The novel "Home" written by Ba Jin Total Story Content

"Home" is Ba Jin's masterpiece.

In the history of modern literature in China, Ba Jin is one of the literary giants with passion, progressive ideas and unique artistic style.In 1928, Ba Jin, who was living in France, completed his first middle grade novel "Extinction" in Paris, and since then he has created a series of long novels, middle grade and short stories which have had a remarkable influence in the history of modern literature.

The 1930s was the first peak period of Ba Jin's novel creation. During this period, he successively completed long novels such as "The Dead Sun", "Undersea Dreams", "Sanding", "Autumn in Spring", "Snow" (i.e., "The Sprout"), "The Newborn", "Love Trilogy" ("Misty", "Rain", "Electricity"), "Riptide Trilogy " ("Home", "Spring", "Autumn") and so on. In these works, "Riptide Trilogy" represents the highest achievement of his creation at this time.In the 1930s, Bajin also created a large number of short stories, of which the short story collection includes "Revenge", "Brightness", "The Electric Chair", "The Rag", "The General", "The Silence", "The Gods", "The Ghosts", "The Mist", "The Rain", "The Electricity", and so on. Ghosts? People", "Sinking and Falling", "The Story of Hair" and so on. Bajin's short stories have a very wide range of subjects and involve a wide range of life. They widely reflect the social reality of the time and pour out the people's voices; some works also show the life of foreign people.

During the war, Ba Jin was mainly engaged in anti-Japanese rescue work in the rear, and in the 1940s, his novel writing had a second peak. During this period, he created a significant impact of the novel "war trilogy" "fire" and "Rest Garden", "the fourth ward", "Cold Night" and so on, in addition to more than 70 short stories. Among them, "Cold Night" is the most accomplished work created by Bajin in the 1940s, and it marks the further maturation of the author's writing skills.

Home is the first of Ba Jin's "Riptide Trilogy" written in the 1930s, which has been attracting readers with its unique anti-feudal ideological splendor and touching artistic charm since its release in 1931, and occupies an important position in the history of modern Chinese literature.

Introduction: The novel "Home" was written in 1931 about a family of feudal bureaucratic landlords in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. The novel writes about the different ideological character and life paths of the three brothers, JUEXIN, JUEMIN and JUEHUI, the love and marriage entanglements between several pairs of young people - JUEXIN and QIAN Meifen, LI Ruijue, JUEMIN and QIN, JUEHUI and MINGFENG, and their different encounters; writes about the students' petition, JUEHUI's confinement, the mutiny shock, MINGFENG, MEIFENG, RUIGUE, Ruijue's tragic deaths, Jiemin's escape from marriage, and Juehui's departure.......

Through these stories, the writer's criticism is not only directed at the old rites and rituals, but also at the authoritarianism that was the core of feudal rule. The real meaning of the tragedy of love and marriage it describes is not just to advocate free love, but to awaken the consciousness of young people as "human beings" and to inspire and call upon them to break with their feudal families. In the author's opinion, the tragedy of love between Juehui and her servant girl Mingfeng, and the tragedy of marriage between Juexin and Qian Meifen and Li Ruijue are rooted in the irreconcilable contradiction between their desire to pursue happiness in love and marriage and feudalism and feudal despotism, and it is the authoritarian system represented by the old family that kills their happiness and life. Ba Jin wrote this novel with the aim of using his pen as a weapon to shout "I accuse" against this "dying system":

On the one hand, the novel describes the lives of four generations of the Gao family, and sets them into two camps, the old and the new. On the one hand, there is the old generation of rulers represented by Old Master Gao, Feng Leshan, Gao Keming, Zhou Botao as well as Gao Ke'an and Gao Kedi, who are tyrannical and dawdling, hypocritical and stubborn, and are the embodiment of the Confucian ethics and morality as well as the makers of all the misfortunes in the novel, whereas the younger generation represented by Gao Jiemin and Gao Juehui constitutes a sharp opposition to the father's (grandparent's) generation with the image of a rebel:

"He (Juehui) looked his grandfather's long, thin body over attentively for several moments. Suddenly a strange thought came into his mind. He felt that what lay before him was not his grandfather, that it was only a representation of an entire generation. He knew that they, these grandchildren, could never know each other. But he wondered what was hidden inside this long, thin body that would make them talk in one place not like grandfather and grandson, but like two enemies. "

