Content Introduction Editor
Sandalwood Punishment is a novel with a wonderful structure. With the historical background that the Germans built Jiaoji Railway in Shandong in 19, Yuan Shikai suppressed the Boxer Movement in Shandong, Eight-Nation Alliance captured Beijing, and Cixi fled in a panic, it vividly tells the story that it happened in the northeast of Gaomi with swaying brushstrokes, great compassion and great joy, and profound thoughts. The full text is based on the feud between the heroine Mei Niang and her father, michel platini and her father-in-law. The main characters in the novel are: Lao Zhao Jia who kills people without blinking an eye, Zhao Xiaojia, a crazy fool, Qian Dingqian, a high-sounding official who pleads for the people, Sun Mei Niang, a slutty and filial daughter, and Sun Bing, a die-hard hero and a true man. Their five main characters are interwoven with each other in the full text, which makes the full text full and vivid, and makes the folk characters of the whole northeast township of Gaomi vividly on the paper, showing readers the real scene of China being occupied by foreign powers in the early 2th century. [1]
Creation background of sandalwood punishment
Editor
According to Gaomi County Records, in 1897, Germany forced the Qing government to conclude the Jiaoao Lease Treaty, and in order to bring Shandong into its sphere of influence as soon as possible, in order to plunder the rich mineral resources in Shandong Mainland, in September 1898, the railway survey and road sign planting began. In the winter of 1899, the survey of Jiaoji Railway extended to Haoli area in the west of Gaomi City. In the process of exploration and planting, the Germans bought farmland at a low price and forced farmers to move their graves, which was strongly opposed by farmers along the route. Xixiang, in particular, is low-lying, and the river runs north and south, blocking the waterway for railway construction and flooding the fields, causing endless harm. In the autumn of 1899, the Jiaoji Railway began to be built from Qingdao to the west, and soon it reached the high-density boundary, railways and trains. Completely unfamiliar things aroused the fear of local people. Ignorance of western civilization has led to rumors that once the train comes, there will be no crops around for more than ten miles. The fear of trains, coupled with the brutal demolition by the Germans, led to a wave of railway demolition in Gaomi against Germany.
On November 22, 1899, Sun Wen held a conference in Shengjiazhuang. Under its organization, the anti-German team expanded rapidly, and the trend spread to 18 villages. Every village had leaders. They "grinded gunpowder, jingled bells every day, and gathered people to perform artillery. Each family has a broken pot to replace the gun. " On January 2, 19, Sun Wen, Li Jinbang and others led more than 2 people, carrying flags and guns, and went to the area of Hangjiabu to demolish five railway bunks. On the 11th, Sun Wen, Li Jinbang, etc. gathered more than 3, armed people in Zhangjiadazhuang, divided their forces into three ways, and once again stopped building roads in Hangjiabu area. When the Qing soldiers who were protecting the road were outnumbered, they immediately protected the Germans and fled back to Gaomi County.
On April 9th of the same year, thousands of anti-German people blocked the road from the north of Shengjiazhuang, burned several nests and prepared to attack the city. Later, Sun Wen led the masses to fortify along the Liugou River and defeated the attacking Qing soldiers. Then, the Qing soldiers' foreign guns team commanded by German consultants entered the war, and the masses fought bloody resistance. Because of heavy casualties, the struggle fell into a low tide. Sun Wen is hidden in Shengjiazhuang and Wangjiazhuang. Later, he was arrested on the morning of May 3 because of the traitor's betrayal.
On July 2nd, 19, more than 3, anti-German people gathered on the bank of Liugou River, continued to block the road, and prepared to attack the city and rescue Sun Wen. Hu Jinggui, the official of the Qing Dynasty, saw that the popular sentiment was surging and overwhelming, so he killed Sun Wen in the north of Dashiqiao outside the east gate of the city.
when Sun Wen was killed, the Qing court ordered that the body should not be taken over. An old juren, Shan Zhaojin, went to wail regardless of his personal safety, brought his own coffin and collected Sun Wen's body, and made a eulogy to pay his respects. The memorial said: "The imperial court signed a contract with the Germans to build the Jiaoji Railway, and the soldiers were linked to disaster, and the people were ravaged. Mr. Wang, as a farmer, is simple and unpretentious, and he can't bear to sit back and watch. "Mindful that Du Shui was a nuisance, harmful to people's livelihood, accommodating the masses, taking the liberty to resist, pulling out the wood, burning the nest shop, and the turbulent atmosphere caused a sudden sound shock."
