Kong Yi Ji - A Tragedy of the Feudal Society

Kong Yi Ji is the second vernacular novel written by Lu Xun on the eve of the May Fourth Movement, following Diary of a Madman. The novel depicts a scholar who did not pass the examination for a scholarly post, who lost his dignity as a human being, and became the object of ridicule in a small hotel, thus exposing the social problems of the time.

This novel is written from a unique perspective, in the first person, "I" - a 12-year-old boy's tone of voice, which makes the whole text seem real and believable, and produces a strong infectious force. "Childish talk", a 12-year-old little dude's eyes to see all people and things, no prejudice, no scruples, and thus the line is relatively free, easy to express the author's cold and passionate thoughts and feelings. "I" is both a bystander and a participant, from a child's point of view, he is a comedy character and the surrounding environment is extremely incongruous, to write sadness with joy, make sadness even sadder.

"At that time" - 1918, the feudal imperial examination system has been abolished, the social environment on which Kong Yiji depends no longer exists, the characters, as well as the performance of the characters of the storyline can not be unfolded. Writing a story from 20 years ago better expresses the theme to "draw attention to the healing".

The author uses very frugal writing and typical details of life to portray Kong Yijie, a scholar who was cruelly abandoned at the bottom of society, living in poverty, and eventually engulfed by the powerful dark forces. Kong Yiji's pitiful and ridiculous personality traits and tragic end is both a vivid portrayal of the unfortunate fate of the majority of lower-class intellectuals in old China and a concrete manifestation of the "cannibalistic" nature of China's traditional feudal cultural atmosphere. It reveals the world of feudal society, people's cold and numb mental state and the coldness of society to the unfortunate, reflecting the decadence and morbidity of feudal society from one side.

The feudal order was the foundation of the feudal society. Under such a hierarchical feudal rule, the people's vitality, enthusiasm, and sympathy were stifled, and they became apathetic, selfish and indifferent. In the minds of the Short Clothes Gang, they also thought that since "learning is the best way to get a job", then Kong Yijie, who could not even get half a scholar, was of course a bad product, only worth taunting and making fun of. They do not realize that they and Kong Yijie are also in the feudal order in the bottom of the oppressed society, the same sad and pathetic, so they are not only no sympathy for Kong Yijie such an unfortunate and help, but on the contrary, only know to laugh and make fun of them in their tired and bitter career to seek a moment of happiness.

Kong Yiji was a bitter and weak man who could not find his place in the society at that time. Using the laughter of the crowd to run through such a sad story accentuates and strengthens the tragic effect of the novel. This kind of laughter is a numbing laughter, which makes the tragedy of Kong Yi Ji more covered with a layer of suffocating sadness. On one side is the tragic encounter and pain, the other side is not sympathy and tears, but boredom of teasing and making fun, to write sadness in a happy situation, even more sad, that the tragedy of Kong Yijie is not a personal tragedy, but the tragedy of the community, the work of the anti-feudal significance of the work is even more profound.

Lu Xun's symbolic realism is one of the reasons why his realistic novels are more complex and have more depth than those of his contemporaries. Unfortunately, at present, people only pay attention to "Diary of a Madman" and "Medicine", and this novel is the work of the "angry and venomous", which is not the best work. Another masterpiece of Lu Xun's symbolic realism is The Hometown, in which the symbol of the hometown is also a powerful symbol of old China. These two symbols become a pair that matches each other. The hometown is epitomized by the family home, where the characters and events take place, while Luzhen is focused on the hotel with its open door, where tragedy occurs at the counter on the street.

Lu Xun, in his life experience, has sorted out some characteristics related to the typical image of Kong Yijie, the old intellectual, in a multitude of related characters, and then created a series of symbolic images, scenes, and dialogues, and it is just because of the structure through which this novel, of only two thousand words or so, can produce a powerful explosion.

The first thing that struck me when I read Kong Yijie was that its visual images are particularly strong. Lu Xun has taken the complexity of Kong Yijie's life and abridged and distilled the narrative text that should have been employed into a sculpture. Kong Yiji appears only four times in the novel, and each time Lu Xun uses a statue to replace the many narrative words. The first time, Kong Yiji appeared in the Xianheng Hotel with this image: the literary character.

The first sentence, "Kong Yiji is the only man who drinks standing up and wears a long shirt," is the main appearance of the statue. It is a portrait of Kong Yiji's life, including his identity, birth, character and the social background of his life. He is a tall and eye-catching man because he was originally a scholar, but after failing to get even half a scholar, he fell into a state of despair, so that his legs were broken for stealing. When he finally appeared, with his leg broken, crawling and walking, he was invisible to anyone at the counter, and that was a symbol that he had been trampled on and downtrodden and humbled. His tattered tunic is a sign of his inner sense of not being able to forget his noble status as a scholar and a gentleman. He has a tall body (with strength) to labor, and has been hit by the toxin of the old thinking, which makes him trampled on by people of the upper and lower classes.

