Redundant People in Fortress Besieged —— A Brief Analysis of Fang Hung-chien's Characters

? As the saying goes, "Character decides fate". A person's fate is often inextricably linked with his character. Fang Hung-chien's tragic fate of constantly walking from one besieged city to another is closely related to his own personality weakness. It is his personality weakness that makes him a tragic figure struggling in the besieged city. Fang Hung-chien's tragic fate is reflected in his failure in his career and his love life. What's more, he is also a big loser in life, completely becoming a "redundant person" who is not very annoying but very useless and has a low sense of existence.

His failure in his career is mainly attributed to his confusion, muddling along and indecision. Fang Hung-chien's life can be simply summarized as a word "mixed". He has never made a plan for his life, and he has never set a goal. He is more like a driftwood floating on the sea, no matter where it floats. In his early research, he got lost. I entered the university, advanced sociology department, then transferred to philosophy department, and finally graduated from Chinese department without any planning. What's more, his study abroad was purely accidental, just because his fiancee who had never met suddenly died, which gave him the opportunity to study abroad. He never thought about the true meaning of studying abroad and chose to study abroad blindly. It is more accurate to call it "study tour" than "study abroad". During his four years abroad, he changed to three universities and took several courses in London, Paris and Berlin. He has a wide range of interests, but he has learned nothing, so that he finally has to buy a fake diploma to make up the number. Without long-term planning, serious attitude and perseverance, his academic failure is inevitable.

The main reason why his love life is in a mess comes from his own timidity and cowardice, and he has no opinion. On the boat back from studying abroad, Fang Hung-chien couldn't resist the temptation of Miss Bao and had sex with her. In the end, she had to listen to Miss Bao's orders and was left out in the cold, but she was at a loss. It is obvious from here that Fang Hung-chien has always been in a passive position in this relationship with Miss Bao. In a relationship, people who have opinions often hold the initiative, while those who have no opinions will be in a passive position. In the relationship with Sue, although Fang Hung-chien was never interested in Sue, he didn't have the self-knowledge to provoke Sue because of "lack of ready-made girlfriends". Miss Su Bibao has a strong desire for control, while Fang Hung-chien has no opinion and is passive. Fang Hung-chien fell in love at first sight, but because of cowardice, he didn't have the courage to show his cards to Sue. There is no doubt that this relationship has planted a "time bomb" for his relationship with Tang Xiaofu. When he finally got up the courage to tell Sue what happened, his relationship with Sue had been destroyed. However, due to his cowardice, he didn't have the courage to seriously explain and repair this relationship to Tang Xiaofu who became angry from embarrassment. Instead, he easily chose to give up, and finally this relationship ended in vain.

? Finally, Fang Hung-chien was kicked out by the times and became a "redundant person" without the role of "lofty". His "lofty" makes him incompatible with this society. During his teaching in San Lv University, Fang Hung-chien acted like an "imbecile" in complicated interpersonal relationships. He knows nothing about the world, is not tactful enough, and often puts himself and others in an awkward position. He is honest and kind. He doesn't want to use fake diplomas to make profits for himself and deceive more people. Finally, he was demoted and dismissed by Gao Songnian, president of San Lv University. He didn't want to go with the flow, and finally he was hit by the wall of reality.

Baptized by western culture, Fang Hung-chien has a frank and yearning for freedom, and a romantic idealistic plot. However, returning from a free and open foreign country to the harsh human environment in China, Fang Hung-chien was lonely, and he could not find the spirit. Floating and indulging in the dye vat of society, facing the conflict between ideal and reality, Fang Hung-chien felt the struggle of the soul and the loneliness of the soul. He can see through the reality and is unwilling to obey it, but he lacks the courage and ability to change it, so he can only struggle in the besieged city and become a "redundant person" abandoned by society.

