The charm of Lu Xun's novels

Lu Xun's novels hold the idea of "for life, but also for improving this life", based on "the unfortunate in a sick society", with the intention of "exposing suffering and attracting the attention of treatment" ("How do I start a novel"). Therefore, he always pays attention to the mentally "sick" people in the "sick society" and shows the spiritual pain and numb souls of farmers and intellectuals. Diary of a Madman reveals the disadvantages of the feudal ethics of "cannibalism" and the psychological fear, fear and despair of a madman being eaten. Medicine shows Hua Laoshuan's spiritual poverty and ignorance. Kong Yiji showed the indifference and boredom of "spectators"; Hometown shows not the poetry of the countryside, but the spiritual poverty and numbness of young friends behind the material poverty; The True Story of Ah Q is a psychopathic sculpture depicting a morbid life. "Showing the public" is to let the "spectator" mental illness "show the public"; The "death" of Xianglinsao in Blessing is related to traditional culture, and even more to her own spiritual fear caused by "faith". Scream and Wandering provide rich images of ideological and mental obstacles that China may encounter in the process of social change, and reveal the ideological diseases in China's society and life and their causes. Lu Xun, the enlightener of thought, used his novels to reveal the morbid life, the profundity and uniqueness of his thoughts, and his rich historical feelings and life experiences. When these feelings and experiences enter the novel, they not only show the complexity and truth of the external world, but also show the truth and profundity of the internal world. Lu Xun's thoughts and literature are irreplaceable and profound. Apart from the social and historical background of Blowing Sand, there is also his complex and unique personal experience, which has entered his literature. The "seeing and being seen" in "Kong Yiji" and "Showing the Public" is not without the unforgettable feelings left by the experience of childhood and the "slide incident". In Blessing, besides the story of Sister Xianglin, there is also my story. Sister Xianglin's story happened in my story, and the two are intertwined. "I", a spiritual wanderer who ran away from home, heard and saw the story of Sister Xianglin in a short time when I returned to my hometown. Until her death, "I" obviously couldn't get rid of it, at least mentally. Isn't the weakness and helplessness of "I" in the process of Xianglinsao's death also a question of the relationship between the enlightener and the enlightened? I just saved myself by leaving quickly, so I can't be lazy and comfortable in life from now on. Lu Xun did not write novels in the single correspondence of "literature and social history", but established a complex relationship of meaning from the deep structure of personal experience, historical tradition and social reality.

Lu Xun is a pioneer in creating new literary forms. He used western literary forms for reference, reformed traditional literary techniques, and created the modern forms of China's novels through his own constant innovation and experiments. In his view, "China won't have real new literature and art unless he breaks through all the traditional concepts and technologies" (Open your eyes and tell lies on the tomb). Therefore, he advocated "outward, inward, tap your soul, see your eyes and mouthpiece, stare at the world, and sing truth and beauty to lonely people" (Introduction to China New Literature Series II). Boldly absorbing the nutrition of foreign literature is the artistic experience of Lu Xun's novels. He absorbed many psychological techniques in western literature, such as the description of dreams, feelings, subconscious and abnormal psychology. For example, Diary of a Madman has a long psychological description, which shows a madman's complex psychological feelings. The True Story of Ah Q also shows a lot of subconscious and explicit consciousness of Ah Q's psychology, such as the imaginative satisfaction with the success of the revolution and the psychological change from inferiority to self-esteem. The essence of Ah Q's spiritual victory method is to replace and transform the real failure of the real objective world with subjective psychological imagination and fictional victory. Ah Q is always in the world of psychology and reality, subject and object, imagination and reality. Novels such as Soap, Regret for the Past, White Light, Brothers, etc. They all use a lot of psychological description techniques to reveal the complexity of human nature and the depth of the soul. Lu Xun also absorbed the symbolic and metaphorical skills of western literature and formed his own symbolic image system, such as "moon" and "night" in Diary of a Madman and "medicine" in medicine. At the same time, the themes of his works are symbolic and metaphorical. The "Madman" in Diary of a Madman is not a specific person in real life. His "illness" and "illness" are meaningless. How he went crazy and how to treat him is not very important to the theme of the novel. A madman is a symbolic symbol and has no realistic counterpart. His "crazy" psychological feelings ... The enlightened person's sober thinking are integrated. Only starting from the symbolism and virtuality of art can we fully understand the moral of the madman image and the symbolic theme of the novel. Medicine is also a symbolic novel. It uses two clues of light and darkness, and there are two stories. On the surface, it tells the story that Hua Laoshuan bought human blood steamed bread as medicine to treat his son, but secretly it hides the story that the prophet Yu Xia was killed. These two stories are linked by symbolic drugs, showing the double tragedies of the prophet and the enlightener, and conveying a symbolic theme: what is the spiritual prescription for treating the Chinese nation? Kong Yiji also has symbols, and its structure of "seeing and being seen" is itself a symbol with a detail. Writing Kong Yiji told the boy with joy and pride that there are four ways to write the word "hui". This is actually a symbol, which shows the tragic significance of Kong Yiji as a traditional intellectual. The general language has semantics, phonetics and grammar, and the form of the language has little influence on the meaning of the language, that is, there are four ways to write the word "hui", with the same meaning, the same usage and the same pronunciation. Language form is the residence of China's calligraphy. As far as the meaning of language is concerned, it is the most marginal and cannot change the language itself. Traditional intellectuals in China have their own discourse privilege, because they have their own set of languages and characters, and keep their meaning. They take the creation of discourse meaning as their bounden duty and use language symbols as a means to establish social and human value meaning, thus establishing their own meaning. If they do nothing in the application and interpretation of the basic elements of language: semantics, pronunciation and grammar, it also proves that they have gradually been marginalized by society and fallen into a floating state of meaning. When Kong Yiji was complacent about knowing many ways to write the word "Hui", the rootless state and comedy fate symbolizing his existence became clear to readers. It can be said that the word Hui used by Lu Xun has symbolic meanings such as medicine, storm, blessing, soap, hometown, publicity and divorce in other novels.

