Ah Q: Typical spirit.

Text/Duan Chongxuan

About Ah Q, in the 80 years since his birth, people have talked too much, too carefully and too deeply. It is almost impossible for you to find new topics and breakthroughs. I want to talk about my own ideas from the perspective of character types-what kind of typical ah q is, and see if I can say something new?

There have been many authoritative comments on the image of Ah Q, and the arrangement of these words constitutes a history of accepting Ah Q's image, reflecting our deepening understanding of Ah Q's image. At the beginning of 1922, before Lu Xun's The True Story of Ah Q was serialized in the Morning Post Supplement, Shen Yanbing (Mao Dun) thought that Ah Q was "the crystallization of China people's character" and that "The character of China people represented by Ah Q is also the character of the upper-middle class in China" (novel monthly 65438+February 20922) was between 50 and 50. The History of Modern Literature in China, edited by the editor-in-chief, still thinks that Ah Q is "a typical peasant who has been devastated both materially and spiritually" (People's Literature Publishing House). The History of Modern Novels in China published by Yang Yi 1998 reinterprets Ah Q, saying that Lu Xun "shaped Ah Q, a typical figure with a strong artistic life, and showed a high degree of consistency between the development and change of' personal history' and' social history' in his novels, thus recording the mental journey of China people and the history of national suffering before and after the Revolution of 1911". These expositions have keenly grasped Ah Q's national character, class character and psychological characteristics, but they generally explain the connotation of the characters from the perspective of realism "typical characters in typical environments" or summarize their spiritual characteristics from their complex personality composition. Ah Q is still a "typical personality". There is nothing wrong with this research path, but I thought it was a detour. Why not "cut to the chase", directly face his spiritual world and characteristics, and regard him as a "spiritual model"?

The classic realism theory regards shaping "typical personality" as a core proposition and also as an authoritative yardstick. In fact, this "typical view" has its limitations, not to mention that it is not suitable for the characters in romantic and modernist literary creation, and it often seems "stretched" for some special images in realistic creation. For example, for Ah Q, I think the typical image in literature is a pluralistic and open "big family", which should at least include the following types: typical personality, typical psychology, typical spirit and typical symbol. As long as this character shows some characteristics of life and society artistically and strongly, we should regard him as a model and don't insist on how distinctive and special his personality is. Of course, each model does not exclude other characteristics of human nature, but the core characteristics of this model should be certain, which is why it is different from other models. The True Story of Ah Q is undoubtedly a masterpiece of realism, but at the same time it adopts the chapter-by-chapter style of classical novels and the humorous, ironic and exaggerated artistic techniques of modern novels, essays and essays, forming an open and peculiar realistic style. Ah Q does have distinct personality characteristics and unique psychological description, but what makes us more shocked and unforgettable is his spiritual characteristics-the "spiritual victory method" full of national and even human souls. The ancient China has been tottering, but Ah Q is immersed in an illusory spiritual world. In the face of desperate survival, he can only offer a victory flag to deceive others. The universal and profound spiritual characteristics of the country, human beings and personal life! So I regard him as a "spiritual model".

In fact, Lu Xun never shaped Ah Q into a character. He made it very clear: "For example, when it comes to' why' I want to write a novel, I still hold the' enlightenment' more than ten years ago and think it must be' for life' in order to improve this life. Therefore, my materials are mostly taken from the unfortunate people in the sick society, which is intended to expose the suffering of the disease and attract the attention of treatment. " (How do I Start a Novel) Lu Xun examines and exposes Ah Q's mental illness from the height of modern intellectuals, hoping to "enlighten" the people and "improve" their lives through his own pen. He added: "No matter how healthy and strong the people are, they can only be meaningless propaganda materials and spectators. There is no need to think that they died unfortunately, so our first task is to change their spirit. " This passage clearly shows Lu Xun's close attention to the "national spirit". Compared with people's physical condition, spirit is "the first". 1925 Lu Xun further elaborated his creative thoughts in the preface to the Russian translation of The True Story of Ah Q: "In a silent nation like China, it is really difficult to draw a soul, because, as has been said, we are still the people of an ancient country without innovation, so we are still disconnected from each other, and even our own hands hardly know our own feet. Although I try my best to explore people's souls, I always feel sorry for myself. In the future, people around the high wall will wake up, go out and speak for themselves, but now it is rare, so I have to write these in isolation according to my own impressions, as my life in China. " Lu Xun often examines, explores and thinks about people's souls and spirits like the Dead Sea. But he often feels alienated and insecure. On the one hand, it embodies the unfathomable national spirit, and at the same time, it also shows Lu Xun's demanding of his own creation. He is not the kind of writer who is in a hurry to write with a little feeling. What he pursues is "writing a modern soul of our nation", and Ah Q is the ideal object to embody Lu Xun's creative thought. You see, in Lu Xun's series of expositions, the key words are: enlightenment, exposing disease and suffering; First, change the spirit; Draw a soul by perception. He didn't talk about characterization. Lu Xun has published many articles about creation, and also discussed characterization many times. But he often emphasizes the description of the soul and spirit of the characters, rather than the description of the characters' personalities. Of course, as the pioneer of China's modern novels, Lu Xun didn't mean to belittle the description of characters, but in his view, the description of characters is used to express the soul and spirit, which are the most important and essential things of characters. It is precisely because of Lu Xun's aesthetic thought that the characters he created have strong spiritual characteristics and great social and life coverage, and often become the representatives and symbols of some characters. For example, Kong Yiji represents the alienated declining literati, and the soil improvement represents the miserable life of the peasants in the turbulent feudal society. The madman becomes the symbolic image of the enlightened people in the feudal "iron house" ... The most striking purpose we see in them is an inner soul and spiritual feature, and they also have their own personality, even quite complicated, but with the advancement of the plot, the characters are organically integrated into the soul and spirit. Ah Q is undoubtedly the most plump and profound artistic image in Lu Xun's novels. He is richer and more vivid than other characters written by Lu Xun. For example, his simple and cunning, self-esteem and inferiority, bullying, sensitivity and numbness and other complex and changeable personality characteristics. However, it is not the ultimate goal for Lu Xun to create the personality characteristics of the characters, which are directly related to the soul and spirit of the characters. Lu Xun's ultimate goal is to draw "soul of china", so Ah Q became an outstanding "spiritual model".

