This poem is clear in narration, natural in structure, clear in hierarchy and strong in logic. At the beginning of the poem, the background is explained first, indicating that May is the busy season for wheat harvest. Then write down that women lead their children to the fields to give food and water to young people who are cutting wheat. Later, it described young farmers cutting wheat with their heads down in Nangang wheat field, fumigating their feet with the heat, and baking their backs in the hot sun. They are tired and don't feel hot, but they just cherish the long days in summer and can do more work. At this point, the farmer's hard work has been strongly demonstrated. Then I described another sad scene: a poor woman, with a child in her arms and a broken basket in her hand, was picking wheat by the wheat harvester. The reason why she wants to pick up wheat is because her family's fields have been sold out and she has to pay official tax. Now there is no land to plant and no wheat to harvest, so she has to pick up wheat to satisfy her hunger. These two scenes are intertwined, with both differences and connections: the former reveals the hardships of farmers, while the latter reveals heavy taxes. Since heavy taxes have made poor women lose their fields, they will also make this peasant family who is cutting wheat lose their fields. Today's wheat pickers are yesterday's wheat pickers; Today's wheat harvesters may become tomorrow's wheat harvesters. Strong irony is self-evident. The poet linked the pain of farmers' life with the ease of his own life, feeling ashamed and unable to calm down for a long time. This lyric text is the essence of the whole poem. It is the product of the author's touching feelings and shows the poet's deep sympathy for the working people. Bai Juyi wrote satirical poems with the aim of "only making people sick, and I hope the emperor knows." In this poem, he made a sharp contrast between the peasants and himself as a court official with his own personal feelings, that is, he hoped that the "son of heaven" was affectionate and tactful, which could be described as well-intentioned.
Bai Juyi is the master of art who is best at writing narrative poems. His narrative poems can fully express people's feelings and things, and write the events described in them in twists and turns. Moreover, his narrative poems always contain the revelation of the soul, so they always contain feelings. Although he didn't write much in Watching the Wheat Harvest, he vividly described the hard and painful life scenes of the wheat harvesters and gleaner during the summer harvest. Not only wrote things, but also wrote hearts, including the author's own heart and the hearts of working people. The poet's heartstrings were obviously shaken and trembled by the tragic scene he heard and witnessed, so he raised his pen to express his feelings directly, and his lines were full of sympathy and pity for the workers. Poems such as "It's full of rustic heat, and the sun is shining on my back" and "My family's taxes are all gone, so I can take this to satisfy my hunger" contain the author's infinite sympathy and compassion. Therefore, in the narrative of this poem "Looking at Wheat", there is the infiltration of the author's feelings and the beating of his heart, and the author's heart is integrated with what he tells. What is commendable is that while describing the working people, the author can also truly write the voices of the working people, especially depicting the abnormal psychology of the working people in a certain situation and profoundly revealing the theme of the poem. In The Charcoal Man, "Poor man's clothes are simple, but he is worried about charcoal, wishing it would be cold", describing the abnormal psychology of the old man who sells charcoal because of food and clothing. "I don't know the heat when I'm exhausted, but I regret the long summer" in "Watching Wheat Cutting" is also a kind of abnormal psychology. This description depicts the working people's hearts in detail and goes deep into the details. The perfect unity of writing and writing in poetry is more shocking than the general unity of narrative and lyric. Bai Juyi is also an expert in using contrast techniques. In his poetry creation, he not only compared the poverty and kindness of the working people with the luxury tyranny of the landlord class, but also compared his own comfort with the poverty of the working people. After writing about the hardships and pains of farmers in the hot summer, the poet also thought of himself, feeling that he had no "merit" and "didn't work for farmers and mulberry", but he was paid "three hundred stones" and still had "surplus grain" by the end of the year, so he was "ashamed of it and couldn't forget it every day". It was very rare for poets to take the initiative to compare with farmers at that time. This contrast is really novel, accurate, commendable and thought-provoking, which shows the ideological height of this poem.
At the beginning of this poem, we were taken to Zhong Nanshan near Chang 'an, the then capital, and we saw an old man burning charcoal living a very poor life.
"Selling charcoal Weng, Nanshan cuts wood and burns charcoal." The old man who burns charcoal doesn't even have an inch of land. All he lives on is an axe, an ox cart and ten fingers blackened by fireworks. He has no wife and children, and he is alone. He cuts his salary and burns charcoal on Nanshan Mountain, making his face "dusty, smoky, with gray temples and black fingers". The hardships of labor can be imagined. Old people who burn charcoal have low demands on life. "What's the point of selling charcoal to make money?" ? He just wants to have food and clothing and maintain a minimum life. Arguably, it is not difficult for a person to support himself, but even such a wish is difficult for him to realize. Charcoal is what people use to keep warm. The old man worked hard to cut wood and burn charcoal, which brought warmth to others, but his clothes were pitifully thin.
Thin clothes always hope for warm weather, right? No, on the contrary, the old man forced by life is "worried about charcoal and willing to be cold". In order to sell more charcoal, he would rather endure double cold. This ambivalence profoundly shows the tragic situation of charcoal sellers.
"It snows a foot outside the city at night, and Xiao drives a charcoal car to roll the ice." The cold weather is really coming. Early in the morning, he got on the bus and walked on the icy road, but went to Chang 'an to sell charcoal. On the way from Zhong Nanshan to Chang 'an, what was he thinking? The poet didn't tell us; But you can imagine that he must be full of hope, because this car charcoal is directly related to his later life. After reading this, we feel closer to the elderly, and can't wait to know whether this car charcoal can be sold or not, and whether it can be sold at a reasonable price. However, the poet didn't tell us the result at once. He let the charcoal seller have a rest and let the readers calm down.
Then the pen turned and wrote, "Who are the two riders?" They are eunuchs and eunuchs' servants.