Essays on The Social Theater about The Social Theater

Life experience through the senses - from the "social theater" and "The Morning Flower and the Evening Gleanings" (Fan Boqun, Zeng Huapeng)

Chapter 1

If the end of the "social theater" sentence is deleted, I think that the work's infectious power is much less. If we look deeper into why this sentence will have such a touching "charm", then the mystery lies in: Lu Xun used this sentence to stimulate the reader's "life experience through feeling". "She can ignite the emotional fire of our childhood memories, and everyone has the ignition point of this "common sense".

Childhood, for every adult, is gone forever. Whenever I remember it, there is always a melancholy sense of loss, and people will always seek out the beauty of the lost and unrepeatable years, and then gild them with feelings. Even in a troubled childhood, one can find the "beauty of sorrow" in the rest of one's life due to the distance of time. The ending of "The Social Theater" is to induce people to recall this "beauty that is lost forever" and to capture the reader's heart with the help of the "conductor" of "the general sense of life experience".

In the past, we have kept this objectively existing "sense of life experience" between people secret and tight-lipped; we lacked the necessary smelting of the "best conductor" in this "acceptance of aesthetics". We lack the necessary refinement and utilization of this "best conductor of receptive aesthetics". This kind of "general sense of life experience" can make the author and the reader's feelings melt into a furnace, bursting out dazzling sparks. The writer who can find this "general sense of life experience" has found the "secret weapon" to conquer the readers' hearts. Lu Xun is a master of this "secret weapon". He said in the "small introduction" of "The Morning Flower and the Evening Gleanings":

I had a moment, I have repeatedly recalled the fruits and vegetables I ate in my hometown as a child: water chestnuts, rowan beans, wild rice, melons. All of these are extremely delicious; they were the compulsion that made me homesick. Later, I tasted it after a long absence, but it was nothing more than that; only in the memory, there is still the meaning of the old days left. They may have to lull me all my life, and make me recoil at times.

It is true that this "compulsion of homesickness", this recollection of childhood, this "old meaning" of memory, is not as beautiful as one might think. But we are consciously to be "cajoled", and willing to be "cajoled for life". What a marvelous and inexpressible feeling! Perhaps Lu Xun has consciously discovered the shocking power of the last sentence of "Social Play", so the writer will rehash the same old story again in "The Morning Flower and the Evening Gleanings - A Small Introduction". And he was also very comfortable and skillful in using this technique of making people's "hearts connect" in Chaohua xixi jiushi (The Morning Flower and the Evening Gleanings). To talk about the big topic of "the sense of life experience", the field involved is infinitely wide, but we only want to talk about the topic of "the compulsion of homesickness" and the childhood recollection here. Because "The Morning Flower and the Evening Gleanings" is the compulsion of Lu Xun after leaving his hometown forever, and it is the remembrance of his childhood in the midst of displacement and dislocation. This is one of the most basic "common sense" of people with conscience and conscience, right?

The ending of From the Hundred-Clover Garden to the House of Three Flavors has a strong "social theater" style. Lu Xun used "Jingchuan paper" to write a large book of embroidery, "because of the need for money, sold to a rich classmate". At the end of the book, he wrote: "His father owned a tin foil store; I heard that he is now the owner of the store and is about to be promoted to the status of a gentleman. This is long gone, I believe." It is also a melancholy sense of loss. This is the "art of the heart" described in childhood with the most beautiful interest, not to mention a large book! This is the crystallization of a pure child's heart. Lamentably, "the pearl is cast into the dark". It is a great pity that the truth is tainted by the stench of copper. This "gentleman-to-be", who has become a shopkeeper, is similar to the fat gentleman who "glanced at me as if looking down upon me" in the Beijing theater. "This thing is long gone." --Childhood Lu Xun loved books. When his mother bought him the "Three Humming Scriptures", he seemed to be struck by a thunderbolt, "all of us were shocked", and he said, "These four books are the most beloved treasures that I first got. He said, "These four books were the most beloved treasures that I first acquired. The appearance of the books is still before my eyes. In that case, for Lu Xun, who was almost obsessed with collecting books of drawings in his childhood, wouldn't he treasure the drawings he collected and photocopied even more? What's more, there were "the most fragmentary pieces are the embroidered images of Dangkou Zhi and Journey to the West". Doesn't the image of them come back to me "even now"? It was a living testimony to the artistic conquest of a child's heart when he was a student at Sanmeishuya, but "this thing is long gone," and what it conveys to us is the "disappearance" of the noble interests of childhood, a kind of supernatural form of disappointment.

Chapter 2

This mood of visiting the old, looking back and remembering, in "A Chang and the Classic of Mountains and Seas", Lu Xun concludes with a sense of eternal nostalgia: "Kind and dark mother of the earth, I wish to rest her soul in your arms forever!" This can also be seen as an example of the use of "empathy", so that the reader's own experience as the backbone, to think about, to pray for the farewell of relatives and close friends.

