In traditional Chinese culture, women have much lower position than men in the society. On the contrary, Jia BaoYu has a completely different opinion regarding women. He thinks “girls are made of water and boys are made of mud” (535).  When he is with girls, he feels “flesh and clean”, but when he is with buys, he feels “stupid and nasty” (535). In his eyes, men and women is equal, and women should be respected as men. His thought challenges the traditional idea which is “men are superior to women”.