For a novel reader, how to appreciate the novel is very important, but first of all, we must make clear why we appreciate the novel, or where the beauty of the novel lies.
1. Realistic beauty
Literature has fiction, but literature pays attention to the beauty of realism, which comes from the requirement of artistic truth. Furthermore, the so-called theme is different from the theme in literature. Poetry and prose are the themes, while drama and novels are the themes. Therefore, as we all know, narrative literature with the theme of drama and novel has more advantages than literature with the theme in reflecting the truth of life. However, the realistic beauty of drama is not the same as that of novel. Drama reflects the truth of life with limited artistic truth, which always gives people an unreal feeling, while novels can often go deep into all fields and aspects of real life fully and freely, making them vivid and realistic, and can reach the point where both macro and micro resemble the real world. Therefore, people often refer to novel works as "the picture scroll of life" or "the mirror of human social life", which highlights the realistic beauty of novel art.
Ye Zhou, a novel critic of Ming Dynasty in China, first noticed this problem in Chapter 21 of Water Margin: "This chapter is vivid in writing and simple in chemical engineering. Describing Song Jiang, Yan Poxi and Yan Po can not only draw your eyes, but also your heart. Not only can you draw a heart, but you can also draw an accident. Gu Hutou and Wu Daozi Anneng come here? " The "eyes", "heart" and "accident" mentioned here are exactly three different levels of the realistic beauty of the novel. These three levels have their own advantages and disadvantages in drama, prose and poetry. Drama is good at reappearing the present scene, prose is good at describing psychological activities, poetry is good at expressing hints and implications, and novels are both present, psychological and unexpected.
On the one hand, novels can truly and concretely describe life in a wider range; On the other hand, the vivid description of life in the novel is not arbitrary, and it must be centered on portraying the characters in the novel and serve for shaping the characters. Therefore, the loyalty of the characters in the novel is the most important and distinctive content of the vivid beauty of the novel. Just like this, the realistic beauty of novels is not measured by quantity, but by the extent to which the real life reflected by the author has typical aesthetic connotation, or whether it reflects the writer's lofty aesthetic ideal. Once the novel transforms the truth of life into the truth of art, it can create a brand-new realm far more vivid, charming and fresh than the truth of life in the world imagined by readers.
2. Rich beauty
A good novel is like a pregnant life, which allows you to be in a real and broad life and has a three-dimensional sense. It always gives readers various experiences, hints, exhortations or longings. The rich beauty of novel art lies not in the vastness of life, but in its essence; Not in the number of words, but in the typicality of image-building; Not in the lively phenomenon, but in the profound ideological connotation; It's not the length of the space, but whether it is full on the whole and whether there is room for deliberation.
Literature is a study of human beings, and the novel art with narration as the main part is a writer. Therefore, the rich beauty of the novel lies in how broad, broad and ambiguous the characters are. Novelists use image thinking to create images, and images are always greater than thoughts. In other words, the image of a novel always has a certain side (the meaning given to the image by the work) and an uncertain side (the reader's experience and appreciation of the image by virtue of his own experience and cultivation), so that the understanding of the content of the novel is not simple and unified, thus reflecting the rich beauty of the novel. In other words, the readers of the novel see the uncertain side from the certain side, and give it a different determination with their own experience and cultivation, which is also one of the attractive mysteries of the novel with simple image and rich content.
3. Casting the beauty of spirit
The so-called beauty of casting souls means that novels can purify people's hearts and cast people's souls. Human nature is not passively endowed by society, and its physiological basis is hereditary to some extent, but its root lies in acquired cultivation. The value of human lies in the plasticity and creativity of human brain.
Appreciation of beautiful things can cultivate people's sentiment and improve their physical and mental health. However, in the appreciation of novels, because novels also have realistic beauty and rich beauty, it provides a broader world for the beauty of novels. Appreciating an excellent novel, just as we feel the beauty of life, the body and mind are integrated, imperceptibly, and even the whole personality is injected into it, so as to be cultivated by the soul.
Beauty and humanity should be unified naturally and harmoniously like spring breeze and willow. Feeling the beauty of novels is one of the best ways to cultivate our nuanced personality and pure and noble taste. Writer Yang Mo once said with deep affection: "After reading the revolutionary novels of the Soviet Union, my mood gradually changed, from melancholy and distress to cheerfulness and liveliness;" I saw nobility and light from the desolation and filth of the land; I changed from cursing and hating the sinful life to loving and praising the beautiful and noble cause. I finally found a way out! "(Youth is beautiful) This vividly describes Yang Mo's emotional purification in the process of novel appreciation.
