After the publication of Breaking the Ring in 196, it immediately caused a shock in the literary world and was regarded as a masterpiece with the significance of the times. Hougetsu Shimamura, a famous critic, said: "The novel industry won this article before reaching the turning point of renewal." The hero of Breaking the precepts, Lazhuan Chou Song, is a rural teacher. He comes from a lowly tribesman. Since childhood, I have been earnestly warned by my father to hide my identity to avoid being bullied and persecuted by society. He is honest, kind, diligent and capable, and is loved by students, but he is jealous and excluded by the representative figure of rural education institutions, the principal and the county inspector. Influenced by the thinker Lotus Taro, who is also a tribesman, he took Pig as a teacher and wanted to break his father's precepts, announce his identity to the society and challenge the feudal social customs. However, they are afraid of being persecuted by the dark society, so they are full of contradictions in their thoughts and slow and timid in their actions. Later, his father died suddenly, and Pig was assassinated by his political opponents, which caused great waves in his mind. Finally, inspired by the spirit of Pig, he confessed his hidden origins to the society in the form of repentance, and went to live in the United States with the comfort of his lover Zhibao and the help of his best friend Ginnosuke.
Breaking the precepts focuses on the awakening process of Ugly Song's thought of breaking his father's precepts, which touches the real life of rural villages and towns in the late modern Japan extensively, and exposes the corruption of political circles and education circles in villages and towns, the harm of feudal hierarchical prejudice and the cruelty of feudal exploitation. Breaking the precepts really reflects the obvious characteristics of modern Japanese society, that is, modern Japanese society is a capitalist society with a strong feudal color.
The imperial autocratic system established after the Meiji Restoration is based on the combination of the big bourgeoisie and the feudal aristocracy, so the feudal political, economic and ideological forces are still very strong, and the feudal identity system and feudal hierarchical concept still stubbornly control social customs. Ugly pine lived in such a society, and suffered from the humiliation of "filth" since childhood. He felt the unfair treatment given to the tribesmen by the society. He thought that in front of the "high wall" of the identity system, how many kind new civilians were buried in obscurity. He sympathized with the sufferings of the "indecent" people. However, the inhuman situation of the tribesmen is a grim reality, and the pain of being abandoned by society makes him shudder and fear. He obeyed his father's instructions and kept the secret of his birth strictly to "stand in the world."
However, after all, the times have developed. Ugly Song is a newcomer living in the Meiji Restoration. He was educated in modernization and cultivated by democratic ideas. He can't bear this humiliating situation and is dissatisfied with his inner dual personality. He should be sincere and be treated equally in society. "I am also a member of society. Like others, I have the right to live!" " This strong demand for democracy and human rights prompted him to wake up. Finally, inspired by the righteous spirit of Mr. Pig, he made his "origin" public and made a brave challenge to the dark social forces. Ugly pine's awakening is a great pain and cost. At the critical moment when he chose the road of life, he was depressed, hesitant, anxious and hesitant, full of sadness and low-key emotions, which also revealed "the sorrow of the awakened one"; Finally, he humbly confesses and asks forgiveness from all walks of life. All these reflect the weakness of intellectual youth in Meiji era, and also illustrate the strength of feudal forces in modern Japanese society.
although the work shows the weakness of the protagonist's awakening and the incompleteness of anti-feudalism, its main theme is still to praise the awakening of modern newcomers. Ugly Song is neither an old tribesman who is numb and bullied by others, nor a modern intellectual who only pursues individual freedom and personal social outlet. His personality awakening fully expressed the tribesmen's thought of demanding human rights liberation, which had more distinct anti-feudal characteristics. Therefore, Ugly Song's character contains more profound social content. After the awakening of Ugly Pine, he was unable to establish himself in his own country and had to go to a foreign country to seek a "paradise". This shows that modern Japan is backward and conservative, and can't accommodate the requirements of democracy and equality.
"Breaking the precepts" widely reproduces the face of backward towns and villages. Farmers are still engaged in clumsy manual labor, landlords try their best to exploit tenants, township educational institutions are dominated by conservative principals and county inspectors, and township political circles are the battlefields of sinister politicians such as Gao Qiao Lissaburo. The novel also describes the fate of the decline of the "gentry" under the changes of the Meiji society. The work of Hazama jade Min, a primary and secondary school teacher, and the changes of his family are vivid portrayal.
In a word, Breaking the Ring is a wide-angle lens, which has a panoramic view of life pictures and characters with the characteristics of the times, making it a realistic work with a broad social vision and fully revealing the characteristics of modern Japanese society. As the writer said: "Although it was the Meiji Restoration, we failed to completely update the deep-rooted things in the past. In a sense, what is presented to us is just the modernization of the relics of the feudal era. "
When Breaking the Ring was written, the Russo-Japanese War broke out. Fujimura declared that "life is a big battlefield, and the author is also a military reporter." He widely reported the true meaning of social life in the spirit of journalistic record, and wrote this serious social novel. The realistic content in the novel immediately attracted the attention of the press, calling it a "problem work" about the liberation of tribal people. The author was a romantic lyric poet in his early years. His lyrical brushwork and vivid and meticulous description of natural scenery run through his works, which makes his works full of interest and melancholy, showing the author's calm, objective and lyrical artistic style. The novel also puts the stage of the characters' activities in a beautiful, peaceful and quaint township environment, which adds the local flavor and pastoral interest to the works, and also opens up a new artistic field for modern Japanese literature-expressing the life of township intellectuals far away from the noisy city.