Specific examples

Showing the Public is the central plot of the novel Showing the Public. On the surface, it is realistic and often described by drawing lines. In the "hot summer" of "midsummer", livestock and poultry can only make physiological "gasps", but people who are higher than livestock and poultry can withstand the hot summer and watch men wearing "white vests". They lifted their faces, stretched out their necks, squeezed in, squeezed out, searched, studied, looked, looked at each other, and kept exclaiming "how beautiful" and "how beautiful". They have no name, no ego, no spirit and thoughts, only differences and feelings in "limbs" and "five senses", only differences in age, face and gender. Children, bald old man, white vest man, big man with red nose, aunt, fat face, oval face, eldest son, thin man and cat face are all different, but they are all spectators, bored and indifferent spectators, without self-awareness and spiritual soul. The difference between people and animals and plants is that people have their own thoughts and souls, are conscious higher animals, and are independent thinkers and actors. We really can't see the real difference between the audience in the performance and the general animals. Maybe they are a group of animals that can stand, but the difference is that they may be able to endure and suppress physiological heat reactions without … bulging their tongues to "see". The difference between people is that they have self-awareness and spiritual feelings, but the difference is physical nature and gender differences. They have "class" without "personality", "behavior" without "thinking" and "shape" without "emotion". What they do is "squeezing", "talking", "pointing", "shouting" and "cheering", all of which are simple reactions directly from physiology, all for the sake of "seeing", without inner touch and thoughts. It can be said that they are a group of animals with "human form" but no "human heart", bystanders driven by "curiosity" and "boredom" and "unknown and unconscious killers". The novel wrote a fragment, the main plot is "spectators" to see the public. After reading it, I found that the moral of the novel is to bring the spectators to the public, let the spectators perform their "watching" and let the readers see the sadness and pain of the spectators. The meaning and purpose of the novel have been realized. Here, "Show the Public" and the novel "Show the Public" are both symbolic.

The novel Divorce also has its symbols and metaphors. The surface story of the novel is about Ai Gu seeking a divorce from her husband's family. In fact, it means that she wants to "reason" and "vent her anger" in front of lords, adults and foreign young masters to prove the legitimacy and legality of her marriage. Her purpose is not "divorce", but because her husband "little beast" married a little widow outside. She thought she was 65,438+05 years old, and she was carried to Shijia in a sedan chair to be her daughter-in-law. She always bowed her head and strictly observed women's morality. The husband is looking for a little widow. We must kick her out. She is "unfair" for this, and wants to find someone to judge her, and even wants to "give them some color to see see." It can be seen that Ai Gu's original intention is not to divorce her in-laws, but to strive for the position of a daughter-in-law. She is just fighting for the position of "wanting to be a slave but not allowed". What's more, Ai Gu thinks that he is justified on the basis that his marriage and behavior are in line with the traditional "ceremony", but he doesn't know that it is also in line with the "ceremony" for her husband to ask for a little widow. "Rite" makes a woman have moral integrity and observe women's morality, but it does not limit her husband's dream of "marrying", but "Rite" stipulates her status as a wife. The only difference between wives and concubines is their names and appellations. Should be based on the husband's opinion and the wife's patience. Once the husband doesn't want to, he ... divorces his wife, or she makes a scene, which provides an excuse for "divorcing his wife". Aunt Ai thinks it is reasonable and polite, and the behavior of small animals is also "polite". These "rituals" are set by men and serve themselves. Moreover, behind the "ceremony" is power, which is the patent of those who are knowledgeable and reasonable, and the power of interpretation is in their hands. Therefore, what is written in the novel is that Ai Gu wants to be reasonable and polite with his grandparents, and wants to get rational support from them. As a result, both the master and the adult are the same, and they are easy to separate. They agree to divorce their in-laws and their aunts. From "grievance" to "regret", Aigu was filled with tears and thanked her for comforting her master. Her psychological defense was broken and collapsed. Ignorantly, she admitted that ... the depth of reason and propriety is indisputable. "Li" is a man's amulet, and it is also a trick of intellectuals and dignitaries. It is established by them and judged by them. There are no fixed standards for politeness and rudeness. If there is, it is male-centered and power-oriented. Ai Gu thinks he has "reason" and also conforms to "courtesy", but he doesn't know that the standard of "courtesy" is double, and men and women are different; The principle of "courtesy" is out of the question, let alone judged and discussed by women. Even her father and brothers don't know the depth of the ceremony, because they don't know books and have little culture. "Li" is written in books, which is the privilege of knowledge. Even what Zhuang and Ai Gu know is "Li". They couldn't say for sure, so they had to ... forcibly "smash" and "tear down" the kitchen of the Shi family. Even in Plutocratic family, the prestigious Zhuang became silent when he came to the "adults" in this city. Is it the first time that he knows that the "reason" of "ceremony" is unspeakable? At least he has nothing to say in front of "dignified" and "knowledgeable" adults.

