In the 1920s and 1930s, in Hokkaido, Japan, Japanese imperialists tried to get rid of the economic crisis by launching foreign aggression and strengthening internal exploitation. As a result, the fishing capitalists in Hokkaido colluded with the Japanese imperial army and used a large number of cheap labor caused by widespread unemployment to work hard on the "crab boat" (which is both a mother boat for catching crabs and a factory for manufacturing canned crab meat). Capitalists and foremen imposed a harsh prison shed system and extremely cruel slave labor on these fishermen, paralyzing them under the guise of "serving the empire." Once the fishermen woke up and resisted, they were immediately suppressed by the imperial navy. There are more than 300 workers on the "Boguang" crab boat, most of whom are bankrupt farmers, unemployed workers and homeless people. They were forced to work like slaves on suffocating ships. Hunger, disease, wind and waves, and the supervisor's stick have killed them from time to time. In order to survive, they held an organized strike struggle, shouted the slogan "Those who don't want to be slaughtered unite", defeated Asakawa, the director, and won the struggle. However, after the ship returned to Hong Kong, the supervisor attracted imperial warships and arrested the strike backbone. This bloody lesson has prompted fishermen to further enhance their consciousness and know that if they want to survive, they must unite and fight again.
selected works
From the starboard side, through the mist on the sea, you can see the flashing lights of Zhu Jin Lighthouse turning back and forth. When the light turned in another direction, a long mysterious silver beam suddenly shot several miles away.
The crab boat passed Liu Menghai, and it was raining in Mao Mao. From time to time, fishermen and handymen hold their frozen hands in their arms like crab claws, or put their hands together to pee at their mouths, and then continue to work. Like a drizzle, it keeps falling on the muddy sea of the same color. When the boat pulled into the nursery, it began to rain heavily. The vast sea rises and falls like a flying flag. The wind blew on the mast, making an ominous sound. I don't know where the boat is. It keeps creaking like a rivet is loose. The nearly 3,000-ton crab boat bumped like a burp when it sailed into Zonggu Strait. The hull seemed to be suddenly lifted by a huge force, suddenly floated into the air, and then sank back to its original place. Every time I sink, the people on the boat almost pee when the elevator descends, and I feel very uncomfortable. The handyman seems to be seasick, his face is brown, his eyes roll and he vomits.
Looking through the circular porthole blurred by water spray, you can vaguely see the outline of snow-capped mountains on Sakhalin Island. However, an iceberg wave in the Alps rushed to the windshield, and the mountain shadow soon disappeared. There seems to be a deep valley ahead, approaching. The waves slammed on the window, breaking into countless pieces of water and silver and splashing down. In this way, the waves rolled by the window, like a happy lantern flowing behind the boat. The boat shook violently, just like a child shaking his body. The ship made the sound of falling things from the bunk, breaking things and the waves beating against the belly of the ship. Among them, the roar of the machine came from the computer room, which made all kinds of electrical appliances shake slightly and thud. The hull was washed to the waves from time to time, the propeller was idling and the blades were flapping on the water.
The wind is getting tighter. Two masts were blown down like fishing rods, whistling. Just like a mob stepping on a stick, the waves can easily rush up from one side of the ship and then pour down from the other side. In an instant, where the sea water flowed out, it plunged into the waterfall.
Sometimes, the crab boat is like a toy boat, lying alone on the steep slope of that terrible wave mountain, and then falling into the bottom of the wave like being overturned. On the verge of sinking! However, at the bottom of the wave, another wave surged immediately and hit the belly of the ship heavily.
When the ship sailed into the Sea of Okhotsk, the sea looked even darker. The handyman was working, and the cold wind penetrated through his clothes, making his lips purple with cold. The colder the weather, the harder the dry and hard snow particles blow. Like glass scorpions, snow particles stick to the faces and hands of fishermen and handyman crawling on the deck. As soon as the waves washed over the deck, they froze and became slippery. We had to pull the cable from one deck to another, tie ourselves to it like diapers and continue to work. The supervisor shouted abuse everywhere with a fishing rod.