Sun Wen was killed for resisting Germany and became a national hero in Gaomi people's mind. A bloody man left, and a steam-filled train came. The white steam is gone, and the story of Sun Wen spreads over the Jiaoji Railway. Mo Yan, who was born in Gaomi Northeast Township, heard the story of Sun Wen's resistance to Germany from the old population at an early age. In the postscript of his novel Sandalwood Punishment (which is also a drama of the same name created by Mo Yan in his early days), as early as the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, Sun Wen's anti-German story had been put on the stage by dense Maoqiang artists. Maoqiang opera is a local opera that spreads in Gaomi and Jiaozhou, and its singing is sad. "Especially Dan Jiao's singing is just like the weeping of oppressed women." Mo Yan has been a fan of Mao Qiang since childhood. In his childhood hometown, he often played a small role and went on stage as a walk-on. The story of Sun Wen's resistance to morality is like a seed buried in his heart. In 27, Mo Yan wrote sandalwood punishment, a book full of deep memories. [2]
Theme
Sandalwood Punishment is a novel painstakingly honed by the author. In this exquisite structure and rich language, it truly reproduces a civil anti-colonial struggle in Shandong Peninsula in the late Qing Dynasty. Sun Bing, a folk artist who led the anti-colonial struggle, was finally punished with sandalwood. Based on the theme of "torture", the works show many thrilling events in the political decline of the China Dynasty, including the Reform Movement of 1898, the Boxer Rebellion, foreign colonialists' extortion and so on. Around the implementation of sandalwood punishment, the novel vividly shows the cruelty and inhumanity of the struggle between feudal kingship and power, highlights the historical mechanism of autocratic power acting on individuals, and reflects the black soil and dark laws on which authoritarian power depends. Compared with the writing of sound, the author's way of intervening in modern history is unique. In the fragmented modern writing with deconstruction as its function, we insist on folk writing in the same strain and complement each other.
The narrative time and space of Sandalwood Punishment is set in the turbulent historical moment in 19, with the heaviest events in modern history, such as the Reform Movement of 1898, the Boxer Rebellion, Eight-Nation Alliance's invasion and German colonization of Shandong, as the story background, Sun Bing's resistance to Germany as the clue, cat-cavity drama as the soundtrack, six big punishments as the plot and carnival language as the rhythm, telling a story.
The story of Sandalwood Punishment is not complicated. It takes Mei Niang, the heroine selling donkey meat, as the axis, and brings out her own father, Sun Bing, who became an anti-German righteous man after the cat foreman, her male father, Zhao Jia, the executioner who once executed in the Department of Punishment, her michel platini, Jim, a county magistrate in Gaomi who had a close skin relationship with her, and her husband, Zhao Xiaojia, who appeared as a butcher. In the end, the father-in-law was executed by the father-in-law, the son-in-law was sent to the father-in-law, the daughter's lover was the witness of the arrest, and the daughter's father was sent to the guillotine. The daughter's husband was the executioner's assistant, and she was able to torture her life and death, but her daughter was helpless. The plot is intricate, the characters are entangled, and the climax is repeated. The author puts forward "reading with ears", which is exactly: the drama has not started, and the behind-the-scenes sound comes first. The novel "Feng Tou" tells the story to be unfolded by four protagonists except Sun Bing, and the characters and relationships are brought out together. Moreover, each language has identity characteristics, which complements the development of the "Pig Belly Department" event. Sun Bing set up a big stage for the appearance and interpretation of life with a series of characters who had no obsequiousness before the big festivals such as Qian Xiongfei, Tan Sitong, Liu Guangdi and Sun Bing in the late Qing Dynasty, and reappeared heroically, bringing that cruelty and coldness together. Until the end of torture, "Leopard Tail" joined Sun Bing to tell a play, which corresponds to the four heroines of Fengtou. All kinds of people are condensed into five categories here-cold-blooded Zhao Jia, helpless Mei Niang, rebellious Sun Bing, helpless Xiao Jia, powerless magistrate of a county, all people inside and outside the system, all little people, but they painted a collapse of the Qing Dynasty. [5]
Further, the author added sadistic emotion and masochistic pleasure, and between the sadistic obsession of the executioner Zhao Jia and the willingness of the rebel leader Sun Bing to be punished to complete the righteousness, which made people think deeply in reading. Perhaps this is the root of the people, the unconsciousness in consciousness, and even everyone is afraid of themselves, and the corruption has reached the gene, and there is no medicine to cure it. Mo Yan, who touched it, smelled blood. What kind of time and space relationship does this blood have with Jiangshan and history? What kind of personality link does the background color of killing inject into this time and space? It is more important for a writer to find clues about the continuation of history in concrete events and to torture human conscience in social dissection, which is more important for the world than for him to rush out a folk way between the masses and the pioneers and find a way of writing modern Chinese in China.
