Engels said to the European Renaissance: "This is an era when giants are needed and produced." Similarly, the May 4th Movement in China was also a period when giants were needed and produced. Lu Xun is one of the giants of this era. "Lu Xun was the leader of China's Cultural Revolution. He is not only a great writer, but also a great thinker and revolutionary. " Lu Xun is the founder of modern literature in China. His creative works are rich and far-reaching, and he has made great achievements in the fields of poetry, novels and prose. His works profoundly reflect the characteristics of the times in which he lived and have important practical significance. Lu Xun's novels have successively formed three collections of short stories: Scream, Hesitation and New Stories. With its unique artistic charm, it has touched the heartstrings of millions of readers, infected and educated the younger generation, which is unforgettable. This paper tries to analyze its artistic characteristics from the aspects of language, structure, characters and theme. First, concise and vivid language style.
It is a miracle that China's modern novels began and matured in Lu Xun's hands, and it is even more a miracle that China's modern vernacular literature language began and matured in Lu Xun's hands. Lu Xun is the first person to write novels in vernacular since the New Literature Movement. He advocated: "It is not a pity to read it at least twice after writing and try to delete unnecessary words, sentences and paragraphs." His novel language has a meaningful, vivid and simple style. Specifically, it has the following three characteristics.
(a) temper the text, accurate refining. For example, "Medicine" wrote: "Aunt Hua took out a bag of foreign money under the pillow and gave it to the old bolt for a long time. Old Shuan took it, put it in her pocket and pressed it twice outside. " This passage uses verbs and adjectives such as "Tao", "Take it out", "Pass it over", "Shake it", "Pack it" and "Press it twice", which vividly describes the hardworking and thrifty Hua Laoshuan couple saving their hard-earned money to buy human blood steamed bread to treat their son's consumption.
(2) Excellent word combination. Lu Xun uses metaphor, metonymy, contrast, parallelism and repetition to make his works fascinating and intriguing. 1. Metaphor: For example, in Medicine, it is said that "Lao Shuan also looked over there, but only saw the backs of a bunch of people; The neck is very long, as if many ducks were pinched by invisible hands. " A duck with a neck is used to describe people standing on tiptoe and squeezing their heads around the execution ground to watch beheading, which reflects people's ignorance and numbness. This metaphor is novel and appropriate. 2. Metonymy: For example, Kong Yiji wrote: "You can buy a meat dish if you get more than a dozen, but most of these customers are short-sleeved gangs, and generally they are not so rich. Only those who wear gowns walk into the house next to the store, ask for wine and vegetables, and drink slowly. " The "short coat gang" was used to refer to the poor at that time, and the "long coat gang" was used to refer to the wealthy upper class at that time. Putting on different clothes for different people is thought-provoking.
3. Contrast: For example, in "Hometown", the image of the boy who jumped into the soil was written as "purple round face, wearing a small felt hat and a bright silver collar around his neck". Twenty years later, the image of Runtu is "he is wearing a worn felt hat and only a thin cotton-padded jacket, shivering all over;" Holding a paper bag and a long pipe in my hand, it is not the red and round hand I remember, but a thick, stupid and cracked hand like pine bark. "Using contrast to describe the boy who jumped into the soil and the man who became a" puppet "twenty years later shows Lu Xun's infinite sympathy for the leap soil.
4. Repetition: For example, in the third, fourth and sixth paragraphs of Kong Yiji, there are: "You can laugh a few times", "Everyone laughs" and "Everyone laughs". Repetition for three times shows that Kong Yiji is just a joke in people's minds. The shopkeeper said, "I still owe 19 dollars!" " ""You still owe nineteen dollars! " "Kong Yiji still owes nineteen dollars" and so on are repeated four times, indicating that the shopkeeper doesn't care about Kong Yi's life and death, but only cares about Kong Yiji's "owing nineteen dollars", which shows Kong Yiji's tragic fate. 5. parallelism: for example, there are several lines in "Regret for the Past": five "like this", two "I hate this" and three "I want this", which shows that Juansheng has poured out his thoughts and sadness for his son and is very lyrical.