Other crab boats that set sail from Hakodate at the same time broke up unconsciously. However, when the ship was suddenly thrown to the top of the Alps, I occasionally saw two masts shaking like the hands of a drowning man. Soot, like cigarette smoke, floats gently to the sea. ..... From the waves and shouts, you can vaguely hear the ship whistling intermittently like an echo. However, after this moment, the crab boat here fell into the bottom of the wave with trepidation.
There are eight Kawasaki boats on the crab worker's boat. The crew and fishermen had to bet their lives on a "cheap" bet in order to tie Kawasaki's boat tightly and not be swallowed up by the big waves like thousands of white-toothed sharks chasing after them. -"a person like you has one or two lives! If you take a Kawasaki ship, it will be terrible! " The supervisor said this sentence unequivocally in Japanese.
The Kamchatka Sea is right in front of us. The waves seem to have waited for a long time. When they said "just in time", they opened their mouths and jumped down like a hungry lion. Crab boats are simply more timid than rabbits. Snowflakes are flying all over the sky. It looks like a big white flag, floating in the wind. It's getting dark, but the storm at sea has not stopped.
After work, everyone returned to the "cesspit" one by one. My hands and feet are numb with cold, like a few radishes hanging on my body. Everyone climbed into his bunk like silkworms, and no one spoke. They grabbed the iron post and fell down. The hull was very bumpy, just like a wild horse shaking its body to get rid of the gadfly on its back. The fishermen's vacant eyes sometimes fall on the yellow and white painted ceiling, and sometimes they look at the dark portholes that hardly enter the sea ... Some fishermen's mouths are half open like a daze. Everyone didn't think about anything, but felt a kind of vacant uneasiness and sank their faces.
A fisherman raised his neck and drank up the whisky in a bottle. One corner of the bottle sparkled in the dim light of brown and yellow. He threw the empty whisky bottle from the bunk to the aisle. The bottle took a long roll, giving off two or three twists and turns of light. Everyone turned around and looked after the empty bottles. On the other side of the street corner, someone was shouting angrily. In the storm, the sound was intermittent and only a few words were heard.
"Leave Japan!" The man elbowed the porthole.
The stove in the cesspit is smoking. The "living" people were thrown into this "cold storage" like salmon and red-eyed fish, trembling. A huge wave roared past the canvas-covered hatch. Whenever the spray hits the iron plate wall like the inner wall of a big drum in a "cesspit", it will give off a fierce reaction. There seems to be a man beside the fisherman's hut, banging with his broad shoulders from time to time. The crab boat is now like a dying whale, struggling in the stormy waves.
"Have a meal!" The cook poked his head out of the kitchen door, put his hand over his mouth and shouted, "It's raining hard today, and there is no soup to drink."
"What?"
"Smelly salted fish!" The speaker drew his head back.
Everybody's up. Everyone eats like a prisoner, and they are all greedy.
They sat cross-legged, put the salted fish dish between their legs, blew hot air, stuffed hot rice into their mouths and kept chewing. At first, a burst of hot air rushed to the nose, and the nose water kept flowing downwards, almost falling into the rice bowl.
While eating, the supervisor came in.
"Don't eat like a hungry ghost! Can't stand it if the work is not done well? "
He glared at bunk beds, waved his left shoulder forward and went out.
"What makes this boy say such a thing?" A fisherman who was born as a student and suddenly lost weight due to seasickness and fatigue muttered to himself.
"To say Asakawa, he holds the fate of our crab workers in his hand!"
"His majesty, has little to do with us. Asakawa is not easy to provoke! "
"Don't be so stingy, a bowl or two of rice is nothing. Fuck him! " Someone on the other side pursed their lips and said.
"Well done, well done. If you dare to say it in front of Asakawa, it will be yours! "
Everyone was angry, but they smiled helplessly.