This scene becomes a rather meaningful symbol of the relationship of the characters in the novel. Differences in life paths and values are naturally the biggest differences between the two, but in the novel, the high or low moral stature is considered the biggest mark of distinction between the two generations. The younger generation, who accepted the new ideas of "May Fourth", represents justice and conscience, while the older generation represents hypocrisy, shamelessness, cruelty and evil, and the two are clearly distinguished from each other. In the novel, this idea is always interpreted from the perspective of young people. All these clearly reflect the author's value stance based on the "May Fourth" new culture, which comprehensively criticizes and denies the feudal family system and the traditional Confucian ideology and concepts. From this standpoint, the novel fiercely attacks the feudal superstitions of "ghost hunting by sorcerers" and "bloodshed", and ridicules the cumbersome customs of funeral rites and weddings, denouncing them as "comical". The movie is a "comic" one. "Emotionally, the novel is an indictment of all the evils of the old family system, such as the unfreedom of love, the suppression of individuality, the cruelty of rituals, the absolute authority of the elders, and the impudence of the guardians." See Luo Thanh Diem and Yan Zhen, "Confucian Culture and 20th Century Chinese Literature," Literary Review, No. 1, 2000. In line with this mood, the novel employs a rather emotional and colorful language, in which the characters often use emotionally exaggerated, straightforward sentences such as "I suffer ...... I accuse ......" to describe their psychological state and express their personal feelings, thus turning this personal catharsis into an act of social protest. And all the other complex emotions of life are consciously or unconsciously ignored. "Historically, this emotional colorized language form was formed in the radical anti-traditional and anti-authoritarian 1930s cultural mentality, but at the same time it became the basic vehicle through which this cultural mentality was able to continue and develop."

Bakin's epiphany: "Naturally 'Home' is not a success, but I beg today's readers to be tolerant of this novel written by a 27-year-old. I like it very much myself, because it tells me one thing: youth is a beautiful thing. I always remember that youth is a beautiful thing. And that has always been a source of inspiration for me."

The story takes place in the early 1920s, during the May Fourth New Culture Movement. The Gao family in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, is a large family with five children and grandchildren. Old Master Gao is the ruler (t0ngzh* zh6, ruler) of the family, and the eldest of the five houses consists of three brothers, Jiexin, Jiumin, and Juehui, their stepmother, and her daughter, Shuhua. Because of the early death of their parents, the senior master Gao directly supervised them.

Juexin, the eldest son and grandson, is a generous person but weak in character, having been educated with new ideas but not daring to contradict his elders. When he was young, he fell in love with his cousin Mei, but accepted the old master's arrangement and married Li Ruijue. After marriage he lived a happy life, had children and loved his beautiful wife, but could not forget Mei, especially when she became a widow soon after her marriage and returned to Chengdu, where their meeting brought him endless pain. Soon after, Mei died in a melancholy illness.

Juemin and Juehui are out to participate in the New Culture Movement and the student movement, and thus become arch-rivals with Feng Leshan of the Feng Mansion. They are reprimanded by their grandfather and placed under house arrest. The old master also appoints a niece of Feng Leshan for Juemin, but Juemin and Qin have been in love for a long time, and with the encouragement of Juehui, Juemin leaves home to hide. JUEXIN is caught in the middle between his younger brother and grandfather. JUEHUI, the most rebellious of the three brothers, falls in love with Mingfeng, a clever and intelligent servant girl, but Feng Leshan, the president of the Confucian Church, wants to take Mingfeng as his concubine.

Master Gao's fourth son, K'an, and fifth son, K'ding, are both drunkards. Master Gao discovers that his favorite son, K'ding, has cheated his wife out of her money to organize a small public house and is in huge debt, and that the fourth son, K'an, has been whoring around with opera singers, and that Master Gao has fallen ill from this blow. The Gao family also had a dispute over the family property, so the whole family could not have peace. The old master died in anger, and the family organized a big funeral. Ruijue, who was about to give birth, was driven to the countryside by Mrs. Gao's Auntie Chen to give birth on the pretext of avoiding bloodshed, but Juexin did not dare to object. In a state of bitter remorse, Juexin admits that the family should have produced a rebel. Finally Juehui leaves home to go to Shanghai and join the revolution. He is supported in this decision by his elder brother, Jue Min.

