因其代表性，霍克斯的英譯本《石頭記》經常成為《紅樓夢》翻譯研究的對象。現有的專題研究主要著眼於翻譯中各方面有關文化和語言的元素，卻鮮有探討譯本如何翻譯出原著文字中細緻的情感戲劇效果。鑑於情感戲劇效果對表達原著有關「愛」的主題尤其重要，本文旨在初探這研究缺口，探討霍克斯如何運用各種修辭技巧重塑人物間微細的情感戲劇。本文利用文本分析，比較原著第八回的選段以及霍克斯的翻譯，發現霍克思雖成功重塑大部分的情感戲劇，部分卻因兩種原因被省略。除了某些用於表達情感的細節因過於精細而被忽視外，譯本也顯然因為受到英語中內含的階級意識阻礎，無法重塑中國社會中不同階級人物間的密切關係

One of the most representative translations of Cao Xueqin's Hongloumeng, David Hawkes' The Story of the Stone invites numerous thematic studies on the translation of various cultural and linguistic elements. The translation of the sophisticated emotional drama underlying the text, despite its significance in expressing the theme of love in the original novel, has not been often discussed. To redress this omission, this paper aims to examine how Hawkes employs rhetorical skills to reconstruct the subtle drama surrounding the characters' emotions. Through a textual analysis comparing an excerpt from Hawkes' translation of Chapter 8 in Hongloumeng with the original, this paper shows that while most of the drama is successfully reconstructed, some dramatic effect is lost because the translator appears to have overlooked the drama contained in some subtle expressions in the original. True representation of the close relationships among characters of different classes in Chinese society is also found to be lacking in the English translation due to the effects of the inherent class-consciousness of the English language