《红楼梦》脂本系统与程本系统相对比，程本《红楼梦》的时间观念是一种内敛态之表征。“内敛态”是相对于脂本系统中时间的开放态而言的。开放态指叙述方式的安排与传统故事生成情节的自然顺序不同，时间观念呈一种立体的无序延展，小说的叙述时间和故事时间彻底分开，脱离了物理时间的单一矢向，时间在小说中不是常量，而是一个变量，是具有心理意义及其价值的艺术时间，有独特的美学效果。程本对此刚做了相反的改造，时间观念竭力内敛，以常量代变量，具体表现为：一、心理时间的物理化。二、弹性时间的直截化。三、模糊时间的明确化。程本《红楼梦》在时间观念上的内敛态表征，使时间观念单一的状况，利于一般读者解颐并接受内容，但无疑使读者减少了对主人公精神生活的了解；虽然就促进章回小说文本的解读与普及有显著作用，但此后断绝了中国古典章回小说在时间观念上所获得的第一次倾向近代化的机遇。 “Dream of Red Mansions” fat system compared with Cheng system, Cheng Ben “Dream of Red Mansions,” the concept of time is a character of restraint. The “introverted” state is relative to the open state of time in the lipid system. The arrangement of the narrative mode of the open state is different from the natural order of the plot generation of the traditional story. The concept of time presents a three-dimensional disorderly extension. The narrative time and the story time of the novel are completely separated from the single direction of the physical time. It is not a constant, but a variable. It is an art time with psychological significance and its value, and has a unique aesthetic effect. Cheng Ben just made the opposite transformation, the concept of time trying to introverted, constant variables, specifically as follows: First, the psychological time of the physical. Second, the straightforward flexibility of time. Third, the clarification of fuzzy time. Cheng Hong’s Dream of Red Mansions in the concept of time restrained characterization, the concept of a single time situation conducive to the general reader solution and acceptance of content, but undoubtedly allows readers to reduce the spirit of the protagonist’s understanding of life; although the promotion of chapter novel text Interpretation and popularization have a significant role, but since then cut off the opportunity of the first pro-modernization that China’s classical chapter novels acquired in the concept of time.