An Overview of the Main Contents of Fortress Besieged

An overview of the main contents of Fortress Besieged;

The novel Fortress Besieged is divided into nine chapters, which can be roughly divided into four units.

The first chapter to the fourth chapter is the first unit, which describes Fang Hung-chien's life scenes in Shanghai and his hometown (a county in the south of the Yangtze River), with Shanghai as the center. In this unit, the "love" entanglement between Fang Hung-chien and Su occupies an important part. Sue's infatuation with Fang Hung-chien's affair led them to perform many half-truths and half-truths farce.

The fifth chapter can be counted as the second unit, which is "transition" or "convergence". In this unit, Fang Hung-chien and Zhao, two people who suffered setbacks in their personal lives, rushed out of the cage of "love". They changed from imaginary rivals to real friends, and went to San Lv University in Pingcheng, Hunan Province to look for jobs together.

Chapters 6 and 7 are the third unit, which mainly describes the infighting in San Lv University. From the headmaster, dean, department head, to faculty, students and even their families, they are involved in a dizzying personnel dispute. Professional exclusion, love competition, blatant routines, slanderous rumors, intrigue, and so on, San Lv University has become a stage for competition.

Chapters 8 and 9 are Unit 4. Fang Hung-chien and Sun Roujia got married on their way back to Shanghai. This is not an exciting combination for both parties. The anxiety about the future brought by unemployment makes them quarrel constantly after marriage. This kind of quarrel is relatively simple on the way back to Shanghai. After settling in Shanghai, the contradiction became more complicated due to the intervention of families and relatives of both sides.

Extended data:

Fortress Besieged is a novel by Qian Zhongshu and a satirical novel with unique style in the history of modern literature in China. Known as the "new scholar". The first edition was published by Shanghai Chen Guang Publishing Company on 1947. This story is mainly about a group of intellectuals in the early days of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.

Fortress Besieged contains profound ideological implications. The first is the level of social criticism. Through the life course of the protagonist Fang Hung-chien, the work criticizes the shortcomings of national politics and all sentient beings in the Kuomintang-controlled areas in the 1930s and 1940s, including the corruption and depravity of Shanghai's westernized commercial port, the backwardness and seclusion of mainland rural areas, and the corruption and depravity of education and intellectual circles.

The second is the level of cultural criticism. This is mainly achieved through the description of the "new Confucian forest" and the shaping of the image of a group of overseas students or senior intellectuals. Most of the characters in Fortress Besieged suffer from foreign worship, but traditional culture plays a leading role in their bones.

Fang Hung-chien is a figure with a sense of justice in the "Neo-Confucian Forest". The purpose of his study abroad is to "shine the lintel" so as to spend money to donate officials, compared with the previous dynasties. His cowardly character and tragic ending are caused by traditional culture.

Through the analysis of the morbid personalities of these characters, the works deeply reflect and criticize the traditional culture of China. The third level is the philosophical thinking about life and the fate of modern people, which goes deep into the metaphysical level of humanism, such as the discussion of people's basic living conditions and the fundamental significance of life, the discussion of people's basic roots and the basic relationship between people.

Qian Zhongshu's wife Jiang Yang wrote at the beginning of the TV series Fortress Besieged: "The main connotation of Fortress Besieged is that people in the city want to escape and people outside the city want to rush in. Whether it is marriage or career, the wishes of life are mostly the same. " The novel also points out the meaning of "besieged city" many times.

It tells people that life is a ubiquitous "besieged city", leaving and leaving, leaving and ending, without games, there will be eternal confusion and dilemma. The problems raised by the writer in Fortress Besieged involve the crisis of modern civilization and the predicament of modern life, which is of universal significance.

References:

Baidu encyclopedia-besieged city