The night is getting deeper. The supervisor wore a raincoat and went to the hut where the handyman lived. The ship is bumping. He grabbed the pillar of the berth in one hand and supported himself to walk over, holding the lantern in the middle of the handyman in the other hand, lighting it one by one. Then, he turned the crowded pumpkin heads over and looked at them with lanterns. These people are fast asleep, even if they step on it, they won't wake up. After checking everything, he stood for a while. What happened? Look at him like that, he seems very helpless. However, he also went to the kitchen next door. Blue lanterns fluttered with fan-shaped lights, flickering in some messy cabins, long rain boots, oilcloth raincoats and work clothes hanging on posts, and some luggage. The light shook at his feet and stopped. At this moment, a halo like a slide was cast on the kitchen door. By the next morning, everyone knew that a handyman was missing.
Everyone thought of the overwork on the first day and thought that "the handyman must have been swept away by the big waves", and the mood was particularly sad. However, the handyman was rushed to work early in the morning, and it was too late to discuss the matter with each other.
"Who wants to jump in such cold water? It must be hidden. Bastard, I found it, I want to beat you! "
The supervisor turned the stick in his hand like a toy and kept looking around.
The storm at sea has passed. The crab boat sailed against the rough waves. A wave jumped up and crossed the deck effortlessly, as if it had crossed its own threshold. After a day and a night of fighting, the boat seemed to be black and blue, making uneven sounds and moving forward. Smoke-like clouds, floating in the sky that seems within reach, graze the mast and flow rapidly. The slight cold rain is still falling. As soon as the surrounding waves come up, you can clearly see the raindrops hitting the sea. This is worse than getting lost in the virgin forest and being caught in the heavy rain.
Hemp rope is hard with cold, just like holding an iron pipe in your hand. The fisherman, a student, was worried about slipping. He grabbed the rope and walked carefully across the deck. Three steps and two steps happened to meet the waiter coming up from the gangway.
"Hey," the waiter pulled him to the leeward corner and told him, "An interesting thing happened!"
At about two o'clock this morning, a big wave flooded the deck, and soon it was as swift as a waterfall. Waves in the hazy night, like exposed teeth, emit blue and white light from time to time. Because there was a storm outside, no one slept. It happened at this time.
A radio operator ran into the master room in a panic and reported:
"Captain, no, the emergency distress signal has been sent!"
"Emergency distress signal? What ship is it? "
"It's the rank father, in parallel with our ship."
"ah! That's an abandoned ship! " Asakawa, wearing a raincoat and crossing his legs, sat in a chair in the corner, casually stamped his feet with the tip of his boots and laughed. "Of course, which ship isn't?" It's all scrapped ships! "
"No more procrastination!"
"Well, that's great!"
The captain was so anxious that he didn't even have time to get dressed that he was about to open the door of the cab. However, before the door opened, Asakawa grabbed the captain's right shoulder and said, "Who ordered the ship to take a long detour!" "
Who gave the order? Isn't it "captain"? The captain suddenly froze, stupefied However, he quickly restored the dignity of the captain.
"I gave the order in the name of the captain!"
"In the name of the captain-huh?" The supervisor crossed his legs and stopped the captain. In an insulting tone, he cocked his tail and said, "hey, do you know whose ship this is?" The company paid the money. Only Mr. Suda, the representative of the company, spoke to me. What airs are you putting on the captain? In fact, you are not even worth wiping a piece of paper. Do you understand? If you go to the rescue, you will be reimbursed for one week. This is no joke, you dare to delay a day's work, just wait and see! Moreover,' Rank Father' booked a high insurance premium, sank the wrecked ship, but made a profit. "
The waiter thought there would be a big fight "soon" and things would not end like this. But (! The captain seems to be stuck in his throat by a ball of cotton. The waiter has never seen such a cowardly captain. What the captain said is useless. How can this happen in the world? However, this still happened. The waiter can't figure it out.
"Speaking of human beings at this time, can they still fight with foreign countries?" The supervisor twisted his mouth viciously and spat.
In the wireless telegraph room, the transceiver rang in haste, and small blue and white sparks burst out from time to time. Everyone went to the radio room, at least to find out.
"Look, the telegram is sent in such a hurry, and it is getting more and more urgent!"