In the novel Sandalwood Punishment, the bearer of folk life forms is firstly Sun Bing's wild life consciousness, which is the embodiment of folk culture and folk forms. Sun Bing, a descendant of the drama, is the spokesman and master of the folk art form of cat cavity. He has been acting for more than 3 years all his life, and finally achieved the realm of integration of drama and me. Sun Bing and cat cavity are integrated, and cat cavity is the expression of Sun Bing's life form. As Mei Niang said, "Dad, you have been singing for half your life, and you are playing other people's stories. This time, you are sure that you want to enter the play, act and act, and you will become a play in the end. Sun Bing's whole life process is a cat's mouth in his own view, and his joys and sorrows, joys and sorrows, and even the end of his life in sandalwood punishment is a life drama with a beginning and an end. Cat cavity is a metaphor for its independent life form and a carrier of its individuality. In Sun Bing's bumpy and difficult life, it was accompanied by a series of bitter cat cavities: when his wife and children were humiliated and killed, they were hysterical "Long song wept bitterly", when they rebelled, they were excited "altar words", and when they suffered sandalwood punishment, they were miserable and sad "cats often cried". Sandalwood punishment is the highest point and the end of Sun Bing's life. He was the same in life and death, but he chose to die when he could, in order to perform the drama of sandalwood punishment well. In the cruel and long sandalwood punishment, his life consciousness got the greatest publicity. Cat cavity is an external artistic expression of the collective unconsciousness of the indigenous people in Gaomi Northeast Township, which seems to be a lively and mysterious ancient sacrificial song. Sun Bing's cat cavity is an outstanding representative of this kind of collective unconsciousness, and his original passion, which is full of personality and vitality from the depths of the northeast countryside, is the essence of folk life consciousness. [6]
"Sandalwood Punishment" is just like the cat cavity can't enter the glorious hall and perform on the same stage as Italian opera and Russian ballet, and this novel is unlikely to be appreciated by readers who love western literature and art. Just as the cat cavity can only be performed in the square for the working masses, my novel can only be read by readers who are more friendly to folk culture. "
Sandalwood Punishment is progressing step by step in spirit. There has always been an upward poetic clue in it, just like a piece of music, which has a full swing in front. Until Sun Bing's execution and death, a sharp and gorgeous movement suddenly appeared in the music, bringing the whole music to a climax and stopping here abruptly. Sandalwood Punishment achieves this effect in narrative, which ends with the strongest sound of the whole novel and the death of Sun Bing, leaving only the lingering sound of sandalwood punishment lingering in readers' hearts for a long time. [7]
Here, Mo Yan's rejection of a language is linked with his confidence in the language he has chosen. He does not deny his extensive use of verse, operas and Daobai. He does not shy away from his attention to dramatic effects, rather, he pays more attention to smooth, simple, exaggerated and gorgeous narratives. He confesses that individual writing inherits the folk rap art that was once the basis of novels, which actually has the meaning of drawing latitude and longitude. Although it is not so straightforward, there is no way to restrain his dissatisfaction with the increasingly assimilated literary concept. However, this person does not work as a teacher. He observes life in a low-key manner, puts his own understanding into other people's experiences, and can maintain his honest attitude in the hot season of mania or the cold and lonely, although there are some affectations and exaggerations, but he never loses honesty in the bottom line. Mo Yan doesn't hide his vigilance against the invasion of western powerful languages by eastern languages under the background of globalization. For the "evolution" of languages, Mo Yan chose to retreat and go to the folk, and at this time he became "back to the folk". Because of this choice, he realized that "in today's novel, which was originally a folk art, has gradually become an elegant expression in the temple."
The novel depicts a large number of vivid characters, such as Sun Bing, the troupe leader with romantic temperament, Jim, a magistrate of Gaomi county with a sense of justice, Zhao Jia, the executioner who retired from the lobby of the capital punishment department, their daughter, adopted daughter, daughter-in-law, Sun Mei-niang, cruel and cunning politician Yuan Shikai and so on.
In Sandalwood Punishment, besides the gruesome temple life, it also depicts another vibrant folk life form. Folk is another living space opposite to the temple. Folk life form is another life consciousness form independent of the mainstream life form of temples, which is rooted in the soil of folk cultural form. The form of folk culture is "produced in the field where the state power control is relatively weak, and it preserves a relatively free and lively form, which can truly express the face of civil society life and the emotional world of the lower classes." "Freedom is its most basic aesthetic style. Folk tradition means that the primitive vitality of human beings tightly embraces the process of life itself, from which generate shows his love and hatred for life and his pursuit of life desire, which can not be regulated by any moral preaching, and can not be constrained by any political regulations, even some abstract concepts such as civilization, progress and beauty can not be generalized freely. " Therefore, folk life forms are full of primitive vitality consciousness, reflecting a natural, tragic and powerful life aesthetics. [6]
Sandalwood Punishment
"Sandalwood Punishment" takes the traditional punishment as the hub and the cat cavity of folk drama as the main form of expression, and tells readers a history of modern Jiaodong people's resistance to German powers in fluent and smooth language. This novel is a reaction to magical realism and western modernist novels, and it is also a pleasure challenge to popular historical novels. The whole book has the vividness of appreciating elegance and vulgarity and telling stories from people in folk literature. The author uses the ostentatious structural model of "phoenix head-pig belly-leopard tail" to tell a complicated story, which is sometimes creepy and sometimes tender. From the perspective of narrative techniques, each section is a character's self-report, which requires the author's brushwork to keep jumping on each character, and it must be natural and inseparable.
In the pork belly part of the novel Sandalwood Punishment, the omniscient narrative perspective is adopted to tell the story directly to the readers, and some facts, characters' background, cause and effect of events, environmental atmosphere, etc. are introduced by summarizing the language, while in the phoenix head and leopard tail, the limited narrative perspective is adopted.