4. The beauty of cognition
All literature is a reflection of real life in a writer's mind, and if a writer wants to reflect it, he must bring his own emotional color and aesthetic comprehension. Therefore, our appreciation of literature is actually a re-understanding and re-evaluation of the life reflected by writers. Fiction is a reflection of the art of life. At the same time, the realistic beauty of fiction requires us to experience more things in the process of appreciating fiction, which makes the cognitive beauty of fiction show more subtle and real characteristics. Schumann said in Story Club in the late Qing Dynasty: "If you want to control the customs of a country, the level of the people and the trend of her husband's society, Brother Mo is interested in novels. Those who cover novels are the most accurate and fair investigation records of the nation. " That's good.
However, the psychological process of appreciating cognitive beauty in novels is always accompanied by artistic image and artistic emotion. We often say: "literature is the textbook of life", but many people have made a one-sided and straightforward interpretation of this textbook, thinking that the beauty of understanding gained by appreciating novels is equivalent to reading ordinary textbooks, ignoring that novel appreciation belongs to the aesthetic category and has the characteristics of image and emotion. Cognition and aesthetics in novels complement each other, while general scientific papers have no aesthetic function.
Second, the aesthetic requirements of novel appreciation
1. From "reading stories" to "reading people"
Explained from the traditional theory, a novel should of course tell a story. China's novels have attached importance to stories since their birth. Wei and Jin novels are famous for their strangeness, Tang and Song legends are fascinating, and Song and Yuan storybooks are also good at stories. Later Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio, etc. It is also indispensable to this story. However, is the novel just a story? Or do you appreciate novels just to read stories? Where should our interest in appreciation be?
It is said that in July 1982, Mr. Dong Dingshan, a Chinese-American writer, talked about American literature in Shanghai, saying that ordinary American readers liked thrillers and detective novels at that time. However, Mr. Dong said that most of these novels can't be regarded as real literary works, mainly because they "only pay attention to the plot and ignore the characterization and psychological description". It can be seen that stories and characters in novels are not mutually exclusive, and the purpose of writing stories is to portray characters.
The central task of novel creation is to write about good people. On the other hand, writing people is always inseparable from stories, and people who leave stories do not exist. However, stories do not necessarily have obvious forms of existence in novels. Even we find that the stories written in some works have no beginning or end, but only fragments of the characters' lives or a specific side, or only the author's impressions of some people and things are intermittent and unconnected, but the characters portrayed by the author in this special form are still people with distinct personalities. Most of Lu Xun's Diary of a Madman, Kong Yiji and The True Story of Ah Q belong to this situation. If we just read Mr. Lu Xun's novels with appreciation of the story, we will get nothing. Appreciating modern so-called stream-of-consciousness novels, philosophical novels and cultural novels is even more so.
Since novel creation is centered on writing characters, the main interest in novel appreciation should be placed on the characters of the novel, depending on what kind of characters this work has created, what kind of pen and ink, what kind of personality it has, and what valuable things it contains that deserve people's deep thinking. Don't we often hear people say that "people who can read novels read characters, and people who can't read novels read stories"? This is indeed extremely important for novel appreciation.
2. Try to capture rich details of life.
As a novel art good at narration, it pays attention to the calm and objective reproduction of life. However, a novel, as long as it is a good novel, is not something that the author randomly combines words and events, nor is it a work that the author uses various techniques of novel formal beauty to please others. It should be said that it is an attempt. An author with a strong sense of social responsibility tries to seek the meaning of life experience in this special way, trying to understand how various things are meaningfully interrelated, so as to achieve the purpose of educating and enlightening readers. However, the realization of this goal is not directly stated by the author, and the author's subjective thoughts, emotions and intentions are hidden behind a series of novel images. Therefore, appreciating novels is like walking into the real life around us. We need to judge who is right and who is wrong, which is better and which is worse. The writer's efforts to create novels go hand in hand with our efforts to find the meaning of life when we appreciate novels. The difference is that writers face daily real life, and we face the life created by writers according to their personal experiences.
It is precisely because of the rich life connotation expressed in novels that western aesthetics often call this life image "meaningful form", while ancient aestheticians in China call it "image outside the image" or "reason outside the reason". As far as appreciation is concerned, it is another important task for novel appreciation to discover its meaning from the life image of the novel, to capture its connotation, or to chew "meaning" from the "meaningful form".