(3) The title is concise and highly generalized. For example, mourning for the past can be understood as "mourning for the dead Zijun" or "mourning for the lost time and Zijun". "Medicine" is not a prescription for treating diseases, but a medicine for treating consumption extracted from steamed bread stained with the blood of revolutionary martyrs, which has profound implications. The titles of eight new stories are mending the sky, flying to the moon, casting swords and rising.
Death, non-attack, water control, picking roses, and going through customs, among which the original name of Bu Tian was Bu Zhoushan, and the original name of casting sword was Mei Chi. The revised title can better express the theme of the work. Mending the Heaven entrusts the author's great wish to bring up new people, mend the sky and save the people, while Casting a Sword shows the fighting spirit of the author's revenge by casting a sword.
Second, the novel structure based on the principle of individuality.
Lu Xun's novels are not won by the twists and turns of the story, but are famous for shaping vivid personality. The structure of his novels is mainly to express the personality of the characters, and the structural forms are rich and colorful. The structural forms of Lu Xun's novels mainly include:
(1) single clue structure. Run through the whole story with a central clue. For example, A Little Thing, written before and after the crash, has a clear structure. Social drama is organized in chronological order from pre-drama to post-drama. "Happy Family" interweaves the thoughts of young writers with the troubles of reality, reflecting the difficult situation of intellectuals. "Soap" skillfully exposes the hypocrisy of Siming around the relationship between "Ba Zao" and filial piety to his daughter.
(2) Two clue structures. It can be represented as main line and auxiliary line, or as open line and dark line. The main line of "Hometown" is "I" and the sub-line is "moistening the soil"; At the same time, the story is organized by comparison. By comparing the innocent and lively image of watermelon's small leap soil 20 years ago with the tragic leap soil 20 years later, it reflects the poor life reality of farmers in feudal society; Twenty years ago, I was called Brother Xun, and we were very close. Twenty years later, Runtu called "I" the main person. The contrast between the former and the latter highlights that the existence of class causes the gap between people. And through the macro comparison of the relationship between children and aquatic organisms, as well as the relationship between "I" and youth in childhood, the author's pursuit of an ideal society is demonstrated. There are two clues in Medicine: the bright line is that Hua Laoshuan bought human blood steamed bread for Xiao Shuan to treat consumption, and the dark line is that revolutionary Yu Xia was slaughtered by the ruler. Two clues run through the human blood steamed bread, forming a story. The plot structure of this light and dark line is very clever, which left a deep impression on readers.
(3) Intercept the structure of life segments. This is the way to express characters through several typical events. Kong Yiji is a vertical segment structure, which describes Kong Yiji's several visits to Xianheng Hotel in sequence. The True Story of Ah Q is a vertical fragmented structure as a whole, but it is also a horizontal fragmented structure, which describes the story of victory, the tragedy of love, the people's livelihood issues, from ZTE to the end, revolution, unrevolution and happy reunion, and describes all aspects of Ah Q's life.
(4) Use flashback and supplementary narration. Write the ending first, and then describe and recall the tragic process of the characters. Such as "Blessing", first write the death of Sister Xianglin, and then describe her miserable life. Regret for the Past begins with Juansheng moving back to the guild hall and regretting the death of Zijun, and then recalls the tragic process of his understanding, love, cohabitation, separation and death with Zijun.
(5) Organize the plot structure according to the internal logical relationship of things. Diary of a Madman is all about the morbid psychology of a madman, but we can sort out a clue from it. Crazy people study from history and find that there is "cannibalism" in the cracks; Moreover, seeing that the real society is a cannibal society, we can see the hypocrisy of cannibals; Finally, the madman shouted "Save the children" and called on everyone to overthrow this cannibal society. This novel is well-structured and logical.
(6) The structural arrangement of the novel adopts the combination of side contrast and positive description, and the combination of history and reality. In the first section of Water Control, scholars on the mountain of realistic culture discuss whether there is such a person; In the second quarter, write that gentlemen meet Dayu; The third section describes the heroic image of Dayu's water control. The corruption of scholars who wrote cultural mountains and water conservancy inspectors set off Dayu's dedication to the public from the opposite side, and combined history with reality to form a seamless structure. Commenting on the structural forms of Lu Xun's1920s novels, Mao Dun said: "In China's new literary world, Lu Xun is often the pioneer of creating' new forms'; Almost one of the more than ten novels of Scream is formal, and these new forms have a great influence on young writers, and most people will inevitably follow suit. "
Thirdly, typicality creates vivid characters.