To Lu Xun, remembering his mother is his own unique way of thinking. He expressed his eternal nostalgia for the "nanny" left behind by the "brother" who worked hard all his life and did not even give her a name to serve. She left behind the "long mother" of the "long" word, but is "replace" the Zhou family before a woman worker's tall body "code name The word "long" is just a "code name" for the tall body of the previous female worker in the Zhou family. In the Zhou family, in fact, she is only "Ah Chang II". Lu Xun wrote most of the story, giving us the impression of a rough and clumsy "yellow, fat and short" image of a foolish woman. Xun doesn't understand her, and his respect for her has never been firmly established. However, when Xun Jie "longed" for the drawing of "The Classic of Mountains and Seas" and was unable to find it, Mother Chang took it to heart in an "unusual" way. "I, in the midst of my insatiable thirst, "got it with no effort at all": it was because this foolish woman, in her haste to return home from vacation, entered a bookstore which she, with her black eyes, had never been in before: "I've bought it for you! ". The root of all this is love. The fruit of this "love" is the great fulfillment of Xun's "long-drought" childish heart.

This has given me a new respect, for she was able to do what others would not, or could not, do. She does have great divine power.

This "divine power" is backed by "love". When we use this "love" to re-evaluate the words and deeds of the long mother, we will get a never before seen "benign reaction". She loved Xun's son, and sometimes she just didn't love him properly.

When the writer wrote "A Chang and the Classic of Mountains and Seas", this "most beloved treasure book", "can not remember when it was lost". But this "great fulfillment of a child's heart" is permanently imprinted on the heart; this "deep well of love" hidden under the crude appearance will never dry up. So Lu Xun, according to his own eternal memory, cried out with deep emotion: "The merciful and dark mother of the earth, may her soul rest in your arms forever!"

As readers, of course, we follow the writer's train of thought to make the mind wander. But in addition to following the writer's mind track, there will be a kind of association, the driving force of this association is the "sense of life experience", which "sense" makes us also like the author, remembering our goodbye relatives and old friends, long immersed in a thousand thoughts. The author's words are not the same as those of the author. If this article deleted the end of the sentence, can have such a strong effect of association?

Similar to "A Chang and the Classic of Mountains and Seas" is "Fan Ai Nong". Lu Xun wrote this article 14 years after Fan Ainong lost his footing and drowned. On the tragic death of his friend, Lu Xun not only wrote poems to mourn the death, but also with a few friends "want to collect a little money for his girl's future tuition fund, because once proposed, that is, there are clansmen to fight for the right to custody of the money, in fact, there is no such money, we feel bored, and then invisible dissipated. " In this way, the remembrance of the deceased friend naturally turns into thoughts of the orphan. The last sentence of this conclusion is: "I wonder how his only daughter is doing now. If she is in school, she should have graduated from middle school by now." Reading here, the rough life and sudden death of the poor friend makes people mourn; the fate of the orphans and widows is also a cause for infinite concern. In this vast sea of people, they are like a trickle of water, and where to flow? I wanted to do something practical to commemorate the deceased friend, pour a little friendship in the orphans, but was unable to pay tribute to the slightest effort; personnel changes, the whereabouts of the drift, to the point of not knowing the end of the story. According to the best estimate, 14 years later, the only young daughter of the deceased friend "should have graduated from high school". This is an extension of the nostalgia for the deceased friend, but also the home of the mourning feelings, is the blessing of the unknown orphan.

The closing line, too, can evoke a "sense of life experience". The formula is: "I wonder how xxx is doing now? If in ...... already should ...... be." This formula can produce a variety of associations for the reader. Not only used to mourn the death, but also can be used for a long time apart and the sound of the family and friends separated.

From "The Social Play" to "The Morning Flower and the Evening Gleanings", we feel that Lu Xun regularly uses a "secret weapon", that is, "the sense of life experience". The so-called "life experience empathy", that is, the use of readers will often encounter similar similar life experience, inducing readers a kind of "association", when this "association" caused readers to When this "association" causes readers to "*** Ming", without realizing it, readers will participate in a creative activity, this creative activity is to use their own life experience to supplement and confirm the credibility of the writer's work. The more the writer can mobilize readers to actively participate in the creation of the work, it shows that the writer's work has been at a higher level for the readers to understand and accept. Here, participation in the creation of association is synonymous and proportional to deep understanding and acceptance. The "best body" of the "spiritual connection" between the writer and the reader is the "empathy of life experience". When the reader participates in the creation with this "empathy", he feels that the writer's work is harmonious and perfect, and that he has said what he wanted to say on his behalf.

This article is not intended to be a general discussion of the techniques of writing endings. The power of "life experience" does not depend only on the closing sentence. It can be found everywhere in the text, permeating the entire text. But Lu Xun can also make readers want to put down the book when they are about to do so. The book in the hand is put down, but the book of life experiences in the heart is opened again. We have to admire Lu Xun for his mastery of this "sense of life experience"!

(From Masterpieces Appreciation, Issue 4, 1986, with abridgement)

The Cultural Reading of Lu Xun's Novel "The Social Opera" (Yao Dayong)

When I first read Lu Xun's novel "The Social Opera," I was surprised to learn that such a poetic and picturesque novel had appeared in "The Scream" because of its similarity to the contemporaneous "The Madness," which was a novel of the same period. If it is because it was written in the same period with other works in "Scream" that it was received together, then it raises another question: why did Lu Xun paint such a serene and beautiful picture while he was "screaming" loudly?