Ah Q is a poor farmer and a wandering farm laborer in Weizhuang village in the south of the Yangtze River, but we can't assume that he is a "typical farmer". As a "spiritual model", he is not restricted by class, stratum or even nation. He broke through his own identity and became a typical image of all classes, strata and even the whole nation and mankind. But why did Lu Xun choose a farmer as his description object? I think there are two reasons: First, Lu Xun himself is familiar with farmers. He was born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, a very old town, and his grandmother's family is in the countryside. He grew up in the atmosphere of rural areas and farmers, and he has deep feelings and understanding for farmers. A large part of his novels are about the countryside and farmers he is familiar with. Second, farmers can best reflect the culture and spirit of the nation. China is a traditional society with a particularly long feudal history, and the foundation of its existence and continuation is the vast majority of farmers. With the development of feudal society, China culture evolved into a feudal culture serving the feudal ruling class through the transformation and integration of the ruling class, and then it was instilled and infiltrated into the people in various ways, becoming a spiritual culture that dominated farmers' thoughts and behaviors. Even if the society has undergone major changes, the cultural accumulation in farmers' psychology is often deeply rooted and unshakable. At the beginning of the 20th century, the feudal society in China was at the end of its road, the monarchy was overthrown by the Revolution of 1911, foreign powers invaded savagely, and the country was in turmoil and impoverished. At such a painful turning point in history, the ruling class showed cowardice, hypocrisy and servility, while the peasants still lived in the primitive state, and their thoughts were more numb, ignorant and conservative. The whole nation is permeated with a terrible sense of servility-spiritual victory law. Choosing Ah Q as the object of expression can not only truly reflect the living conditions of the lower class during the historical turning point, but also show the subtle changes in soul of china. Ah Q is the humblest pauper. He consciously or unconsciously accepted enough traditional moral culture. In the storm of the times, his soul and spirit also suffered a certain impact, driving him to "go to revolution" and eventually becoming a victim of "revolution". Isn't it the most appropriate and artistic choice to show the Revolution of 1911 and "the soul of China people" with such a role? From the operational point of view, Lu Xun chose Ah Q as his teacher in order to let him play his thoughts and art more freely and have less worries. Therefore, it can be said that Lu Xun borrowed Ah Q's "body" to shape his "typical soul of china".

Traditional realism focuses on showing the complex and diverse personality profiles of characters, while stream-of-consciousness novels focus on describing the psychological flow of characters. So, how did Lu Xun shape his "spiritual model"? To sum up, I think there are three aspects.

The first is to "denigrate" ordinary events in daily life. Lu Xun admired Nikolai Nikolai Gogol's skill of "profoundly expressing the dullness of the landlord's life at that time with ordinary things and ordinary words", and creatively exerted Nikolai Nikolai Gogol's expression method. In The True Story of Ah Q, the most daily life events of the characters are frozen, enlarged and strengthened, which makes people's common life strong and strange, thus reflecting the spiritual connotation behind the characters' actions and personalities and showing a thrilling artistic power. For example, when Ah Q and Wang Hu competed to catch lice, the boring and trivial events became strange and magical after careful carving by Mr. Lu Xun, which showed Ah Q's abnormal psychology of being "prettier than them but uglier than them". Such examples abound in novels.

Second, humor, satire, exaggeration and other artistic expressions are widely used to highlight the soul and spirit of the characters. For example, Ah Q disdained the little nun in his bones and acted like a gentleman, but since he rubbed the little nun's scalp, there was a sudden feeling of "satiny" between his fingers, which made him feel uneasy until he made the mistake of "molesting Oh Mom". Show the cultural accumulation and personality split in the depths of Ah Q's soul to the fullest. This is humorous and ironic. Another example is the description of the capture of Ah Q by the county magistrate, and the excitement of the officers and men is beyond words; Ah Q drew a circle before the execution. He tried to draw, but he didn't draw well. He changed from "shame" to "relief" The use of exaggeration shows Ah Q's pity, numbness and ignorance.

The third is to insert the author's subjective comments to deepen the image of the characters. According to the general rules of biography, authors can discuss and evaluate characters. Lu Xun made good use of the convenience of style and inserted some incisive comments at any time, which became the finishing touch of his works. For example, the argument about "winner's philosophy" says that Ah Q's pride is "perhaps this is also a proof that China's spiritual civilization ranks first in the world". The image of Ah Q has been pushed to the background of China's spiritual civilization. For example, when Ah Q encountered a puzzling female problem, the author had a conversation about women, which was ironic and harmonious, deeply analyzed Ah Q's inner contradictions and sharply criticized the "view of women" in feudal culture. For another example, before dying, Ah Q saw a wolf's eyes in a trance, "walking with him not far away" and "biting his soul there". Ah Q, numb as a piece of wood, probably won't have such an illusion. This gave Ah Q an association with the author, but at this moment, it deepened and sublimated Ah Q's death. His death is a national tragedy, a cultural tragedy and a tragedy of the times. But as the "spirit" of a traditional culture, Ah Q is immortal. To tell the truth, Ah Q is just a rogue proletarian in the countryside. He can't bear so many social, life, ethnic and cultural connotations. It was Lu Xun who created him-an incredible "spiritual model".