What are the philosophical connotations of Fortress Besieged? ! ! Attention! It is a philosophical connotation!

First, profound thoughts: life description, cultural reflection and philosophical thinking.

Fortress Besieged by Qian Zhongshu is a novel with rich implications. It is reflected in the connotation of life, the author's thinking about society and life, and his unique "art world", which is not clear to readers at a glance, and needs to be pondered repeatedly and deeply appreciated. The novel basically adopts realistic techniques, and its overall structure is symbolic. It is a moral novel with the flavor of "modernism". Its rich meaning needs to be explored layer by layer by reading method of "peeling bamboo shoots".

The first level, as stated in the preface to the publication of the book, is "writing about a certain part of modern China society and a certain kind of characters". Specifically, it is a description of the ancient world in China during the Anti-Japanese War, including the exposure of primitive, backward and closed rural areas in mainland China, and the irony of corruption in education and intellectual circles.

The novels written by Fang Hung-chien and others during their long journey to the mainland to apply for jobs, taking the characters' experiences as clues, have turned all kinds of filth in closed towns and villages upside down, such as the "flea meeting" in "Eurasia Hotel" and the air-dried meat with worms and maggots sold in small restaurants in yingtan, and sketched out all kinds of folk customs with mocking strokes, giving people a deep impression. This description is not out of curiosity, but naturally reflects the social situation at that time.

The novel also used more space to write about the cigar smoke of "San Lv University". The school authorities use unscrupulous means to fight for power and profit, and the faculty and staff collude with each other. Fang Hung-chien was left and right in a messy feud, exhausted. These descriptions reveal the gangrene of society from the purulent blood in education.

The first level of novel implication is the description of life. The author objectively and pointedly reveals some backward scenes, stagnant atmosphere and various ugly world situations of social life in China in the 1940s. This novel "reflects" the contradiction of social life in a specific period, exposes the decay of education during the Anti-Japanese War, and criticizes the emptiness and depression of intellectuals who stand outside the trend of the times, and has the value of "understanding" history.

The second implication level is "cultural reflection level". Fortress Besieged depicts an intellectual hero from the perspective of anti-hero, and its viewpoint is unique in similar works of modern literature in China: it not only exposes the weakness of the "neo-Confucian forest" or explores the way for intellectuals, but also attempts to reflect on the traditional culture of China by writing the "neo-Confucian forest". The author's emphasis is on the criticism of traditional culture, and this kind of reflection and criticism is not realized by shaping the image of the old intellectuals, as many writers have done since the May 4th Movement, but by shaping the image of the "latest" literati, that is, mainly by shaping a group of overseas students or "advanced" intellectuals.

Fang Hung-chien is a representative figure in The New Scholars. He is a bit like the kind "loser" Zeng in Peking Man, and in some ways he is a bit like the "good guy" Chueh-hsin in Home. But Qian Zhongshu's criticism is much sharper and more decisive, with few regrets. The novel shows Fang Hung-chien's indecision in love and marriage, his weakness, passivity and lack of progress in his career and life, especially laziness and vanity, which have become his psychological characteristics, and muddling along is his inertia-forged character in traditional culture. Although Fang Hung-chien has been abroad, he is "new" in some aspects and names, but he is "old" at heart, which can also be said to be a mixture of old and new, and the "old" component plays a major role. This is a contradictory role. When writing a novel, he encounters life setbacks again and again, always so distressed and worthless. Of course, there are social reasons for this, but the novel shows people more about the cultural roots of his cowardly character. Fang Hung-chien's despair of feudal order can be seen from his spiritual conflict with his parents and in-laws. However, he still has a lot of nostalgia for the decay of traditional culture, or his lazy and incompetent character cast by traditional culture doomed him to be a "redundant person" who could not find a position in the real society and realize his own value. Writing his "old" nature in novels will inevitably produce instinctive resistance to foreign culture and competitive modern spirit. Although Fang Hung-chien has been abroad for many years, he still pursues the lazy life of feudal playboy, and at most he adds some foreign-style ridiculous means. The novel takes such an "empty shell of life" whose vitality has been eroded by the decay of traditional culture as the protagonist, and the appearance of this "empty shell" is actually painted with many foreign fashion colors, and its intention is very deep; Readers will probably think about such a contradictory role of the collision between Chinese and foreign civilizations, which will lead to profound reflection on traditional culture.