The operator turned around and explained to the captain and supervisor watching from behind him. Everyone's eyes are like sewing, staring at the operator's dexterous fingers and pressing the buttons of various machines, and they can't help but hold their breath.
The electric lights installed on the bulkhead like pustules flicker with the shaking of the hull. Through the iron gate, you can also hear the sound of the waves hitting the belly of the ship and the ominous siren constantly ringing. The flute sounded with the wind, sometimes far away, sometimes close at hand.
Didi-Didi-the transmitter and receiver drew a long tail, and sparks flew everywhere. The noise suddenly stopped. At this moment, everyone was startled. The operator hurriedly pressed the button and shook the transceiver over and over again, but the voice was interrupted and there was no call.
The operator twisted the swivel chair and turned around: "The rank father has sunk! ……"
He took off the earphone on his head and said softly, "I called and said that there are 425 flight attendants. They are desperate and hopeless for help." Then I called S·O·S two or three times, and the contact was interrupted. "
After listening to this report, the captain pulled his collar by hand, then shook his head, stretched his neck, looked around anxiously with vacant eyes, pressed the knot of his tie, and turned and walked to the door. The captain's expression makes people feel uncomfortable.
…………
The fisherman who was a student was attracted by this story and said, "Oh, there is such a thing!" " "He became depressed and turned his eyes to the sea. The sea is still churning. Suddenly push the boat to the wave peak, and the horizontal line is like being thrown under the boat; In less than two or three minutes, the ship fell into the wave valley again, as if looking up at the narrow sky from the valley.
"It's really heavy!" He said to himself. I always think about it, because I'm on a broken ship!
Crab workers' boats are all scrapped. Maruchi's boss is indifferent to the death of workers in the North Okhotsk Sea. Capitalism's old-fashioned pursuit of profits is no longer feasible. There is an excess of hot money and interest rates are falling. They are really omnipotent and will try their best to fight their way out wherever they are. Take the crab boat as an example, one boat can earn hundreds of thousands. Of course they dream.
The crab boat is a "worker boat" (that is, a factory boat), not a "sailing boat". Therefore, the navigation law does not apply to crab-working ships. These boats are in tatters, just like syphilis, and they are useless except sinking them. However, it has been parked for more than 20 years, but now it has been shamelessly disguised and opened to Hakodate. Medical ships and transport ships that were "gloriously" disabled in the Russo-Japanese War and thrown aside like fish intestines now look like ghosts. If the steam is a little stronger, the pipe will burst open and emit steam. As soon as the Russian patrol boat caught up, it started at full power (which is often the case), and the whole hull creaked and trembled like a stroke patient, as if it were going to be dismembered into pieces.
But what does all this have to do? Because "this time", everything should be mobilized to serve the Japanese Empire. And the crab boat is a pure "factory", but it is not bound by the factory law. Therefore, nothing is more cost-effective and convenient than exploiting workers.
The cunning boss associated this work with the slogan "For the Japanese Empire". Many ill-gotten gains were pocketed by the boss. When the boss is driving around, he is also considering going out to be a "member of parliament" in person to ensure this interest. However, almost at the same time, one minute is not bad, but the fishermen of Grade Father are fighting to the death in the northern sea thousands of miles away, facing the fierce wind and waves like glass slag!
..... A student fisherman, on the way down the gangway to the "cesspit", thought:
"It's nobody else's business."
He walked down the "cesspit" from the gangway, and he saw a sign full of words:
Anyone who finds the door of the handyman's palace will be given two boxes of Bat brand cigarettes and a towel.
Asakawa in charge
This notice was pasted on the wall with rice grains as paste.