Step 3 "Go in" and "Jump out"
It is closely related to the fate of the characters in the novel to mobilize their rich memories and strive to enter the works, so as to obtain an emotional "purification" and aesthetic comfort, which is called "entering" novel appreciation. However, we should not blindly "plunge into it" and equate life in the novel with reality. We also need readers to "jump out" from the works from time to time and think about the works independently with our political views and aesthetics. Leon milian, an American writer, said: "In the temperament of a real writer, there is always a passion that is almost crazy ... In the process of literary creation, unrestrained passion is only passion, and moderate passion is genius" (modern novel aesthetics). As far as novel creation is concerned, a writer really needs a kind of "passion close to madness" (this is "going in"), but this kind of passion must be restrained (this is "jumping out"), and it is almost dangerous to let that kind of "crazy passion" completely dominate the writer's mind. The same is true of novel appreciation. Creation and appreciation are originally a kind of reverse creation.
"Going in" and "jumping out" are always a pair of contradictions. In the actual novel appreciation, many times, this contradiction has not been handled well. We said that it is not good to go too far, and it is not good to jump out of the work completely. Is there a standard of degree between the two? Or what is the "distance" between the two? It's not easy to make this clear. "Zhu Guangqian said ... the distance is too far, and the result is incomprehensible; The' distance' is too close, and the result is that practical motivation will inevitably overwhelm aesthetic feeling. Never leave is one of the best ideals of art. In fact, it is still difficult for readers to grasp this discretion. We just think that if we want to get the appreciation of "never leave", we must grasp such a principle anyway: don't take the vulgar naturalistic road when going in, and pay attention to preventing jokes like "the blind man breaks the plaque" when jumping out. Under such a general principle, we should pursue the appreciation of "never leaving", so as to better unify the contradiction between "in" and "out".
Third, the basic ways and methods of novel appreciation
How to appreciate the novel may vary from person to person, but we think it is a good way to appreciate it from the structure of the novel, which can not only help readers reduce blindness, but also guide readers how to get out of the fascinating story and appreciate it with aesthetic eyes. So, what are the elements of the novel? We agree with the "five elements theory", that is, people, plot, environment, theme and language. Below, we will talk about the appreciation of novels from these five aspects.
(A) the appreciation of characters
1. Grasp the characters from the author's introduction and evaluation.
Generally speaking, there are two types of characters created by literature: general performance (or direct performance) and dramatic performance (or indirect performance). General expression means that the author directly comments on the ideological tendency and personality characteristics of the characters, and even clearly explains their motives; Drama performance is to hint through the character's own behavior process, just like drama performance, so that the audience can get some inspiration from the display of the character's own actions. Therefore, grasping the characters from the author's introduction and evaluation has become the most direct step for us to appreciate the characters in the novel.
2. Analyze the characters from their language, actions and psychological descriptions.
The main method of portraying characters in novels is to express their thoughts, feelings and personality characteristics by describing their language, actions and psychology. As the saying goes, "what you say is what you do", that is, the language of a character is a direct expression of his thought and character. As for the author's description of the psychological activities of the characters, it goes without saying. On the other hand, the actions of the characters in the works are vivid expressions of the characters' thoughts and personalities, which cannot be ignored. For example, Ah Q punched himself in the mouth, Kong Yiji excused himself for stealing books, and Mr. Warwick was in a hurry to have meetings everywhere, full of bureaucratic jargon and so on. These all well represent the character characteristics of the characters and should be carefully analyzed.
3. Understand the characters from the social and historical background of their activities.
The characters in the novel are all active in a certain social and historical background. Appreciating people, if they leave the social and historical background of their activities, it is impossible to understand them correctly, let alone understand the social significance of their images. This is not only because the formation of a character's personality is related to his living environment, but more importantly, every time the author shapes a character, he is shaped into a typical character in a certain historical period. In other words, a character's success depends not only on whether he has a distinctive "personality", but also on whether he has a wide range of "* * *". The analysis of the character "* * *" must be placed in a certain social and historical background.
The analysis of the characters' language, movements and psychological description was mentioned earlier, with the emphasis on personality. However, if we only analyze the characters' personalities and ignore * * *, we will not be able to find more people from them, and such appreciation will be superficial. On the other hand, if we only analyze * * * and dissect the living characters into an empty skeleton, it is difficult to explain the typical universality, which is just a "shell" of the spirit of the times.