After all, Fang Hung-chien is the product of the new and old alternate times. Fortress Besieged not only reflects on traditional culture, but also reveals the specific environment in which Fang Hung-chien lived. In the world of "new Confucian scholars", all the traditional virtues that scholars used to be proud of in history, such as being honest and caring for the country and the people, have disappeared, leaving only humbleness, vulgarity and hypocrisy, which are the new consequences of the inferiority of traditional culture in semi-colonial soil. Qian Zhongshu focused on dissecting one of these spiritual evils-"worshipping foreign things and obsessing foreign things".

If a nation has a sound mentality, it will naturally actively seek dialogue with the new world civilization and learn from foreign advanced experience. But China, the eldest brother who has been burdened with a heavy historical burden and has been humiliated for hundreds of years, seldom forms such a sound and enterprising social mentality. In the process of contact with world civilization, it is easy to have an inferiority complex. Fortress Besieged depicts the mentality of "worshipping foreign things and obsessing foreign things" in the "new Confucian forest", which is very spicy. Anyone who has read this book will probably never forget that fake doctor Han (real name "Gubai") mistakenly called his Russian wife "Miss America" in order to show that he was proficient in Western learning. Chu Shen Ming, a charlatan who communicates by cheating foreign celebrities and acts as a "world-famous" philosopher; There is also the Ministry of Education, which speaks an average of one and a half sentences per minute about "My Brothers in England", and so on. The psychology of these characters is similar to that of Ah Q written by Lu Xun. On the surface, the novel satirizes these psychological behaviors of "worshipping foreign things and obsessing foreign things", but in fact it is still excavating the inferiority of traditional civilization.

For Fang Hung-chien, Sun Roujia is an important figure who directly affects his life path. At the beginning of her work, she was so weak, naive and docile, "afraid to say a word", and there really were some so-called "oriental female beauty" envied by westerners. But after marrying Fang Hung-chien, she gradually became another angry face, bossy, jealous, selfish and mean, trying to master housework and subdue men. Although Sun Roujia is a modern woman with higher education, she still can't get rid of the shackles of traditional culture and has many weaknesses of old-fashioned women. Sun Roujia is also a "non-hero", not a bad guy. The author only wrote her as an old woman with a strong tradition in The New Scholars. The change of Sun Roujia's character in the novel is also to discover the inferiority of the traditional culture that plays a fundamental role in her.

These various world situations constitute the life picture of the "new Confucian forest". All kinds of figures in the "Neo-Confucian Forest" are actually historical figures whose ancient culture is about to collapse due to the impact of foreign civilization, and they are special people bred on the soil of semi-colonial culture.

Fortress Besieged attempts to reflect on traditional culture by depicting the mentality of "new" intellectuals (especially international students), which is the profound point of the work. Many intellectuals have been written in the new novels since the May 4th Movement, but Fortress Besieged is different from the general new novels in angle and conception. During the May 4th Movement, new novels mostly expressed intellectuals' pursuit of a new life, and under the banner of humanitarianism, they sang the praises of individual liberation. The protagonists of these works are no longer elegant and weak critics, but often have a kind of adolescent enthusiasm in temperament, and almost all of them are anti-traditional "heroes". Intellectuals in the revolutionary literature in the 1930s were even more fierce "fighters", although "politicization" made the personalities of these "heroes" generally empty. By the1940s, especially after the Anti-Japanese War, the color of "hero" in novels about intellectuals had faded, and writers began to look back and explore their own path calmly, and a sense of historical heaviness pervaded their works. Fortress Besieged is a solemn and profound novel formed in the atmosphere of novel creation in the 1940s. It is not only an exploration of the road of intellectuals, but also a reflection on the gains and losses of national traditional culture embodied in intellectuals, or a special angle of intellectuals to grasp the national spiritual crisis from the cultural level. There are organic humorous satires in Fortress Besieged, and the bitterness and pain brought by these satires affect the readers' nerves, forcing them to think and find the shortcomings of traditional culture. After The True Story of Ah Q, there are few novels with profound cultural introspection consciousness like Fortress Besieged.

Why should this novel be named Fortress Besieged? After reading this novel, I will try to figure out the author's intention from this topic, and further discover the deeper meaning of the novel beyond the above two levels-the philosophical thinking significance of modern people's destiny, which is the "philosophical thinking significance" as the third level of the work.

The plot of Fortress Besieged is neither romantic nor thrilling. It can even be said that it is a bit obscene, not as attractive as other novels of the times. Although the humorous and ironic description of this novel often makes people smile when reading, its real charm seems to be mainly not in the process of reading, but only after reading the whole book. After reading the complete book, I simplified all the experiences of the protagonist Fang Hung-chien, that is, he constantly longed to rush out of the "besieged city", but after rushing out, he always fell into another "besieged city" and went out of the city to enter the city; Out of town, into town ... never ending.