(translated by Ye)
Make an appreciative comment
The Crab Worker Boat is the masterpiece of Kobayashi Takiji, a famous Japanese proletarian writer. The tragic life of the fisherman shown in the novel is unbearable to read. The author shows the most cruel, savage and ugly side of human nature and revives this sea of purgatory with words. The excerpts reflect the miserable life of the fishermen on the crab boat "Boguang": the fishermen were paralyzed by the slogan of serving the Japanese empire advocated by the supervisor, but in fact they only existed as machines that brought profits; The wind and waves of the sea will devour these abandoned ships that have been in disrepair for a long time; Overwork, malnutrition and the same living environment as the "cesspit" make fishermen infected with various diseases without treatment, and some fishermen who can't stand it can only passively avoid it. Capitalists only see profits. As long as profits can be made, it is "worthwhile" to sacrifice the lives of all fishermen. So they watched the "rank father" sink and watched more than 400 fishermen lose their lives. They were equally indifferent. Because they can get high insurance money from it! Faced with this scene, the originally numb fishermen began to think about everything that happened around them. ...
The author not only wanted people to see the miserable life of fishermen, but then his heart trembled and he shed tears of sympathy. This book is not written for curious eyes, but gives some light to those hearts waiting for freedom in the dark. The pursuit of effect is not only out of humanitarian sympathy for these fishermen, but more importantly, it makes people think rationally about why there is such a life and who caused all this. Taking the crab boat as the stage, the author profoundly reveals the relationship among imperial army, chaebol, international relations and workers. He hoped that all the oppressed and enslaved people could understand the reasons for their suffering, and called on them to stop being numb, unite to see who the enemy was, and unite to break all the forces that oppressed the people. This is the profound connotation of the theme of this novel. This work was not only realistic, combative and ideological at that time, but also now. As long as there are oppressed and enslaved people in this world, the truth sparks shining on the crab workers' boat will shine on their dark hearts.
"Crab Worker Boat" reproduces the real life of fishermen's "prison at sea", which makes people immersive. Through concrete analysis, we can get a general understanding of the artistic characteristics of the novel.
First of all, the author has a high sense of social responsibility and keen observation, and is very familiar with all aspects of the life of fishermen on crab boats. The description of the fisherman's life in the works is not the author's subjective speculation, but a naturalistic record, which makes people have a quite complete impression on the object of description. Kobayashi himself was born in poverty. Although he received a higher education and worked in a well-paid bank after graduation, he cared about the poor. As early as 1927, he noticed the problem of the crab boat, conducted in-depth investigation and research, and collected a lot of vivid materials. The sinking part of the crab worker's boat "Rank Father" in the selected text is true. The specific situation is that the crab worker ship "Rank Father" hit the rocks due to the storm, and three nearby crab workers heard the distress signal, but self-destructed. On the other hand, "Eber" and "British Airways" abused fishermen and handyman very seriously. Sick handyman is considered to be pretending to be sick. They are hung on the winch of the crane or tied to the iron post of the lathe, with hard cards hanging on their chests. The card says "These swindlers can't be solved-the factory director". Doshiji also edited a lot of relevant information from the news of Tuozhi Bank, and even personally went to the crab boat moored in the culvert for field investigation and talked with the crew, and got a lot of valuable first-hand information. After a long period of preparation, Duo Xi's understanding of the problem of crab work boat is concrete and comprehensive, which laid a solid foundation for his writing. Only by writing what you are familiar with can you be handy. Therefore, "The Crab Worker Boat" has the authenticity of reportage, which makes people think deeply with concrete and urgent existing social problems. This is the basis of its artistic charm.
Secondly, the author has a strong ability to use language to reproduce life. If the previous work is caused by the author's keen feeling and careful observation, thus forming the image of "prison at sea" in his mind, then only a real writer can give it new life with language and make it gain an eternal artistic image in the reader's reading. Kobayashi Takiji showed his talent for using language very early. He absorbs nutrients from Japanese traditional literature and is especially good at learning from his predecessors. All these make his works feel delicate, good at detail description, concise and accurate language expression, and the description of scenery often captures the characteristics of scenery with a few strokes, effectively rendering the overall atmosphere.