4. Look at people from many different angles.
In the past, for a long time, our appreciation and analysis of the characters in the novel has always remained in the inherent static and single linear thinking, which has almost become our aesthetic habit. This is mainly rooted in the special social environment, and the characterization of novels has almost become the need of some kind of political propaganda, so people can't even appreciate this kind of novels from the aesthetic point of view, which is abnormal. Only when we look at a successful person from the perspectives of psychology, sociology, politics and aesthetics. Will our understanding of this character be less superficial, simple and boring?
5. Experience human feelings from the images of ghosts and gods.
Chinese and foreign novels all start from ancient myths and legends, thus creating supernatural themes of novels. The images of ghosts and gods occupy their respective positions in Chinese and foreign novels. How to understand the artistic images such as Le Tai prostitute in Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio, the Monkey King in The Journey to the West and Pig Bajie? , should be an indispensable part of the novel character appreciation.
Marx once said that myth is "the natural and social form itself processed by human fantasy in an unconscious artistic way" (Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, p. 1 13). This shows the dialectical unity between the illusion of myth and the truth of reality, or it can be said that the image of ghosts and gods in novels should be the deformation of characters in life, and the essence is the same. When we appreciate the images of ghosts and gods in novels, we should try our best to understand human feelings from them. To understand the aesthetic characteristics of harmony and unity of God, beast, monster and man, we should analyze them in a certain historical background, and we must never appreciate them in isolation from reality, otherwise it will be difficult to discover the author's true meaning.
(2) Appreciation of the plot
1. Find clues and sort out the ins and outs of the plot.
Generally speaking, there is an internal connection between the story and the ending, which is the plot clue that runs through the whole work. As long as we find this clue that runs through the whole work, the ins and outs of the plot will be easy to grasp. This should be the primary task for us to appreciate the plot. However, the plot clue of the novel does not refer to the time clue or space clue that we usually say, but refers to the plot development clue formed by the basic contradiction and conflict in the work. For example, Lu Xun's Blessing and the conflict between Sister Xianglin and Master Lu Si are the main clues that constitute the plot. Due to the different length of the works and the characteristics of the contents of the works, the plot clues of the novels are divided into main lines, secondary lines, open lines and dark lines. Appreciating the plot of a novel, if we can grasp the clues of the plot and grasp its context, will help us to see the overall situation and fully grasp the author's intention when analyzing the work.
2. Meet people and see how the plot development serves the characterization.
Plot is the history of character development, which appears in the form of character movement. Therefore, to appreciate the plot, we should look at people and analyze the character in connection with the plot. Let's take Kong Yiji as an example. Kong Yiji went to the hotel to drink, and people around him laughed at him and argued with him just to show Kong Yiji's bad habits of stealing and pedantry; Kong Yiji taught four ways to write "I" and "fennel" and the plot of giving children beans, which also showed Kong Yiji's pride and kindness. Kong Yiji climbed to the hotel to drink after being broken by Ding, and lied that his leg was broken, which shows his miserable fate of being bullied and his weakness of saving face. It is through this series of plot descriptions that the novel completes the depiction of Kong Yiji's complex character. When reading and appreciating, we should analyze them one by one and dig out the meaning of the plot.
3. See the micro-knowledge, and analyze the significance of the plot to the theme from the scenes and details.
The plot of the work is composed of several scenes, and the scenes are composed of many details. Analyzing scenes and details is a further step to appreciate the plot. Only in this way can the appreciation of the plot be concrete, full and to the point. Please look at the analysis of the episode "The True Story of Ah Q" by the old writer Wei: "When writing about a prisoner, when he was finally sentenced, he usually insisted on using a pen with hesitation and trembling. When he painted a stroke, the Ah Q written by Lu Xun was very different, but his writing style was unique: on the one hand, he drew a circle with all his strength; On the other hand, he said,' This damn pen is not only heavy, but also disobedient. It just shook and almost closed, but it shrugged its shoulders and painted like a melon seed. I think, even if I haven't read the full text of The True Story of Ah Q, I don't know that Ah Q is a human being all his life. It can be seen from this paragraph that Ah Q's numbness, ignorance and spiritual victory are all revealed, but that is only a scene description of the final judgment. "So, grasping the plot appreciation of scenes and details is not shallow reading, but should inspire us. However, some people read novels, just watching the excitement, simply pursuing the tension and twists and turns of the story, without thinking about what problems the author has raised through a plot, what social significance these problems have, how to solve them, etc., which is beside the point.