The mail ship returning home is isolated and bored, naturally like a "besieged city." For Fang Hung-chien, when he arrived in Shanghai, he had to walk out of the "besieged city" of the mail ship. However, wartime Shanghai was actually a "besieged city". After Fang Hung-chien arrived in Shanghai, he lost his job and fell in love. This situation is more like a "besieged city", so he went through hardships to the mainland, hoping to get out of the "besieged city". The "San Lv University" in the mainland was not as good as he imagined, and the intrigue at that time made him fall into the "besieged city" again, so he longed to return to Shanghai to get rid of the "besieged city" of "San Lv University". The harder it is to return to Shanghai, Fang Hung-chien intends to rush out of this "besieged city" in Shanghai and go to Chongqing again ... The novel is over, and readers don't know what happened to Fang Hung-chien later, but according to his life logic, it can be inferred that he entered another "besieged city" and he may never get rid of this "city".

Looking at the structure of this novel, if we want to "summarize" the "grammar" of the protagonist's basic movements, that is: Fang Hung-chien's behavior = going into the city → going out of the city → going into the city → going out of the city … That is to say, Fang Hung-chien will never be restless and never satisfied, so he will always be distressed, because he always wants to get rid of the predicament, but there are difficulties everywhere, and there are "besieged cities" everywhere in his life journey. All this, for this cowardly hero, seems to have always been unconscious. He is completely in a blind state, almost under the control of some instinct, or more precisely, under the control of "fate", always seeking to go to "besieged city", but in fact he is constantly entering another "besieged city" from one. This kind of entry and exit is a blind behavior, and it is "useless" after all.

Why does Fortress Besieged arrange such a structure?

On the whole, this structure is symbolic, which implies the author's deeper philosophical thinking about life. To sum up, life is besieged everywhere. The work symbolically implies to the readers that people outside the "city" (outsiders) always want to rush in, while people inside the "city" always want to escape, rush in and escape, and there is no end. It is meaningless to go beyond a little bit, whether it is an impact or an escape. After all, the original wishes of life are impossible to realize, what you want is often not what you want, and what you get is not what you want. Life is such a poor pursuit of dreams.

Does this conclusion from watching the whole Fortress Besieged conform to the actual creation? If you look at this article carefully, you will find that this is indeed the author's original intention, a profound philosophical thinking. In fact, Qian Zhongshu seems to be a little afraid that readers don't understand the symbolic meaning, so he used the mouth of the characters in the novel to explore this "secret" many times. In the third chapter of Fortress Besieged, Fang Hung-chien gets together with friends. Among them, Chu Shen Ming, a charlatan-style "scholar", talked about the "philosophy" of marriage at the dinner table. He quoted an old English proverb: Marriage is like a golden birdcage. Birds outside the cage want to live in it, and birds inside the cage want to fly out; So it's over, it's over, no more games. Another friend added: There is also a saying in France. However, it is not a birdcage, but a besieged castle, fr tresse assiégééé é. People outside the city want to rush in, while people in the city want to escape. ……

These are the finishing touches, which make the overall symbolic meaning of Fortress Besieged clear. It is worth noting that when talking about Bird Cage and Fortress Besieged, the Jianghu Langzhongchu and others all seem to have a clear understanding of the philosophy of life. Only Fang Hung-chien "lost his self-control at the mercy of wine and felt that another person was saying nothing about himself". Careful readers will notice that the author's description of the "awake" and "drunk" States of various characters in The New Scholars is meaningful. This implies that Fang Hung-chien is always in an "ignorant" state, and people misled by fate are so blind. If readers really understand this novel's thinking on philosophy of life, and "experience" the loneliness that the author tries to show that modern people are losing control of their self-control, then they can strongly feel the author's special satirical power.

Judging from the moral of Fortress Besieged on the third level, that is, the philosophical thinking level, this novel already contains the common sense of life or cosmic consciousness in western modernist literature, inexplicable disappointment and loneliness, and it really smells like seeing through the world of mortals. The appearance of such works in China's literary world in the 1940s can be said to reveal a side of the post-war social mentality. This transcendental proposition is prominent and sufficient in western modernist literature, but it is rare in China literature. In the forties and fifties, readers in China almost ignored the significance of "philosophical thinking" in Fortress Besieged. After all, people were keen on realistic works.

Until now, we have more and more realized the unique artistic charm of Fortress Besieged. This charm lies not only in the wonderful metaphor of Julian's language movement, but also in his profound sketch of the world, which is mainly manifested in his symbolic structure of multi-layer implications and his profound thinking about life and society.