Kong Yijie "face wrinkles are often interspersed with some scars", these old and new scars and how much social cruelty encompassed, and his own lazy character. The tragedy of Kong Yijie is dual, on the one hand, he is the tragedy of the old readers, but also the tragedy of the oppressed and humiliated people of the lower class.

The second time Kong Yiji appeared in the novel, it was with this statue, and he was accompanied by a small fellow: Kong Yiji just dipped his fingernails in the wine, wanting to write on the cabinet, see me unenthusiastic, and then sighed, showing great regret.

When Kong Yiji appeared on the third occasion, he was even more surrounded by a group of children, "and he gave them fennel beans to eat, one for each." This statue is carved with him and the children. It indicates that within his pedantic mind there was a kind and earnest heart. He was better in character than any other man at the Hotel Hampton, honest, and never in arrears. His sighs were not only due to the realization of his own inferiority, which made him the object of contempt, ridicule, bullying and insults by all, but also lamented that the younger generation had actually joined in entering the ranks of the masses who took pleasure in the disgrace and suffering of others. He turns to children for comfort because he feels the coldness and heartlessness of adult society, and they are realistic ("all eyes are on the plate"), desperate (they don't dare to hope to become shopkeepers, so they don't need to learn how to write), and callous ("How can a beggar be worthy of examining me?"). ")

The fourth is the one with the most important character in the story.

The fourth and final appearance, Lu Xun the original tall Kong Yijie, suddenly shrunk into a broken leg, walking with the hands of the beggar: his face is black and skinny, has been out of shape; wearing a broken jacket, coiled legs, padded with a futon bag underneath ...... full of mud, it turned out that he would use this hand to walk! ...... to the tall Kong Yiji now can not stand up. Because of the theft of some books, paper, pen and ink, has been hung up and beaten, and finally the legs were broken. Lu Xun then used this statue to represent the eternal and final tragedy of Kong Yiji.

Sun Fuyuan said in a brief summary of Lu Xun's opinion that he had told him that he liked Kong Yijie the most: "The main intention of the author of Kong Yijie is to depict the coolness of the general society for the bitter people." So we don't necessarily always read Kong Yi Ji and interpret its meaning by placing it in a specific Chinese social context.

In the past, most people interpreted it in terms of the poisonous effects of the imperial examination system on the Chinese people, and Kong Yiji represents the typical old intellectual who became a victim of feudal society. But as Lu Xun said, "Whoever the whole into the novel, if the author's skillful hand, the work of a long time, if the reader to see is the book people, and this was once the actual person is not related to". Therefore, he insisted to understand the "Dream of the Red Chamber" do not go after Cao, from him to understand the significance of Jia Baoyu or novel. Because "life is limited, but art is more permanent". Similarly, we can go beyond the specific social context of China at the time of writing to read Kong Yi Ji, which has the same universal significance.

When we interpret the novel without confining it to feudal China, it is "a depiction of the general society's indifference to the bitter man". This kind of bitter people can be found all over the world. This cool society is the same all over the world, ancient and modern, today and tomorrow will not disappear.

Lu Xun was ostensibly writing about the society and people of China at the end of the Qing Dynasty, but in fact he was also expressing the eternal tragedy of mankind and its society. On the surface, Kong Yijie is a man who has been poisoned by the imperial examination system, and "all things are inferior, but only the book is superior", but he is also a universal symbol representing the conflict between the individual and the society in many meanings. In any country, in any society, how many people are like Kong Yijie, not accepted by the society, ridiculed, bullied and insulted by the masses, just for different reasons.

Kong Yiji represents the conflict between ideals or fantasies and the real society, and his tragedy lies in his inability to tell the difference between ideals (or fantasies) and facts. Stealing books was not a shameful or even a criminal act in the era of the imperial examinations, and society changed after he contracted this old habit. Thus the Reignwood Hotel, that small society for Kong Yiji, will always be a trap to bury him and put him to death.

Today, from the East to the West, how many people are living according to their own ideas, ideals, fantasies or values, and he himself does not understand or wake up to the fact that he is living in a dream, and that the society in which he lives simply can not accommodate people like him. Reading "Kong Yi Ji" out of the box of the science fiction, we can better feel the richness of the meaning of this novel, and it has a very universal and worldwide significance