4. Appreciate the skills and pay attention to the artistic ingenuity of the author in organizing the plot.
The vivid twists and turns of the novel plot, ups and downs, and exciting, should be said to be the remarkable characteristics of all excellent novels. Where is the foreshadowing, where is the care, where is the wonderful description that helps to shape the characters, where is the absurd "gimmick" outside the plot and so on. Be sure to appreciate it carefully. For example, the plot of Granny Liu's three visits to Guo Rongfu in A Dream of Red Mansions shows that it has the characteristics of repeated twists and turns and far-reaching implications. These three times, the same person was written into the Guo Rong Building, but each time it was different. As soon as I entered, only Grandma Liu met Wang Xifeng, thus showing readers the luxury, graceful poet and gentle and rich town of Guo Rongfu. Second, Granny Liu paid a visit to Jia's house and gave a big banquet, which made readers see that Rong's house also had various contradictions, paving the way for Jia's imminent decline. After three steps, Grandma Lian, who had helped Grandma Liu, had to call for help from her, deeper and deeper. To appreciate such a plot, we should not only pay attention to the changes of the plot itself, but also pay attention to exploring the theme meaning implied in the plot. At the same time, we can see that when organizing the plot, the author has the artistic characteristics of being bold in the chest and strategically located.
(3) Appreciation of the environment
1. Environmental impact analysis of the theme.
Environmental description, regardless of its direct function, is ultimately to express the theme of the work. Wang Fuzhi, a writer in the late Ming Dynasty, once said: "All scenery words are sentimental words", that is, all scenery words are based on the writer's affection. Therefore, when we appreciate the novel, we should pay attention to the theme of the work from the environmental description.
In more cases, environmental description may mainly create necessary conditions and provide vivid background for expressing the actions and fate of characters and shaping their images, but at the same time it also expresses the theme indirectly. In A Dream of Red Mansions, the author writes that the environment of Wu Hengyuan is "gloomy and transparent", the house is full of "exotic plants and vines, greener when it is cold", and the house is "devoid of all kinds of toys", just like a snow cave. This kind of environment just sets off Xue Baochai's ruthless character, pretending to be stupid and clumsy, singing "Fordham Law" with a golden lock. The revelation of this figure not only reveals the author's ideological tendency towards Xue Baochai, but also shows the hypocrisy of feudal ethics, which is one of the themes of the work.
Environmental description is generally realistic, but sometimes it may be symbolic or metaphorical, which naturally hints at the theme.
2. Analyze the contrast between environment and characters.
The novel environment, whether it is social environment or natural environment, is closely related to the thoughts and behaviors of the characters in the novel, and because the novel is centered on the writer, environmental description is always the most basic task to set off the characters. To appreciate the description of environment in novels, we must pay attention to understanding the relationship between environment and characters and try our best to explore its profound ideological significance. Environmental description can set off characters positively or negatively. The former is called positive contrast and the latter is called negative contrast, so I won't go into details here.
3. Analysis of the environment to create the novel atmosphere.
An important factor that novels infect readers is that writers pay special attention to creating a unique novel atmosphere, and the main means to create a novel atmosphere is to render, create and strengthen environmental descriptions. The beginning of Lu Xun's novel Medicine is: "In the second half of autumn, the moon went down and the sun hasn't come out yet, leaving only a blue sky;" Everything fell asleep except what I swam at night. "In China, when Lao Shuan bought medicine for his son, he walked down the street:" ... There was nothing in the dark, only a gray road, which was clearly seen. "Such a natural environment gives people a feeling of lifelessness and depression, which makes people feel lifeless. Connecting with the background of the novel, we will further feel the quiet and cold atmosphere after the murder of revolutionary Qiu Jin in 1907.
4. Analyze the impetus of environment to the plot of the novel.
Because the novel focuses on the characters, and the close relationship between the characters and the environment leads to the specific environment that can make the characters have some corresponding behavioral motives, thus promoting the development of the story. In novels reflecting broader and more complicated social life, environment is the objective condition and reason for the formation and evolution of characters' fate, especially in western critical realistic novels, which emphasize the people in this environment and the influence and decisive role of environment on characters and plots, so the promotion role of environment in novels will be more obvious.