Reading "The Social Opera", what comes to mind is the rich local flavor and simple human feelings. The novel is about my grandmother's house when I was a child, and the children went to the neighboring village to watch the social play, everywhere is filled with the warmth of summer, and everything feels so harmonious, natural, and full of life. The author's grandmother's village, Pingqiao, "is a small village not far from the sea, extremely remote, near the river". This remote village by the sea, less subject to the world, more to retain the natural simplicity of the temperament, is a "pure land". The landscape of the place is intoxicating, "I" and the children to go to the theater at night rowing boat, "both sides of the beans and wheat and the river bottom of the grass emanating from the fragrance, as if it is enthusiastic iron spine of the beasts, are far away from the stern of the boat to run away". "The lyrical tone, the water town under the moon depicted fresh, faraway, like a dream, exuding the fragrance of the soil of Jiangnan, the author's love for his hometown is also hidden.

No.

Social theater depicted, "is the author's ideal" of the hometown picture. Lu Xun left his hometown at an early age, his hometown gave him, not all are warm memories, during which there are many misfortunes and blank stares, Lu Xun's hometown, but there is a kind of complex emotions that can not be cut off. Lu Xun's hometown of Shaoxing, beautiful natural scenery, has always been a place of humanities, the former said that the beauty of its landscape is "thousands of rocks, ten thousand ravines, grass and trees on the cage, as if the clouds Xingxiawei." "Traveling up the mountain yin road, the mountains and rivers reflect each other, making people overwhelmed." (Shishu Xinyao - Words) China's traditional agricultural society has raised people to the deep love of their homeland, the history of the dominant Confucianism also attaches particular importance to human affection, Lu Xun was born into a family of scholars, the hometown of the fondness has been integrated into his blood. When he left home at the beginning of the year, he said in a letter to his relatives, "Pedestrians in the slanting sun will fall when the all-night color, look around full of people who are not from their hometowns, listen to the ear full of foreign language, a thought of the hometown of 10,000 miles, the old relatives of the weak brother will be talking about it, saying that this time when it was to a certain place to carry on, this time I really feel the tenderness of the heart to break, snot can not be up." (Collected Gleanings and Supplements) ("collection outside the collection of gleanings supplements - jiajiansheng miscellany") the beauty of the hometown of the landscape, y rooted in the heart of Lu Xun, encountered a storm on the road of life, naturally think of the past, remembering the hometown of the perfect, he was in the "dreary night" to see his hometown on the yin road, "a good story! He saw the "good stories" on the mountain paths of his hometown in the "drowsy night" ("Weeds - Good Stories"), and he remembered the kite flying season in his hometown in early spring and February in the "harshness of winter" in Beijing ("Weeds - Kites"). When comparing with the reality, the picture used is often the ideal hometown in the memory, and this is also the case with the novel "The Social Festival".

The novel is called "The Social Theater", and it does not directly write about the social theater that "I" watched when I was a child, but the beginning of the novel describes the two times that "I" watched the theater in Beijing when I was an adult. The two plays were not good, but reflected the chaos, dreariness, worldliness and dirtiness of the society at that time, which contrasted sharply with the natural and honest life in Pingqiao Village when I was young. Lu Xun has two hometowns in his mind, one is the real hometown depicted in The Hometown, and the other is the ideal hometown shown in The Social Opera, and he often uses the perfection of the ideal hometown to contrast the dilapidation of the real hometown. The Social Opera does not depict the suffering of the countryside positively, but the eulogy of the ideal hometown is also the criticism of the reality. The Society Opera can be said to be a concrete portrayal of the dream of the hometown, which contains a cavity of love for the hometown. The beauty of the hometown is most clearly reflected in the people who live there, and the healthy growth of people is the best indication of social progress. Among people, the most important are children, because they are the future of society. Lu Xun has always been y concerned about the growth of children, in the "Diary of a Madman" in the cry "save the children", in the extreme disappointment of his hometown in the "hometown", he is also from the teenager Leuntu see the beauty of the hometown, by the children to see the hope again. For the future generations, Lu Xun's wish as an elder is to "carry the burden of inheritance, shoulder the gate of darkness, and let them go to a broad and bright place; thereafter, live happily and behave reasonably". (The Grave - How We Are Fathers Now) What is shown in the novel "The Social Play" is also the ideal environment for children to grow up in. From the collection of essays, Asahi Yuzhi, you can not only see the author's fond remembrance of the past, but also see the lively and active Lu Xun in his early years, full of childishness and vigor. A long and the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" a he mentioned that he loved to read the kind of hours with a picture of the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", curious about everything, "from the Hundred-Clover Garden to the Sanmei Bookstore" a not only wrote a lovely, playful scene in the Hundred-Clover Garden, but also recounted and the small classmates in the Sanmei Bookstore folding plum blossoms, looking for cicada sloughs, describing the novels embroidered statues, which can be seen in the author's consistent adherence to the pursuit of nature, do not want to be bound by the heart. This is the embodiment of this idea.