Fang Hung-chien's "abnormal personality" has its inevitable reasons. Judging from the living environment, not only the whole political environment is frustrating, but also our own small environment is disappointing. At that time, the war was raging, and drift from place to place became the living state of most people in contemporary times. War will destroy many things that people actually have, and people's lives and property will not be guaranteed at the moment of social unrest. Therefore, people in war-torn times are prone to lose their sense of security and suffer from loss. At the same time, the artillery fire of the war is like a haze hanging over people's heads, which makes people extremely depressed and decadent, resulting in a world-weary mood. Fang Hung-chien, who lives in the war, can't escape the influence of this social mood. This world-weariness has been lurking in Fang Hung-chien's heart and influenced his life. In addition to his political background, the small environment of his own life also promoted the formation of his "abnormal personality". As the eldest son of a gentry family, with the support of the father-in-law of the bank president, Fang Hung-chien lived a relatively rich life, but his family background was gradually lost due to the war. After he came back from abroad, his main source of supply came from his father-in-law. It is extremely uncomfortable to rely on others, especially his only contact with his father-in-law's family, his fiancee has passed away. This relationship has changed from reality to emptiness. He is extremely sensitive, and he is swayed by considerations of gain and loss. In this false relationship, he can't find a full sense of security, but he doesn't have enough ability to give himself a sense of security. This sense of powerlessness and frustration troubled him all his life.

Of course, Fang Hung-chien's tragic character is inseparable from the culture he contacted. First of all, as the eldest son of a squire family with strong traditional consciousness, he accepted the influence of traditional ideology and culture in his early days. Traditional culture determines the "cowardly, passive, opinionated and lack of struggle consciousness" side of Fang Hung-chien's character. He has no enterprising spirit, and his main idea comes from Taoism's inaction, so when he faces setbacks, he can only passively escape, choose inaction and let nature take its course. At the same time, he lives in an era when Chinese and western cultures collide with each other. On the one hand, after the Revolution of 1911, western cultural thoughts kept pouring into China, advocating new learning to become the mainstream of ideological and literary circles, and advanced western ideas were widely spread in China. In addition, Fang Hung-chien's four-year study abroad experience also injected western ideas into him, making his thoughts westernized constantly. On the one hand, he showed great yearning for freedom, on the other hand, he pursued the western lifestyle, forming a petty-bourgeois hedonistic lifestyle. Of course, he did not have a comprehensive and thorough understanding of western culture, nor did he enter the core and essence of western culture. Therefore, Fang Hung-chien's complex personality was formed in the collision and interweaving of Chinese and western cultures. It can be said that his "abnormal personality" is the product of this era.

Fang Hung-chien's tragedy is not only his personal tragedy, but also the tragedy of the whole era. As the protagonist in Fortress Besieged, his personal image is very representative and general, and his image is the epitome of most intellectuals in this era. Fang Hung-chien's image as an "unnecessary person" embodies some bad habits of China literati. During the war, Fang Hung-chien fully embodied "nothing goes to the Three Treasures Hall". The most prominent features of this "literati image" are "uselessness" and "muddling along". Their lives are just for muddling along. They complain that their current life is not what they are satisfied with, but they follow the principle of "letting nature take its course" and do not change. Fang Hung-chien's tragedy stems from his world-weariness, but to some extent, his tragedy is more like his own ideal romanticism. His ideal world and ideal life are so beautiful that he has a feeling that he will never be at peace, never be satisfied with the present and suffer forever. He has entered this endless cycle and is hard to get rid of. At the same time, Fang Hung-chien's personal tragedy actually hinted at some defects in education and the failure of some cultures at that time. Of course, from the concrete analysis, it was difficult for modern education at that time to get rid of the imprisonment and bondage of traditional education, always ignoring the importance of practical teaching and simply paying attention to the transmission of theoretical knowledge. At that time, education was more like "giving people fish", which directly taught students the essence of life, but neglected "giving people fish" and forgot to teach modern students how to live and make a living in society. Especially under the impact of western industrial civilization, practical ability has become more important. It is this "fishing" skill that intellectuals like Fang Hung-chien lack, which makes them out of touch with society and fails to take action for their ideal world, which leads to the contradiction between ideal and reality and eventually becomes redundant people eliminated by society. For modern education, Fang Hung-chien's image has a strong warning significance.