SIGNATURE WORK
CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION 2023

In the eighteenth-century Chinese novel Honglou meng 紅樓夢 [Dream of the Red Chamber], the olfactory experiences of different characters toward a fragrant object or a fragrant person seem uncertain: two characters may fail to share the same pleasant experience on the same incense-made item, and the same person can have various reactions after smelling the fragrant body odors of different people. Despite the item is made of rare, aromatic spices, or the person is wearing aromatic ornaments wherever she goes, they all have the chance to be regarded as stinky in someone’s olfactory experience. In this paper I investigate the description of olfactory experiences or representations of odors in Dream of the Red Chamber to demonstrate why and how the smell-scape becomes a significant component in the novel’s construction, how characters in the story use, transfer, and share fragrant objects and the associated olfactory experience, and what role smell plays in representing a discourse of gender judgement. By further revisiting and reevaluating the olfactory experiences in late imperial China based on the book, the finding of this paper will contribute to the broad issue of how bodily sensations help explore and understand literati and aristocratic culture in the corresponding period.