Main Characters and Characteristics:

1. JUEXIN

Juexin is a character based on the life of Bajin's older brother, who has just passed away, and his body is cohesive with the author's deepest regret for his dearest, and his portrayal trickles down the author's feelings for the character, making him the most successful character in the book from an artistic point of view. The most real is often the most moving.

Juexin is a character who mixes the old with the new; he accepts the orthodoxy of feudalism but is also dissatisfied with the corruption of his feudal family, and has a more prominent duality in his character: he is a twilight young lord in his old family; and when he is with young people such as JUEHUI and JUEMIN, he is a young man longing for a new life. As he bears too heavy a causal burden of the old culture, he is powerless to extricate himself from the oppression of feudal consciousness and the pain of contradictory self-thought. His longing in the plum forest, his sigh under the moonlight outside the cave, and his expression of his feelings in the face of the plum when he came to take refuge in the wine, little by little, we are presented with a flesh and blood, know the flavor, educated, thinking, and aura of the Juexin image. And it is such a character who makes many incomprehensible choices. This choice is precisely the result of careful consideration. This tragedy is even more intriguing.

As a feudal patriarch, Mrs. Gao had to convey any will or decision to Jiexin and instruct him to carry it out, and if Jiemin and Juehui were dissatisfied with Mrs. Gao's will and decision, they would vent their anger on Jiexin in the first place. In addition, when Master Gao received feedback from below, if he thought that the implementation was unfavorable, he also had to reprimand JUE XIN. Juexin is also the link between the Gao family and the Zhang, Zhou, and Feng families. In Jiexin's view, his two main doctrines of "non-resistance" and "bowing" have enabled him to live a quiet life for the time being, but he does not see, nor do his two younger brothers, that the sacrifices he has made have truly brought happiness to Jiemin and Jiehui.

The path of harmony is one that Jiexin has always insisted on pursuing. JUEXIN is the only "real character" in "Family". He inherited the essence of traditional culture, humane, kind, loyal, loving, gentle, steady, bear humiliation, consider the overall situation, respect for elders, love his wife and children, care for younger siblings, sympathy for the "lower class". The older generation regarded him as their right-hand man, the "heir to the ancestral property", and liked him; the younger generation regarded him as their trustworthy support, and honored him. He, on the other hand, in the struggle between the two forces, tried his best not to intensify the conflicts between the two sides, and adopted a neutral approach. Although he has also received a new education, the deep roots left in his mind by the feudal tradition make it impossible for him to part with his old family. As a result, the "dual personality" of Jue Xin was born. In the end, he was unable to transcend the era in which he lived and the family to which he belonged to obtain a sound, enterprising, independent and perfect modern personality, and he could only become the last gravedigger of the feudal family in the end.

The image of Gao Juexin is a unique creation and discovery of Bajin. This image has extremely profound typical significance. Gao Juexin is a typical image of a suffering soul set up by Ba Jin in the history of modern Chinese literature. The character of Juexin has gone beyond the meaning of the character itself and become a universal human tragedy. The complexity, twists and turns, and enormity in the alternation and transmutation of the old and new societies are manifested in him. The extreme decadence, cruelty and hypocrisy of the feudal system, feudal rites, feudal morality and feudal culture are exposed. Gao Juexin is a victim who at the same time indirectly damages and destroys the people he loves. His tragic fate shows that in the anti-feudal struggle, there is absolutely no way out for compromise, conciliation and submission, thus declaring the complete bankruptcy of the doctrine of making a gesture and non-resistance.

2. JUE HUI

JUE HUI, the image of a bold and childish rebel.

The May Fourth Movement aroused the enthusiasm and ideals of the young generation, and gave them the ideological weapons of democratism and humanism. Juehui was a representative of the new democratic forces awakened by the May Fourth Movement. He hated people saying that he sat in a sedan chair because he did not want them to think of him as a rich dude. He boldly showed his love to Mingfeng, hoping to be able to choose the person he loved; he actively participated in the May Fourth Patriotic Student Movement, longing to overthrow the corrupt feudal system; he openly supported Juemin's resistance to marriage and advocated that young people should be masters of their own destinies; he was actively involved in the student movement, and enthusiastically set up a publication (Dawn Weekly) to publicize the progressive ideology. At home, he had a sense of justice, sympathized with the lower class, and courageously opposed the feudal bondage. He dared to angrily denounce the superstitious behavior of the elders, such as pretending to be gods and ghosts, and opposed to moving Ruijue to give birth outside the city. He was firmly against his elder brother Juexin's "bowing philosophy" and "non-resistance", and his beliefs were very simple, "no scruples, no fear, no compromise" with the old forces. In the end, he walked out on his family.

