View source for Chinese boxes

{{Short description|Ornamental nested boxes}}
{{for|the plant known as "Chinese box"|Murraya paniculata}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{More citations needed|date=June 2023}}
{{original research|date=May 2018}}
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[[File:Famen Si May 2007 052.jpg|thumb|Nested Buddhist [[reliquary]] caskets from the [[Tang dynasty]]]]
'''Chinese boxes''' ({{zh|c=套盒|p=tàohé}}) are a set of [[box]]es of graduated size, each fitting inside the next larger box.

A traditional style in [[Chinese design]], nested boxes have proved a popular packaging option in the West for novelty or display reasons.

Chinese nested boxes have inspired similar forms of packaging around the world, but also have found use as a figurative description, providing an illustrative example to demonstrate situations of conceptually nested or recursive arrangements.

In literature, a Chinese box structure refers to a [[frame narrative]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zhang |first=Benzi |date=1993 |title=Paradox of Chinese Boxes: Textual Heterarchy in Postmodern Fiction |url=https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/crcl/index.php/crcl/article/view/3165 |journal=The Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée |volume=20 |issue=1 and 2 |pages=89–103 |via=University of Alberta Library}}</ref> where a novel or drama is told in the form of a narrative inside a narrative (and so on), giving views from different perspectives. Examples include [[Plato]]'s dialogue ''[[Symposium_(Plato)|Symposium]]'', [[Mary Shelley]]'s 1818 novel ''[[Frankenstein]]'', [[Jostein Gaarder]]'s ''[[The Solitaire Mystery]]'', [[Emily Brontë]]'s ''[[Wuthering Heights]]'',<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sakuma |first=Chihiro |title=Narrative Structures and Spaces in the English Romantic Novel: An Intertextual Study of Mary Shelley, Charles Maturin and the Bronts |url=https://core.ac.uk/reader/230559120}}</ref> and [[Joseph Conrad]]'s ''[[Heart of Darkness]]''.

==See also==
*[[Recursion]]
*[[Mise en abyme]]
*[[Matryoshka doll]]
*[[Infinity]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Wiktionary|Chinese boxes}}

[[Category:Containers]]
[[Category:Chinese inventions]]
[[Category:Nested containers]]


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