In Lu Xun's novels, some chapters are about farmers. These works describe the life and thoughts of farmers in China in the early 20th century, as well as their groans and struggles in the ocean of life, and have created many real images of farmers and even world-famous models. In this long gallery of farmers' images, there are Ah Q, who is famous for her spiritual victory, Xianglinsao, who died of fear, a stubborn and provocative love aunt, a generous and hospitable father-in-law on June 1st, and a melancholy land. For their description, Lu Xun mostly caught a fragment of their life, or the so-called "half-life story", or all kinds of earnest stories that started from childhood and lasted for twenty or thirty years. In this way, people can see the life history of peasants in an era more clearly from them, and see Lu Xun's exploration of the social roots that caused their disasters. We don't know how Ah Q spent his childhood, but he vividly and concretely described the lifestyle of Runtu's youth. He is so wise, brave and open-minded. He talks about things in the seaside countryside, whether it's watching melons in the fields or catching fish and shells on the beach. From Hometown, an active, robust, lively, well-informed and articulate place on the beach in Gua Tian, we can easily associate it with Social Drama, which is full of joy, life, energy and courage to travel. Like moistening the soil, the children of these farmers are able to adapt to rural life despite their young age. Apart from herding cattle, punting boats and fishing for shrimp, "no one can swim, but two or three of them are still very good at making waves." Working life has tempered their courage, and the vast world of nature has enriched their wisdom. They all have the simplicity, kindness and enthusiasm of the traditional working people. Nine out of ten farmers who have lived in this remote seaside village for many years are illiterate and don't know so many classics of sages. The children play together, although they are similar in age, "but when it comes to that generation, at least uncles and some great-grandfathers, no one in the village will come up with the word' guilty'." The farmers in the village are very generous and hospitable, friendly and enthusiastic. There are guests at home, all children herding cattle and catching shrimps in the fields. The shrimps caught are all small guests. The children of these farmers tried their best to persuade adults to take their little guests to the theatre by boat and pay attention to safety on the way. On the way back from the theater, stealing Luohansong was the most interesting scene in social drama. Because boiled beans are for guests, Afa said excitedly, "Steal ours, ours are much bigger." Such a simple and kind thought, in the old society of "every man for himself, the devil takes the hindmost", is like a bright flame, which shows people the future and hope of life. The main peasant images are Ah Q (The True Story of Ah Q), Sister Xianglin (Blessing), Sister Shansi (Tomorrow), Aunt Aigu (Divorce), Seven Jin (Storm) and (Hometown). Lu Xun's novels focus on exposing the evils of feudalism, describing the fate of intellectuals and exploring their way forward. Therefore, the life tragedies of Kong Yiji and Chen Shicheng are historical tragedies during the collapse of the feudal system, because the imperial examination system is attached to the feudal system. Once the feudal system collapses, intellectuals who take the road of imperial examination will inevitably have a tragedy of "skin does not exist, Mao will not be attached." Lu Xun did not choose Ding, the top scholar in the imperial examination, as the leading role, but chose Kong Yiji, who was in poverty, which reflected his understanding of the historical destiny of intellectuals in this period. It is through this image-building of intellectuals that Lu Xun told people that with the feudal society approaching the end of the historical journey, the road of imperial examination, which once brought hope to middle and lower intellectuals, has long been a dead end. If Kong Yiji and Chen Shicheng in The Scream are mourned by the author with tears, then the author in Wandering does not pity his hatred and satire, and tries his best to curse their deaths. No matter Siming, Gao Deyu or their foxes, they are respectable and knowledgeable gentlemen on the surface, but they are decadent and shameless in their bones. They hate all new things, curse the May 4th new culture crazily, and keep saying that they want to "tear down unhealthy practices" and "preserve the quintessence of the country". The author exposed the dirty nature of these "unearned parties" in the form of cartoons. The powerful whipping of this kind of feudal guardians is in line with the new changes in class relations in cultural circles. At the climax of the May 4th Movement, the right-wing bourgeois intellectuals in the United front represented by Hu Shi had begun anti-Marxist activities. With the deepening of the revolutionary struggle, the differences within the United front gradually developed into divisions. In this division, Lu Xun, on the one hand, carried out profound thinking and exploration, on the other hand, continued the battle in the early May 4th Movement and launched a great struggle against imperialism, feudalism, feudal warlords and their minions. The main intellectuals are Madman (Diary of a Madman), Lu (in a restaurant), Wei (a lonely man), Juansheng, Zijun (Mourning for the Past), Chen Shicheng (Bai Guang), Kong Yiji (Kong Yiji), Siming (Soap) and Goyle. Fourth, calm narrative style.