There are two scenes in the novel. Comfort the elderly in the "boat" and in the "home", rural villagers and the old people who know books and reason have different views and reactions to "divorce". Simple villagers have their own justice, constantly saying "yes", admiring the courage of loving aunt and appreciating Zhuang Mu's three righteous behaviors. But gentlemen don't speak justice. Although they know books, they don't know common sense. "Divorce" is an event and a symbol in the novel, which itself refers to the dismantling and separation of order and relationship, but behind the novel "divorce" is a metaphor for the duality and power of "Li". "Li" is unspeakable, unspeakable and unreasonable. Menstruation's "divorce" also became self-satire. She didn't want to leave, but she divorced. She was respectfully dismissed from the noise. All the efforts turned to herself. You said it was your fault, and you were wrong. How can you have the right to speak in front of "ceremony"? "Li" is not negotiable. I wonder if Ai Gu realized this immediately after being "divorced" and materialized with "90 yuan"?

Lu Xun's novels also brought a revolution in the narrative style of China's novels. He skillfully and carefully chose the narrator, set a distance between the implied author and the narrator, formed the irony of narrative, canceled the interval between readers, implied author and characters, and integrated the subject emotion into the narrative, resulting in a poetic lyric effect. Compared with traditional plot novels, Lu Xun created modern psychological novels and symbolic novels. In art, Kong Yiji's narrative perspective of watching and being watched, the symbolic "sudden turn" shown to the public, the lyrical perspective of mourning the memory of the past and hometown, and the massive introduction of essays and other non-fiction styles in works such as The True Story of Ah Q have the significance of "innovation" and "revolution".

The language in Lu Xun's novels is also creative and experimental. He is "neat" about language, pursues frugality, implication and conciseness, and is good at using verbs and adverbs skillfully. Of course, when expressing the complexity and pain of emotions, he is not stingy with the verbosity and repetition of language. Implicit and concise are the mainstream of Lu Xun's novels, and repetitive, lengthy and symbolic pen and ink are also seen from time to time. They are alternately mixed and each has its own strengths.

New Stories is an allegorical novel created by Lu Xun, and it is also a novel different from novels. It contains eight novels from 1922 to 1935, which were freely interpreted and "newly edited" by Lu Xun from myths and historical stories. It boldly uses anti-space-time, anti-logic and anti-rational creative methods to carry out novel style experiments, mixing essays, drama programs and stories, and integrating historical figures with real scenes, heroic deeds with secular life, objects and self-feelings into the deconstruction of historical and cultural significance and the complex experience of reality and life. The whole novel is ironic and symbolic, and each one has its own different meaning. From the first "mending the sky" to the last "beginning and end", it constitutes a whole meaning, which is independent and together is a great novel. Its meaning is also coherent and unified. It is tragic and absurd in showing concern for the living conditions and significance of creators, heroes, famous artists and saints in history. It not only excavates the "ancestral graves" of China history, but also exposes the meaninglessness of people and culture. Lu Xun is desperate, but ironic and comic. He stood on the edge of the "ruins" of culture and laughed, sitting in the middle of the "grave" and doing "games" of novels. He has never enjoyed such elegance, calmness and humor. He has Zhuangzi-style thinking, Confucian realm of "being sage inside and being king outside" and existentialist transcendence consciousness, but he embodies the spirit and wisdom of "doubt", "rebellion" and "creation" of a modern thinker and writer. With the new story, China has another history, another culture, and ... great novels, real China modernist novels and fable novels.

Lu Xun is a pioneer and builder of China's modern novels. His novels are not only the stylistic form of language, but also the transformation, synthesis and creation of culture, thought, emotion and language. It is a three-dimensional, cylindrical world, not a flat, straight figure. Reading Lu Xun needs to accumulate certain historical and cultural knowledge, have profound social experience and life experience, and have their own aesthetics. Otherwise, it is a burden to the readers themselves and a kind of harm to Lu Xun.