The ancients often said that "writing carries the Tao" or as Confucius said: "Poetry can be complex, impressive, collective and resentful". These remarks are integrated and extended, and then compared with Lu Xun's novels. It can be said that he
His novels are the inheritance and development of China's ancient traditional literature, which is more advanced and profound than before. Therefore, if we want to call Confucius an ancient saint in China, we can also call Lu Xun a modern saint in China. The reason why he can say this is obviously that Lu Xun closely linked his personal destiny with the destiny of the country, the nation and the society. He was able to jump out of this pattern with the foresight of the times, stand at the height of history and time and space, with love and responsibility for the motherland and the people, and with full enthusiasm and indignation, mercilessly criticize the backwardness, pedantry, cannibalism and all kinds of irrationality in society, and then hope to achieve some kind of salvation and enlightenment. For this kind of criticism, this kind of utility, Lu Xun expounded it with his core thoughts and described it with his artistic skills. Over time, it has formed the ideological and artistic nature of his novel creation, which represents the interpretation of social life in Lu Xun's novels both in content and form, and has also become the most shining and infectious feature and style in his novel creation.
Kong Yiji is the second novel written by Lu Xun after Diary of a Madman on the eve of the May 4th Movement, which criticizes the feudal system and feudal culture. Although the length of this novel is less than 3,000 words, it vividly and profoundly shows the complex character and tragic life of a lower-class intellectual before the Revolution of 1911. Below, I will analyze the ideological and artistic features of the novel Kong Yiji.
First, the ideological characteristics of Kong Yiji
From the concrete description of the works, we can know that Kong Yiji's central idea is to expose and accuse the evils of decadent feudal education and imperial examination system by portraying and shaping the image of Kong Yiji, a lower-level intellectual in the late Qing Dynasty who was devastated by feudal education and imperial examination system, profoundly expose the whole feudal society as "cool thin for the suffering people" and painfully put forward a serious social problem to change the people's sleepy and insensitive mental state.
Anti-feudalism is one of the most important themes in Lu Xun's novels. In Kong Yiji, Lu Xun concentrated on criticizing the evil feudal imperial examination and education system. Kong Yiji lived in the imprisonment of the feudal imperial examination system in the late Qing Dynasty. Although he has read four books and five classics, he has never won a scholar in his life. Therefore, this turned out to be one of the most painful scars when he was stabbed by others. He talks about Zhihu, but he won't make a living after all. Although he received orthodox feudal education, he never used it in his life and career. But after all, he can write a good hand and change a bowl of rice. Unfortunately, he got into the bad habit of drinking and being lazy, and finally lost his job of copying books for others, which was his only job to survive. In order to satisfy the lowest "alcohol addiction", he had to start stealing chickens and dogs, so that he was finally interrupted by Ding and passed away in obscurity.
At this point, we can say that the culprit of Kong Yiji's tragic ending is nothing more than this poisonous feudal education and imperial examination system. Traditional feudal orthodox education has always advertised that "everything is inferior, only reading is high", "There is a golden house in the book, a thousand kinds of millet in the book, and Yan Ruyu in the book", so as to inspire and encourage readers to "listen to things outside the window and concentrate on reading sage books" and only know how to seek fame and reputation. However, in this vast army of rushing to take the exam, few people really climbed up through the horizontal bar of "opening a department and taking official positions", and most of them could only "look at the official positions and sigh". Although they study day after day, year after year, in order to catch up with the exam, they try again and again and fail again, but they still cling to it, hoping to get ahead and shine. Sadly, however, most of these people didn't pass the exam all their lives. They only focus on the pursuit of fame and fortune, but ignore the most basic personal survival and business skills learning, so that a sad figure like Kong Yiji appeared. This is also the most hateful and sinful place in the feudal imperial examination education system. It can be seen to what extent feudal ideology and culture have harmed scholars!
Second, the artistic features of Kong Yiji
Lu Xun's novels are not only profound in thought, but also high in artistic achievements, which is also the reason why Lu Xun's novels are well written and can impress readers' hearts.
