"Redundancy" is a concept found in linguistics and general information theory. While in everyday usage the word redundancy may carry a negative connotation ("what is unnecessary and superfluous"), in linguistics and information theory it is actually a positive term: it is quite necessary in order to insure clear communication between two parties. Understood in this way, redundancy bears a remarkable resemblance to the practice of artful repetition or repetition with variation often found in long and elaborate narrative works such as The Dream of Red Chamber. The main part of the essay consists of a preliminary examination of how the author of Dream tries to use the technique of redundancy to make his points, to bring people and events into sharper focus, and to add to the unity in an otherwise seemingly unwieldy work crowded with characters and incidents. It is shown that the large amount of carefully interwoven redundancies found on all three levels of story, character, and theme in the novel have helped create the very rich texture and resonance we clearly feel in reading The Dream of Red Chamber.

"反覆" 是語言學和廣義信息論的概念。 儘管在日常用語中， "反覆" 一詞可能有消極含義 （有 "多餘和累贅" 的意思），但在語言學和信息論中， "反覆" 卻是一個有積極含義的術語； 為了確保溝通清晰無誤， 反覆有時是需要的。 這樣， 反覆跟 《紅樓夢》一類長篇敘事作品裡所運用的重複（或變化性重複）寫作技巧便十分接近了。 本文對《紅樓夢》作者如何運用反覆描述以加強其論點， 並突顯角色和事件， 以及加強統一這個充滿人物和情節、 看來似乎尾大不掉的作品， 作了初步探索。 小說裡故事、 人物、 主題三個層次的大量反覆描述， 緊密地結合在一起， 使讀者感到作品肌理豐腴， 從而產生共鳴。