Narration is the most important expression of the novel, and the characteristics of narrative style are the most direct embodiment of the author's personal style. As a novelist who completed A Brief History of Chinese Novels in theory and took more than 30 short stories as a model in practice, Lu Xun constantly explored and innovated the narrative style of novels and formed a unique narrative style. Accurately grasping the narrative characteristics of Lu Xun's novels is undoubtedly of great practical significance for us to implement the teaching of Lu Xun's novels. The narrative style of Lu Xun's novels mainly has three characteristics: conciseness, coldness and calmness.
(1) is concise.
Conciseness embodies the high efficiency of information presentation when the novelist narrates. Lu Xun inherited the tradition of China literature, presenting rich information, expressing deep feelings and conveying profound thoughts from multiple angles and levels in a limited space. The amount of writing in his novels is basically inversely proportional to the amount of information presented, which shows the economy and efficiency that contemporary and later novelists can't achieve. Although he didn't finish writing a novel in his life, most of the more than 30 short stories he left behind can be regarded as the condensation of a long masterpiece from the information he carried. In order to achieve this efficiency, Lu Xun's narrative is concise, and he has done his best in the deletion of content, the deletion of text, the choice of narrative angle and the installation of structure. Most of his novels take the first person as the narrative perspective, and consciously "simplify" the reaction of onlookers to the behavior of the parties. "Blessing" has thus become the story of a bad karma woman I know, and "Kong Yiji" records the experience of a down-and-out scholar in the eyes of a hotel waiter. Medicine adopts a double-line structure, which contrasts Yu Xia's revolutionary activities with the trivial life of Hua Laoshuan's family, and saves a lot of space while highlighting the main idea. Otherwise, it would be a waste of pen and ink to describe Yu Xia's prison life positively in Dialogue with Tea drinkers, and it would also fail to show the people's reaction to Xia's deeds at that time. As for the "conciseness" created by Mr. Lu Xun through the scrutiny and polishing of words, we can follow the tradition of "refining words" in classical poetry in teaching. Du Fu wrote four movements and expressed three emotions in the seven words "They run with you, cry, and they pull your sleeve" in "Military Vehicle Shop". The conciseness of narrative discourse in Lu Xun's novels is also climbing to such a height. In "Kong Yiji", it is shown that Kong Yiji "paid nine pennies and big money" for "revenge" for the ridicule of others, and "found four pennies and big money" after being beaten. In Medicine, Hua Laoshuan repeatedly "presses" outside the pocket of money, and Uncle Kang "pinches" after "robbing foreign money"; ? The choice of all these words can be seen in Lu Xun's intentional pursuit of the greatest expressive force of words. In the teaching of Lu Xun's novels, we should pay attention to this "deliberate" pursuit.
(2) cold.
Cold refers to the novelist's high restraint on emotional expression when narrating. The concise external symbol is the number of words, and the cold scale is the depth of emotional input. The deeper the novelist's emotion, the more his narrative can restrain the deviation or overflow of emotion. The cold narration in Lu Xun's novels is the inheritance and development of the seemingly light tradition of China literature. In teaching, we should especially stick to those seemingly heartless paragraphs and sentences in Lu Xun's works. There is such a dialogue in "Blessing", in which "I" asked Sister Xianglin, a day laborer in her fourth uncle's family, "How did she die?" As a result, the short-term worker replied, "How did she die? -not poor to death? " This is a typical "cold"! Rhetorical questions contain the anger, bitterness and helplessness of short-term workers. It is from this "ruthlessness" that readers feel "sentimental".