In the novel Kong Yiji, Lu Xun mainly adopts realistic creative methods; In shaping characters, we mainly adopt the methods of "mixing", selecting "typical details" and "designing typical environment for characters". Below, let me analyze it in detail:
(A), the creative method of realism
First of all, in Kong Yiji, Lu Xun describes the reality-the shopkeeper is fierce and ruthless; Short coats help the poor and are insensitive; The ruthlessness of Ding and other feudal elites showed us an extremely morbid society, and living in such a society like Kong Yiji seems to be only an unfortunate tragedy.
Secondly, the expression of realism in Kong Yiji is more severe and serious. First, Lu Xun's description of Kong Yiji's several visits to the hotel, although ostensibly describing Kong Yiji's "intelligent tiger" and people's ridicule of him, led to an atmosphere of "the atmosphere inside and outside the store is full of joy", but in essence it was used to set off the extremely cold and harsh social reality. Secondly, while Lu Xun tried his best to expose the ugly reality, he also revealed the causes and background of this dark social reality for us from the side. Marx once said: "The more the ruling class withdraws from the historical stage, the more intense their struggle will be and the darker their rule will be." Kong Yiji lived in the most declining period of feudal rule in Qing Dynasty. At this time, the class contradiction is extremely acute, and the social and economic foundation has been seriously damaged, making the poor hungry and cold, and their life and death are uncertain. The rich are rich and ruthless, bullying the good. Because of this, the novel Kong Yiji has a very profound and complicated social background, which provides a reasonable basis for the development of the plot of the novel.
(B), the image of the typical law
First of all, Lu Xun used the artistic technique of mixed synthesis in shaping this character. Kong Yiji is one of ten thousand scholars poisoned by feudal education and culture in Qian Qian. He has many weaknesses of lower-class intellectuals: First, "Kong Yiji is the only one standing and drinking in a gown", which shows that this kind of literati can't enter the official position, but they don't want to lower their status and associate with the poor people, and they are in a coma all day. Second, these people are very sad. They can't clearly understand their own situation. They always pretend to be "scholars". They often deceive themselves and laugh at themselves with feudal pedantic theories such as "gentlemen are poor". Secondly, the selection method of typical details. Kong Yiji has two main points. One is that Kong Yiji went to the hotel before he broke his leg. When he was laughed at, he ignored it, but "said to the shopkeeper,' Warm two bowls of wine and a plate of fennel. I paid nine pence. "The detailed description here, on the one hand, shows that Kong Yiji's life at this time is barely passable, on the other hand, shows his pedantry-nine pence in the Arrangement seems to be a kind of complacency and show off. Another place is that after Kong Yiji was broken by Ding, his hand came. When "I" brought him wine, "he took out four pence from his broken pocket". At this time, the situation shows that Kong Yiji is desperate-physically disabled and his life is hard to protect. The description of these two typical details can enhance and polish Kong Yiji's character and character.
In addition, the method of "designing typical environment for characters" is adopted. A series of events in Kong Yiji took place in the typical environment of Xianheng Hotel. This is because, firstly, there is a bad habit of drinking, which is conducive to the hotel boy "I" to directly describe and feel Kong Yiji's unfortunate experience and all kinds of embarrassment in the hotel. Secondly, Xianheng Hotel is a place frequented by many people. There are both "long-clothed people" and "short-clothed gangs" here. The description of these characters is conducive to better showing the "small society" of Xianheng Hotel, alluding to the whole society at that time, and playing a very important role in reflecting the situation of all social strata, the relationship between people and revealing social reality.
In addition, the language and description of Xiao Xiang in Kong Yiji are also excellent, which, together with the above artistic expressions, enriches and enhances the artistic appeal of the whole novel.
Kong Yiji is one of Lu Xun's earliest anti-feudal novels. Although this is not Lu's most influential novel, it represents the ideological and artistic nature of Lu Xun's novel creation to a certain extent with its unique charm and value, which has certain guiding significance for us to study and analyze Lu Xun's life thoughts and early life conditions today.