This book is also Gorky's autobiography. Aletha can be said to be a version of himself or his childhood, telling a living little Gorky.
First, multi-perspective description method
"Childhood" uses the method of alternately using children's perspective and adults' perspective to describe in art. The works mainly observe and describe life from children's perspective, making "Childhood" more vivid and full of childlike interest, such as the description of Alesha's father's death:
In a dark hut, my father was lying on the floor under the window. He was dressed in white and stretched himself. His barefoot toes are strangely open, his amiable hands are quietly placed on his chest, and his fingers are bent. His happy eyes are tightly closed, like two round black copper coins, and his kind face is dark, grinning fearfully.
The description in the above paragraph shows the mentality of a 3-year-old boy very truly. Because he is young and doesn't know what death means, he pays attention to things that he thinks are interesting and strange, such as his father's toes opening strangely and grinning uglily.
On the other hand, writers occasionally comment on life from the perspective of adults, which makes the words written by writers more clear and profound, more thoughtful and philosophical.
Second, language art.
The language of childhood is very lively and the scene description is vivid. For example, the scene description of grandpa's fight:
The two uncles suddenly stood up, reached across the table, shouted at grandpa, bared their teeth like dogs, and trembled all over. Grandfather knocked on the table with a spoon, flushed and crowed like a rooster:
"Tell you all to give me a beating!"
My grandmother's face changed with pain and said:
"Give them all, so that you can be quiet. Divide it! "
"Shut up, you are used to it!" Grandpa shouted, his eyes shining. It is strange that although he is very young, his screams shocked the world.
Although this passage is not long, it writes a messy fighting scene in a hierarchical way, vividly describing everyone's movements, expressions and moods, which makes people feel immersive after reading it.
Third, unique material selection.
Childhood is based on the writer's own experience, but it is not a simple reproduction of the writer's early life. On the one hand, it truly describes Aletha's growth process, what he saw and heard, and uses a lot of real materials. On the other hand, try our best to dig out the typical materials in life by typical methods and refine them to reflect the essence of life. Therefore, in childhood, characters are no longer simple individuals, but become representatives of a certain kind of people. Grandfather's home is no longer an ordinary family, but a microcosm of the ordinary citizen society created by the heavy labor, patriarchal handicraft production relations and boring life in the old Russian era.
childhood
This is the first part of Gorky's autobiography trilogy. It describes Gorky's childhood life from three to ten years old.
When Alesha was three years old, he lost his father, and his mother varvara gave him to his grandfather Kashlin for foster care. My grandfather lives in the town of Novogo Road, Niger. When my grandfather was young, he was a tracker. Later, he opened a dyehouse and became a small business owner. When Aletha came to his grandfather's house, his grandfather's manor had begun to decline, and his grandfather became more bossy and irritable because of the depression of the manor. Aletha's two uncles, Mikhail and Yakov, kept quarreling and fighting to separate and embezzle Aletha's mother's dowry. In this family, alessa saw the fog of hatred between people, and even the children were poisoned by this atmosphere. As soon as Alisha entered grandpa's house, she disliked him, was afraid of him and felt the hostility in his eyes. One day, out of curiosity, with the encouragement of his cousin, he threw a white tablecloth into the dye vat and dyed it blue. As a result, my grandfather knocked me out and gave birth to a serious illness. From then on, Aletha began to observe the people around him with anxiety, feeling unbearable humiliation and pain for himself and others. His mother abandoned him and left home because she couldn't stand such a life. But in this dirty environment, there is another kind of person, another kind of life. There are optimistic and simple people in Shigang, and Gregory, an upright old worker. Every holiday night, Yakov plays the guitar and plays a touching tune. Grandmother danced folk dances, as if she had regained her youth. All this made Alisha happy and sad. Among these people, my grandmother has the deepest influence on Alisha. My grandmother is kind and just, loves life, and believes that good will always overcome evil. She knows many beautiful folk stories, which sympathize with the poor and the weak and praise justice and light. The god she believes in is also amiable and amiable to people. Grandpa's god, however, doesn't love others, and always finds fault with others and punishes them.
Later, my grandfather moved to Kahnert Street and recruited two tenants. One is a progressive intellectual, nicknamed "good thing". He was the first outstanding person Aletha met, and he left an indelible impression on Aletha. The other is Peter, who disguised himself as a coachman after robbing the church. His cruelty and slave habits aroused Aletha's antipathy.
One morning, my mother suddenly came back, and her change made Alisha feel very sad. At first, she taught alessa to read, but the torture of life gradually made her careless, and she often lost her temper and pulled a long face. Later, when his mother remarried, Aletha lost interest in everything around him and tried to avoid adults and wanted to live alone. In this way, after a summer of thinking, he finally strengthened his strength and confidence.
Mother is unhappy after marriage and is often beaten by her stepfather. Poverty and disease are eroding her beauty. Because she is in a bad mood, she often shows coldness and unfairness to Alisha.
Alisha didn't feel warm at home and was discriminated against and made things difficult at school. Therefore, in Aletha's mind, the emotion of "love" is gradually replaced by hatred of everything. Due to disagreement with her stepfather, Aletha returned to her grandpa's house, and grandpa went bankrupt completely! Their lives are getting harder and harder. In order to make ends meet, Aletha and his neighbor's children teamed up to collect junk and sell it after school. At the same time, I also felt friendship and sympathy. But it also attracted criticism from the school.
At this time, Alisha's mother died. After he buried his mother, he soon went to the "human world" to make a living.