Of course, in addition to the bold and rebellious side of Juehui's character, there is also a simple and childish side. This is mainly manifested in his surrounding everything (including the "family") although resentment, but can not make a completely scientific analysis, sometimes feel that "the old family inside everything is simply a complex knot, he is this straightforward warm heart is unable to unravel it. Although he hated Master Gao and thought that he and his grandfather were "like two enemies" in the family, but when Master Gao was on his deathbed, he once said, "It is indeed too late now. It is too late now, indeed. They will be separated forever by the gap between the grandchildren and the grandparents". This is a very na?ve idea. In fact, even if Master Gao did not die, the gap between the two generations could not be eliminated because they each represent different social forces. The author's portrayal of Juehui is completely faithful to life. Despite his obvious childishness, Juehui truly reflects the generation of young people who awakened in China during the May Fourth period. Through Juehui, the author writes about the revolutionary trend stirring in the youth and the growth of the new force contained within the old family.

3. Master Gao

Master Gao is the representative of feudal patriarchy and feudalism. As the supreme ruler of this big feudal family, the work highlights his tyrannical and cold character traits. In the Gao family, his words are the law and no one can oppose them. In order to maintain the feudal rites and system, he firmly opposes his grandchildren to enter the school and participate in all social activities. He forced Jiexin and Ruijue to marry, creating a love tragedy between Jiexin, Ruijue and Mei. He treated the male and female servants of his family like animals, and gave Mingfeng, who was only 17 years old, to Feng Leshan, who was over 60 years old, to be his concubine. After Mingfeng's death, he carried Wan Er to the Feng family to be tormented. In Master Gao's life, maintaining the order and prosperity of the extended family was the whole of his will.

Gao Laotai is the materialization and visualization of the "feudal patriarchal system" in the work. Therefore, this character is in an incontestable position of being denied at the beginning of the work. When the work is written about the old master's anger over Jiemin's escape from marriage, there is a paragraph that says: "He only knows that his orders should be obeyed and his face should be taken care of. As for the happiness of others, he would not care. He only knew to ask for people from Jiexin. He lost his temper from time to time, scolding Juexin and Keming; even Zhou was scolded by him." This commentary is obviously attacking Master Gao as a target of criticism. Through such characterization, The Family accomplishes the purpose of political criticism. As the author has difficulty in completely leaving behind his kinship with his grandfather, he reveals the complex emotional coloring of this character in certain places, such as the smile at the New Year's Eve dinner, the repentance on his deathbed, and the final fulfillment of Jiemin's marriage, etc., which shows both his sense of disillusionment in the face of a powerful newborn force, and his sense of decline, and also the unfading side of his kinship. This makes it to a certain extent paradoxical and three-dimensional.

4. Jiemin

Jiemin, a new young man, is a positive and progressive young man, whose character is in between Jiexin and Juehui, less backward than Jiexin, and more calm and steady than Juehui when he encounters problems and makes choices. He was gentle and steady, not very agitated, did not like to participate in social activities, and lacked due attention to the student movement. However, as a young generation awakened by the May Fourth Movement, he yearned for democracy and freedom. When his grandfather arranges a marriage for him, he resolutely runs away from home and openly resists, showing the spirit of uncompromising struggle, and Qin becomes the only pair of victors in the novel. Like Juehui, he is not a perfect fighter, and cannot cross the class divide, forgetting the gap between masters and lackeys. Amidst the screams and pleas for mercy of the dragon dancers on the ninth day of the New Year, he shows numbness: "It's too bland. It looked interesting when I was a child, but not now." In his mind, the pain of his underlings was nothing.

5. Women's Image

Home also focuses on the image of several women with unfortunate encounters--Mei, Mingfeng and Ruijue. Although these three women have different personalities -- Mei is depressed, Ruijue is wise, and Mingfeng is kind but soft; their social status is also different, but their tragic endings are the same. Through the depiction of the tragedy of these women, the work further accuses feudalism and feudal morality of persecuting the weak, innocent, and good people, and strengthens the main theme of the book.

