Some people commented that A Dream of Red Mansions described "pearl family affairs". Pearl was a great scholar in Kangxi period, who made great contributions to quelling the "San Francisco Rebellion". Nalan Xingde, the son of Pearl, was a famous poet in the early Qing Dynasty with high literary attainments. In addition to the prominent political position of the Pearl family, Nalan Xingde is also a well-known sentimental rich boy, so it is easy to think of Jia Baoyu, the protagonist of A Dream of Red Mansions.

There is also a widespread view that A Dream of Red Mansions describes the love story of Shunzhi and Dong Xiaowan. Because there has always been a folk legend that Princess Dong became a monk in Shunzhi, it is believed that Jia Baoyu's becoming a monk implies the emperor shunzhi's becoming a monk, while Lin Daiyu's death refers to Dong Xiaowan's death.

Cai Yuanpei, a cultural celebrity in the early years of the Republic of China, had a great influence on the interpretation of A Dream of Red Mansions. He believes that A Dream of Red Mansions is a political novel, and its original intention is to "reveal the demise of the Ming Dynasty" in the book The Story of the Stone published by 19 17. The book's preference for women is a metaphor that women are from China and men are perfect. Jia Fu in A Dream of Red Mansions refers to the Qing Dynasty. The main men in Jia Fu correspond to six novels of the Qing Dynasty, while the women in the book are several Han "celebrities" in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties.