1. By showing the intricate, rich and unique inner activities of the characters, it reveals the subtle psychological changes, fleeting thinking tracks and wonderful and grotesque illusions of the characters, and goes deep into the souls of the characters;
2. By combining history with reality, matter and spirit, we can find out the laws of people's thinking activities and show the imprint of life on people's minds, thus making the characters have a sense of the times;
3. Show the richness and complexity of characters through the subconscious.
I will start from these three aspects and answer questions with specific works.
Psychological description plays a significant role in showing the depth of characters' souls and shaping characters' images. Gao Xiaosheng paid special attention to making good use of this method, and his emphasis was on the individualization of characters.
The character's heart is a vast world, a mysterious place with closed doors. Psychological description should be the exploration of characters' souls and the discovery of unique personalities. It is a remarkable feature of Gao Xiaosheng's image-building that he is good at capturing the special psychological activities of the characters in the special environment and fully displaying their profound meanings, so as to make the characters have distinct personalities and stand upright.
All kinds of psychological activities are closely related to the specific environment in which the characters live, the smooth handling of things or the stimulation they receive. On what occasion, psychology is the most distinctive and unique, which the writer pays special attention to and tries his best to grasp.
Gao Xiaosheng is good at discovering the profound meaning of characters' seemingly ordinary thoughts and revealing hidden things. He is good at describing the lasting emotional state of characters-mood, which makes the characters in his works show personality characteristics.
For example, Chen Huansheng in "Chen Huansheng Job-hopping" felt extremely happy, satisfied and happy when he went out to purchase successfully and returned home on the train. What he saw and heard was influenced by this emotion.
In the process of buying, he chewed the various pleasures given by life leisurely and sweetly. Under the influence of this mentality, chen huan had a wide range of emotional contacts. There is such a wonderful description:
This is to reveal the inner world of the characters from the perspective of "empathy" by using the specific emotions of the characters and through extremely ordinary life phenomena.
Generally speaking, by comparison, the more beautiful the more beautiful, the uglier the uglier. Gao Xiaosheng's discovery lies in that when comparing the law of contrast with emotional factors, the latter overshadows the former, showing Chen Miansheng's uniqueness, describing his impressive beauty of human nature and human feelings, expressing his loyalty and sincerity to love in a tortuous and true way, and making the characters shine.
When describing psychology, Gao Xiaosheng often puts himself in the other's shoes, transforming and transplanting his profound experience and unique feelings into the psychological activities of the characters, thus truly portraying the characters' personalities.
For example, Li Jiafu in Heart Belt, as an intellectual who was hit by the extreme left movement, has many similarities with the author. Therefore, Li Jiafu's thoughts are branded with the author's inner activities. For example, Li Jiafu believes that:
These philosophical life experiences are "profound knowledge" obtained by the author through his own research. The author transforms the results of his own thinking and exploration into Li Jiafu's consciousness. In this way, this image appears vigorous and deep, thus highlighting the character.
Another example is Zhou Huaying's Job Hunting. Zhou Huaying is an unemployed citizen, immersed in the psychological description of enjoying the "natural landscape" wholeheartedly.
This so-called "map" is just a stain left by a net brick after years of weathering and deliquescence. But in the eyes of a specific person, it is as bizarre and inscrutable as a kaleidoscope, which anyone can imagine, and it has also become the most attractive "new world" for Zhou Huaying to kill time in the process of job hunting.
This highlights the tragic situation of this character and strongly expresses her feelings of submission to humiliation and helplessness. When tasting a picture that looks like her mother-in-law's head, "she is like sitting next to her mother-in-law."
Mother-in-law is a powerful spiritual pillar and relying strength in her life. After years of hard mental torture-waiting, the elderly mother-in-law gave her the courage and strength to live and share her worries. When the painting was destroyed by rain, she let out a scream from the bottom of her heart:
This chilling cry for help makes the tone of the novel change from low to high, and the characters change from simple to complex, emitting brilliance. These ingenious strokes are entirely from the author's experience. Gao Xiaosheng said:
A group of allegorical philosophical novels created by Gao Xiaosheng, such as Fishing, Wallet, Mountain and Rope. , especially increased the weight of psychological description in the characterization, especially highlighted the psychological analysis, put the character's heart in a position that can be examined, observed and analyzed from multiple angles, thus vividly showing the character's personality.
For example, in Fishing, the author depicts the dirty soul of Liu Caibao, the thief king, through a large number of touching inner monologues and meticulous and profound psychological analysis, and highlights his strange character in the relief. Liu Caibao's special experience determines that he has a special way of thinking. He himself was called the "top scholar", angry and happy:
This vividly depicts the image of the shameless person who is outstanding in talent but has gone astray with a "wicked heart". Liu Caibao is unique in that he also has a set of philosophy that seems to be self-contained. He thinks:
He made a good case as a thief, which shows that he is not an ordinary "thief". The combination of skill, theory and ambition will really become a local disaster.
When creating the image of Liu Caibao, the author pays more attention to the heart instead of uglifying the appearance. This is more profound, powerful and humorous than the general description, which makes the characters come alive.
Psychological activity is the projection and reflection of the material world. Gao Xiaosheng understands the dialectical relationship between material life and spiritual activities, so in his psychological description, he always considers history and reality, material and spirit together, finds out the laws of people's thinking activities, and shows the imprint of life in people's minds, thus giving people a sense of the times. This is very typical in his "Chen Huansheng" series.
In those years when the ultra-left ideological trend was rampant, Chen Huansheng, who was not good at words, certainly did not dare to express his opinions easily, but he could "condescend".
This is the case with Chen Huansheng in the funnel tube family. He worked hard for food and clothing year after year, but he couldn't open the pot year after year. The bottom of the "funnel" was getting bigger and bigger, and the deficit was getting bigger and bigger.
What is the reason? He intuitively felt that the policy at that time was improper and some measures were unreasonable, which led to various doubts. Life forced him to think, and as a result, such an honest and complacent person could not hold back his feelings and asked someone to write to the newspaper to reflect the situation in order to get rid of the predicament.
If we look at the problems that chen huan pondered hard before and after his death, it is not difficult to find that the spirit of the times embodied in this laborer and the problems that he pondered and eagerly hoped to solve were the most prominent problems in the rural policy at that time, and also the common concern of the whole country.
He wants to complain, trying to trust the party and seek to restore the status of the master, which is also the performance of historical initiative on him.
After Chen Huansheng jumped from being trapped in grain to being a surplus grain farmer, real life provided him with the conditions and foundation for sprouting new desires. What will he think when he is full?
For thousands of years, farmers have been deprived of the right to learn culture, and the countryside is full of illiteracy. After liberation, many farmers were too busy begging to care about culture. Therefore, Chen Huansheng "always feels shorter than others", and with the improvement of material life, "spiritual life" has also been put on the agenda. He has an urgent desire: "to live a spiritual life".
Where there is listening and acting, he likes listening and watching, otherwise he will find it boring. He also wants to:
This discovery shows the author's insight. Novels with similar themes have not described the psychological requirements of illiterate farmers so truly and profoundly. Farmers' hunger for food and clothing has turned into yearning for spiritual life, which is an eye-catching sign that our era has made a step forward, and it is also a sign that Chen Huansheng has further awakened his ideology with the progress of the times.
He asked for a reasonable life in line with the status of the master of a country, removed the "inferiority complex" caused by long-term heavy pressure, stood on an equal footing with his companions, won everyone's respect through his own efforts, and took pride in his "spiritual life", which was full of this sense of the times in his character.
Later, he was comically promoted to the position of buyer and made a fortune. At this time, a series of questions arose, which made him unable to sleep. He pondered, "Is this the right thing to do?" ：
As an ordinary farmer, it is not easy to make such serious and in-depth thinking for the public interest. This is a gratifying leap from his desire to be a master to showing a positive attitude.
He is generous with money. He doesn't want to inexplicably take advantage and let others suffer. He wants to find a fair and reasonable method for individuals and collectives to pay according to their work. Therefore, his thoughts have initially shown the historical initiative of mastering his own destiny and being the master of life, which has branded his character with the times.
It is with this kind of psychological description that Gao Xiaosheng carefully portrayed the characters' personalities and successfully created a typical generation of farmers in the transitional period between the old and the new.
Subconsciousness is a kind of consciousness that people unconsciously and naturally reveal, and it is a special reflection that people's brain is stimulated by the material world. Accurately and vividly expressing the subconscious mind is like opening a window and peeping into the secret of the soul from a new angle, so that you can truly see the "real situation" of the psychological activities of the characters.
Using this psychological description technique, we can show the character's personality in many ways and at many levels. This is a powerful means to portray characters.
For example, Zhang Bingsheng had a strange and interesting dream in "Pig Market in Liutang Town", which had this effect. When he walked into the closed township machine tool factory for a long time, Gao Xiaosheng wrote:
This description is novel and full of romanticism. Although this is a dream, it is a reflection of real life and Zhang Bingsheng's inner monologue. Strange and absurd things in the dream are the twists and turns and abnormal reflections of Zhang Bingsheng's thoughts.
Money-eating machines, strange beetles, enchanting women and lively pigs are all thorny problems that Zhang Bingsheng has encountered in his life in recent years.
This dream shows Zhang Bingsheng's anger at the ultra-left line and his sadness at the working people's sweatshops being trampled on. Machines swallow RMB and spit beetles. This monster is a bad style of visualization.
Regarding the attitude of women, Gao Xiaosheng wrote about the prejudice caused by Zhang Bingsheng's secular desire and ignorance as an ordinary person. But he strictly controls himself and will never be dissolute. This shows his serious personality and correct behavior.
He has a deep affection for pigs, because he has been dealing with pigs for decades, and of course he knows the value of "old friends" best. More pigs and less pigs are related to the development of agriculture; Whether it can be sold or not is related to the vital interests of farmers. They happily rushed into Zhang Bingsheng's dream to rescue him, which also reflected that he was eager to give full play to local advantages, break the gap with pigs, and find a new way to solve the problem of machines and female buyers' arrangement that often troubled him.
In this description, foreign objects are deformed and combined according to the laws of the psychological activities of the characters, and moved into the hearts of the characters, which makes the psychological description excusable and quickly forms a visual image in the readers' minds. This dream, with great capacity, depicts the characters from different angles layer by layer and successfully shapes the characters.
Wang Meng once said that Gao Xiaosheng's works are "native and foreign", and it is the traditional way of western literature to describe characters with psychology. Gao Xiaosheng's conscious use of foreign good practices to portray characters and create characters is a kind of creation with China characteristics.
Answer over.