The sea in the crab worker's boat is not only the environment for fishermen's activities, but also a symbol. The author tries his best to write about the sea in a storm or when the weather is extremely gloomy. The sea has never been a colorful and beautiful scenery written by the author, but a powerful natural force that may devour the lives of crab workers and fishermen at any time. Facing it, people feel suffocated. The image of the sea presents an overall feeling of melancholy and pain, which is cloudy and cold. Life with fishermen all day is such an environment. They may be killed by the sea and diseases at any time, but even if they are alive, they are not much better. The book is full of depressing cool colors, and the role of scenery description is to strengthen this effect.
Another example is the description of the details: at the beginning of the article, a middle-aged woman with a child in her arms peeled an apple and fed it to her child. While watching the children eat, she chewed the peeled apples herself. This detail conveys a wealth of information. This is the first scene of the crab boat being put on the screen decades later. This poverty shocked the whole world. If you are not too poor to go on, who will stay away from their loved ones and go to the prison at sea to suffer and die? There is also a paragraph describing the tragic situation of a fisherman with swollen feet after his death. The author writes about his body according to similar facts. It is creepy to read, and such realism is cruel and powerful. Details like this can be seen everywhere in the text, especially when describing scenes. Writing about the living environment of fishermen's "cesspits", the author does not simply start from the material conditions of life. He described the behavior of different fishermen with a few strokes, and most of them were too tired to even think. They fell asleep, and their physical strength was overdrawn, which caused their brains to lose their ability to operate and they could only stay there in a daze. The author spent a lot of pen and ink on a drunken fisherman, and focused the reader's attention on the bottle he threw away with close-up techniques. The bottle tumbled to the ground in a zigzag pattern. Such details give people a vivid sense of the picture, as if the reader himself is beside them through time and space, looking at this group of tired, helpless and numb poor people. Such a splendid place makes the crab boat written by the author have the vitality of life, exudes the breath of life, and embodies the charm of realistic art.
Finally, the author poured full emotions into the article, which has a strong artistic appeal. The author wrote The Crab Craft not to create feelings for the text, but to write the text with feelings. Seeing is believing, but hearing is not. What the author saw with his own eyes and heard with his own ears aroused his great sympathy for fishermen and strong dissatisfaction with the bourgeoisie. This strong feeling is bound to be transmitted to the text and affect the reader's mood. Lev tolstoy regards the power of emotion as the most important factor in works of art: the so-called art is to pass on what infects oneself to others, so that others can feel this emotion. Because of this, the author doesn't stand behind his works calmly and analyze social ills like Flaubert, but often can't help jumping out to point out the ugly nature of the bourgeoisie in his works, pointing out that their so-called real purpose of serving the Japanese empire is to "put a lot of ill-gotten gains into the boss's pocket", and even exaggerating the ugly faces of supervisors and lackeys and pointing out their hypocrisy. Such a strong feeling of love and hate is revealed in the pen, and it is also manifested in the joy of fishermen's little awareness and optimism about their struggle. This feeling will also affect the reader's mentality. They hate supervisors, bosses behind the scenes, hypocrisy, fishermen, numbness and anxiety, and rejoice in their awakening.
However, no matter how beautiful the jade is, there will be flaws, and the crab boat is no exception. In a letter to KuraharaKorehito, a Japanese proletarian literary theorist, the author wrote: "There is no so-called hero in this work, no personal biographical hero or similar characters, but the collective workers are regarded as heroes. In this sense, I think it is a step forward than "1928 March 15". " He also wrote: "Trying to describe everyone's personality and psychology in a work like 1928 March 15 is totally absent in this work." It can be seen that in this work, the author pursues a group description without personal character and psychological description, which is considered as a trend of proletarian literature development. Obviously, this understanding is incorrect. Obviously, the author did not fully understand the dialectical relationship between personality and * * *. Although there are several people with more ink in the whole work, he has never left a vivid and complete character image for the readers, which is detrimental to the aesthetic feeling of the work. However, despite its shortcomings, The Crab Worker Boat is still a treasure in the history of Japanese literature. Once this article was published, it immediately aroused great social repercussions. Critics believe that it not only uncovered the shady work of Crab Boat, but also touched the essence of modern Japanese capitalist society and praised the author as "Sinclair of Japan".
(Cao Qiong)