Ruijue, Juexin's wife, is kind, generous, gentle, virtuous, understanding, modest and tender. As the eldest granddaughter-in-law of the Gao family, and in order to take care of her own son and husband, she can only uphold the authority of feudal rites and rituals in this home with Juexin, but in some things, you can still see her yearning for a new life.

Meifen, a relative of the Gao family, is a woman with the character of Lin Daiyu. After losing out on her love for Juexin, she becomes sunken and lackadaisical, devoid of the spirit of resistance, and meekly and tamely swallows the unrelenting evils of the old rites and customs.

Mingfeng, a young maid of the Gao family, has a low status in the family and a strong temperament, but her heart is pure and she has a "Cinderella" mentality. She is secretly in love with the third young master, Juehui, and her love for him is not made impossible by the difference between master and servant. Although Juehui also loves her, the unreasonable system does not allow them to love each other. She fantasizes that it would be a blessing to continue to work as a slave for the third young master. Who knows, she has no right to love at all, not even the right to choose her identity. The fact that the two old masters had decided her life was undoubtedly a devastating blow to Mingfeng. Since she dared to break the feudal system and feudal rituals to love a "young master" as a maid, it is enough to show that she already has a rebellious character. She is not willing to be at the mercy of others, and wants to ask for help to get rid of her bad luck, but all the help she asks for brings the result of despair. She was struggling for a new life, but her hopes were dashed. Unwilling to be ravaged and spoiled, she bravely sacrificed herself for love. There was only one way for her to seek a new life and that was - death! She wants to use her death to fight back against the oppression of this old system; to use her death to reach her quest for a new life, and the result of her struggle is to be strangled by the struggling old system. Mingfeng's throwing herself into the lake is a sobering tragedy, yet the tragedy in "Home" is not limited to this one; she just uses all of her life to make the most intense interpretation. The woman's fierce chastity is like the bright moonlight cast on the lake, dazzling and long-lasting. Adoration between master and servant was never allowed in that context, so Mingfeng could only charge her unwillingness in such a way.

Qin, another important woman in the novel, is very different from the above. She advocates that boys and girls should go to the same school and that men and women should be equal, and she even takes the initiative herself to ask to study at Juehui's school. Despite opposition from her mother and others, she succeeded. She fell boldly in love with Jue Min and endeavored to pursue freedom of marriage. Qin's resistance eventually escapes her fate due to the compromise of the defenders and the support of her allies. The author portrayed her as a figure who accepted new ideas, aspired to freedom and equality, boldly pursued the liberation of individuality, and dared to rebel against feudal rites. At that time, she seemed to be a rebel of the times, but what she did was a pioneer among women at that time. The status of women in the feudal society was low and there was no freedom of speech, all of which bound the development of women and greatly weakened the role of women in promoting the advancement of the whole society. The reason why the author molded the image of Qin is undoubtedly to awaken the other half of the society - the rise of women. The author's characterization is also quite successful.

In the Gao family, a group of submissive people appeared under the oppression of the guardians, the most typical representative is Jiexin, who is a victim of the old system, but unconsciously plays the role of defender, which is pitiful. Auntie Chen is another type of submissive. She shares the same fate as Wan Er, but whereas Wan Er is harboring pent-up anger, she is content to play the role of a heartfelt supporter of Master Gao. Auntie Chen has a twisted life, and her twisted life leads to a twisted mind. She was bought by Master Gao to take care of his life. Under that system, Auntie Chen had to rely on Master Gao to survive, and even did bad things with Master Gao's power. In the patriarchal law, she strongly encourage juexin, juemin tragedy marriage, in the etiquette, advocate juejue away from home, so as to avoid "blood disaster", so that juejue death; in the family discipline, when the master lectured his son, she gave the old master back, although it is not easy to say, but the action is to support the high old master. In fact, she is a victim and defender of the old system.

Fourth Aunt and Fifth Aunt, who succumbed to the patriarchal law, rituals and family traditions, though persecuted by the old system on the one hand, used the old system to persecute others. If Auntie Chen is detestable, then Auntie Four and Auntie Five are pathetic. Auntie Chen and Auntie Wu come from old-fashioned families, and their words and deeds bear the imprint of the old system. Under the old system, women had to emphasize "three obediences and four virtues", and even when their husbands made mistakes, Auntie 5 did not dare to rebel, but only brought her husband to the attention of the master. However, they are also the enablers of the old system, the most typical example is Auntie 5 wrapping her daughter's feet, which traumatized Shuzhen's mind and body.