(d) understanding of the theme
1. See the theme from the author's background
To understand a work correctly, we should not only understand the writer's thoughts, feelings and way of thinking, but also understand the social environment in which he lives and the social life background reflected by the work. Fiction is the reflection of social life in the writer's mind, and it is also the expression of the writer's thoughts and feelings. The theme reflected in a work is always inseparable from the writer's life experience, life, thoughts and feelings and environment. Therefore, when we understand the theme of the novel, "knowing people and discussing the world" is very important.
Mr. Lu Xun pointed out that the ideological differences among Water Margin, Shi Gong Case, Gong Peng Case and Three Heroes and Five Righteousnesses are related to the times. "The characters in Water Margin are all rebelling against the government; The characters in this kind of books help the government, which is a big difference in the author's thoughts, probably because of the different social background (Complete Works of Lu Xun, Volume 8, page 352). If we don't understand the influence of the background of the times on the author, which leads to the difference in theme handling, we can't understand the profound theme of Water Margin.
2. See the theme from characterization
The author of the novel uses various artistic means to complete the characterization. Character image is the crystallization of the author's life experience and the image embodiment of the author's attitude towards life. The image of pavel korchagin in How Steel was Tempered, and the images of Xu Yunfeng and Jiang Zhujun in Red Rock all reflect the writer's understanding and emotional attitude towards life-he thinks that life is like this, and people should live like this. Of course, here, it is not difficult for us to figure out what the writer intends us to experience from the characterization of the characters in the works; Here, it is also an important aspect for us to understand the theme of the novel. In the article "Talking about the Image of Lin Daojing", Yang Mo once introduced in detail her intention to portray the character Lin Daojing. She said: "I know that in literary works, this theme and idea can be expressed in many ways and in different ways." And I can only express it from my familiar life with what I feel the deepest. Therefore, I chose Lin Daojing to write about how petty-bourgeois intellectuals like her turned into proletarian revolutionary fighters. "This passage clearly shows the close relationship between characters and themes.
3. See the theme from the plot development
Novelists can't live without the form of characters' activities-plot, which is completed through a series of stories with causal relationship. Of course, the center of the story must focus on some contradictions, and how contradictions develop and how to solve them all reflect the author's views on these issues. Understanding the theme from these angles is also a common method in novel appreciation. For example, Zhao Shuli's Marriage of Little Erhei mainly talks about the feudal bullies represented by Little Erhei and Qin Xiao who pursue personal freedom and marriage autonomy, and the contradiction of feudal backward consciousness represented by Er Zhuge and San Xiangu. This main contradiction was finally solved with the help of the party and the government, and Xiao erhei and them won, expressing the author's views on feudal superstition and arranged marriage. Grasp this point and the theme will be easy to understand.
4. Look at the theme from the emotional color of language
Although the author tries not to reveal the theme of the novel, he always shows a certain tendency in his writing, praising or criticizing the contradictions he reveals and the characters he describes. Judging the author's emotional color is an indispensable part of understanding the theme of the work. Sun Li's novel "Lotus Lake" praised the spirit of Baiyangdian people's active anti-Japanese. However, the author never directly expresses this emotion, but implies it through the narrative of the story and reveals it in his writing. For example, the enemy's big boat chased the sister-in-law on the water, and the author wrote: "Fortunately, these young women grew up in Baiyangdian, and the boat rocked fast. A ship is like a jumping barracuda without water waves. They have been dealing with this ship since childhood and are sailing like weaving and sewing clothes. " "They ran to the Lotus Lake where I don't know how many acres there are. The endless thick layers of lotus leaves spread out against the sun, just like an iron wall. The pink lotus arrow stands tall and is a sentry to monitor Baiyangdian! " Here, the author's praise is beyond words, which we can easily see.
5. Look at the theme from the overall tendency
In the appreciation of the theme of the novel, there is a fundamental principle that we must always keep in mind-the whole work, including every punctuation and general atmosphere in the work, is the embodiment of the theme-in this sense, we can regard the whole work as a concrete symbol to express the theme! We should understand that the theme of the novel is not an isolated phenomenon, but a whole embodiment closely related to various elements of the novel. Because of this, the ways and methods to understand the theme of the novel are not limited to the above aspects, but should be multi-faceted, and all aspects of the novel shine with the glory of the theme. The meaning of an excellent novel-that is, the theme-always runs through the whole work.
(5) Language appreciation
1. Pay attention to appreciate the personality characteristics of the characters' language.
Language description is an important method of character description, and characters are portrayed through the description of characters' language. A wonderful description of characters' language can "make readers look at the dialogue as if they have witnessed the speaker". In The True Story of Ah Q, the author once wrote