In Medicine, when tea drinkers finished talking about Yu Xia's prison life and complimented Hua Laoshuan and Hua Xiaoshuan on their "good luck", Lu Xun wrote: "Xiao Shuan coughed desperately when he was busy." This sentence is really "cold" to the reader's heart, but it has aroused the author's enthusiasm for ordinary people to "mourn their misfortune"!
(3) calm down.
Calmly reflects the novelist's hidden ability to convey ideas in the narrative process. China's classical novels are argumentative and didactic because of their close relationship with rap performances. In the narrative process of a story, the author is always eager to express his views, judge the words and deeds of the characters in the story, and decide the fate of the characters and the direction of the story according to the author's wishes. Lu Xun's novel creation has a "mature" process in skills, which includes the conscious pursuit of his narrative style gradually becoming calm. He reflected on many controversial works with obvious creative intentions, such as Diary of a Madman and The True Story of Ah Q, etc. The narrative styles of Medicine, Kong Yiji and some works in New Stories show their leisurely characteristics. At the end of the much-watched Medicine, Yu Xia's mother and Hua Xiaoshuan's mother saw a crow. The author seems to be handy and silent, but it makes readers struggle to find the author's intention. Some people say that it is to render the desolation of the cemetery, some people say that it is to reveal the bankruptcy of superstition, and some people say that crows are filial birds. Appearing in the cemetery at this time can aggravate the tragedy of losing children in old age. The emergence of these viewpoints is the "fruitful achievement" brought by the "calm" narrative style.
Similarly, at the end of Kong Yiji, the author did not give a clear and straightforward account of Kong Yiji's ending, but took pains to describe the owner's attitude towards Kong Yiji at the end of the year, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival and the end of the year. Finally, he added a famous sentence "I haven't seen him until now-about Kong Yiji really dead", which shows that the author paid full attention to the relationship between the fate of the characters and the logic of his own personality development when he narrated. Fifth, eliminate the tragic beauty of pessimism and pain.
In a sense, novels are life dramas written on paper. The two major types of life drama are tragedy and comedy. Lu Xun's novels have both types. The proportion of tragic themes in Lu Xun's novels is obvious to all. Medicine, tomorrow, white light, blessings, in restaurants, ever-burning lamps, lonely people, regrets about the past, and so on, are all tragic stories. They show people sadness, but they are touching and beautiful; They are sad art flowers.
(1) Because the purpose of Lu Xun's literary activities is to "transform the national character", his novels are generally not aimed at great heroes, but at ordinary people with weaknesses. Almost all the tragedies written by Lu Xun are the tragedies of ordinary people.
Sister Xianglin, who died in the New Year's "blessing", is an ordinary maid of the landlord's family; Ah Q, who died in vain on the day of Zhuang's "revolution", is an ordinary farm worker in the countryside; Zijun, tragically destroyed in Evil Wind and Poisonous Flame, is an ordinary intellectual woman. Wait a minute. They have too many weaknesses to allow them to exist in a cold life. Therefore, the tragic beauty of such novels mainly reflects not the spiritual beauty of the tragic characters themselves, but the author's aesthetic evaluation.
(2) Because most tragic figures have shortcomings of one kind or another, Lu Xun took a well-intentioned critical attitude towards them for the purpose of "transforming the national character"; Therefore, some of Lu Xun's tragic novels often contain comedy factors. Kong Yiji and The True Story of Ah Q are marginal themes of tragicomedy. Kong Yiji and Ah Q in the novel are cartoon characters. But they can't get rid of the shackles of society and have to go to the destruction of tragedy. So we send them a "tearful smile", and the beauty of tragedy is mixed with the beauty of comedy.
(3) When Lu Xun "destroyed the valuable things in life for people to see", he mastered the appropriate limits in the aesthetic threshold.
