{{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}} }}
[[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 boxes 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'', Mary Shelley's 1818 novel ''Frankenstein'', Jostein Gaarder's ''The Solitaire Mystery'', Emily Brontë's ''Wuthering Heights'',<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Sakuma |first=Chihiro |date=November 29, 2013 |title=Narrative Structures and Space in the English Romantic Novel: An Intertextual Study of Mary Shelley, Charles Maturin and the Brontes|url=https://core.ac.uk/reader/230559120 |work=Dissertation |degree=Ph.D. |location=Graduate School of Humanities and Sciences Tokyo Woman’s Christian University |publisher= |access-date=December 2, 2025}}</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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