He carefully avoided those cruel, bloody and painful scenes and replaced them with refracted and implicit images. Regardless of the death of Ah Q and Sister Xianglin, he did it. Obviously, the revolutionary Yu Xia was beheaded in medicine. Although the author tried to exaggerate the atmosphere, he did not describe the tragic moment positively. Yu Xia's death is explained through the details of Hua Laoshuan and the executioner Kang Dashu's "cash on delivery". Thus, the tragic beauty of "terror" is ruled out, but the shocking power is enhanced.
(4) Most of Lu Xun's tragic novels are also insulated from pessimism.
In his early Medicine, although he had his own "staghorn coldness", the garlands on Yu Xia's tomb and crows flying away from the grave were still symbols of hope. The collection of hometown is the idea that "the road is long and its Xiu Yuan is Xi, and Xiu Yuan is Xi, so I will go up and down for it"; The road stretches forward in the moonlight, and the author entrusts Honger and Shui Sheng to the future. Although the arsonist in the ever-burning lamp was imprisoned forever, it ended with a song echoed by children: "? Fire and fire, have some snacks and sing a play. " In Lonely Man, Wei smiled coldly after his death, which reminds people of a "wounded wolf" howling, and "sadness is mixed with anger and sadness". We should also see that regret for the past is not simply "mourning for the past"; After everything was gone, Juansheng shouted, "I'm still alive. I have to move on to a new life? " . It can be seen that in Lu Xun's tragic novels, the voice of resistance is stronger than one. "Literature is fighting!" Lu Xun's poetic god is not a sad angel, but a soldier who "raises his spear". Therefore, the tragic beauty created by Lu Xun finally turned into persistent life and passion for fighting.
Sixth, the successful combination of realism and symbolic art.
Lu Xun's novels are not surprisingly ingenious in plot, but touching in a high degree of truth. He said: "Guy's stories are all true, and what he heard and experienced was only because of realism." He called for "looking at life sincerely, profoundly and boldly, writing his own flesh and blood" and creating "real new literature and art". His novels make good use of realism, vividly depict the characters' characters' words and deeds, and depict their mental state. Lu Xun advocated truth and made good use of line drawing techniques, but he did not exclude symbolic art. He combined realism with symbolic art to create colorful images. In the process of translating the Collection of Foreign Novels, Lu Xun became interested in Antelev's novels of "reconciling symbolism and realism". His translation of Man and Silence is symbolic of realism, which greatly strengthens the intensity and depth of expression. Lu Xun integrated realism and symbolic art, bringing out the best in each other, seeking transcendence and profundity in reality, making his works more artistic. Diary of a Madman is the product of realism and symbolism. In a letter to Xu Shoushang on August 20th, 19 18, Lu Xun talked about the origin of Diary of a Madman: "? I occasionally read books and look in the mirror, but I realized that people in China still eat people, so I wrote this article. This discovery is also great, but few people know it. " "Eating people" is the image embodiment of the essence of the old system and old ethics. The madman is suspicious and nervous about the eyes around him (including the eyes of dogs and dead fish) and has absurd and weird feelings about the surrounding scenery. This is the psychological image of "cannibalism" in the madman's imagination. It is true that the author shows a vivid psychological image for the madman in a realistic way. But for normal people, it is also a variation and exaggeration. This variation and exaggeration of authenticity is the starting point of symbolism and an effective way to deeply express the author's subjective feelings and thoughts. In the novel, Mr. Gu Jiu's old running script is a symbol of madman's old habits referring to ancient traditions; Zhao Guiweng's eyes and many others hint at the threat of "cannibalism". Therefore, A Madman's Diary is a successful combination of realism and symbolic art. The combination of realism and symbolic art in Lu Xun's novels not only makes readers feel natural, cordial and vivid, but also makes the works have profound ideological significance.
Luxun's novels are profound and profound, with profound thoughts and great artistic charm. After reading them, it is chilling and memorable. This is because it not only inherits China's classical novels in art, but also absorbs the creative techniques of foreign short stories, forming its own unique artistic style. Lu Xun's novels mercilessly expose and criticize the social disadvantages and national inferiority from the height of conceptual criticism. The malpractice of the times and the people's bad habits have been mercilessly exposed and criticized.