I recently saw Yu Dafu's "Sinking". Very touching. The hero "He" is a Japanese student. Because he pursued freedom and personality liberation and resisted feudal autocracy, he was expelled from school, so he was not allowed by society. He yearned for and pursued sincere friendship and pure love with the unique enthusiasm of young people, but was dragged down by his status as a "weak country". This enthusiasm was insulted and ridiculed, and he felt lonely and empty in a foreign country and became a "depression" patient.
He didn't want to sink, but he couldn't help it. In his panic, he went to pubs and brothels, destroying his pure sentiment. After the incident, he felt sorry for himself, lost his future and committed suicide by jumping into the sea in despair. His experience in a foreign country is closely related to the fate of the motherland, so before committing suicide, the hero angrily shouted to the social environment at that time: "motherland, motherland!" " You killed me! Get rich quickly and be strong! You still have many children suffering there! "
The explicit description of sex and the depiction of sexual psychological activities are a feature of Sinking. It is also a major attraction that the novel is criticized as immoral. These criticisms and accusations cannot be generalized, but must be analyzed in detail. Although there are many pornographic descriptions in Yu Dafu's works, they are not the kind of works that specifically describe sexual life. He pays more attention to people's introspection, which is the struggle and struggle of the soul. He felt the pain of life from the anguish he could not get rid of, and tried to explore the value of human beings and the meaning of life from this pain.
Yu Dafu's description of sex and sexual psychology is not only the characteristics of a sinking work. Later, this tendency continued to develop in some of his works, some of which were related to the plot development of his works and had certain social significance. With a serious attitude, he tried to explore the natural nature of human beings in literary works and explore the deep mystery of the conflict between soul and flesh, love and desire. He makes sexual desire appear as a phenomenon of life as well as a social phenomenon. This description, accompanied by the author's painful self-dissection and self-understanding, is the result of his yearning and longing for pure love. It is to affirm the rationality of human lust and at the same time issue a complaint to the society that stifles human nature and beautiful human feelings. When expressing the conflict between "spirit and desire", Yu Dafu inevitably reveals decadent atmosphere and the mood at the end of the century, which is influenced by the romantic thoughts of famous people in ancient eastern countries, and is also a disguised expression and abnormal protest of the author's dissolute and cynical attitude towards that suffocating era, accompanied by certain negative effects and unquestionable positive significance.
Sinking is in tune with the spirit of the times. With amazing materials and bold descriptions, he reflected the requirements of human liberation and social thoughts in the May 4th era from one side. It is precisely because of "amazing" and "bold" that some peers find it difficult to understand, which should be said to be the misfortune of Yu Dafu.
Reading Sink again, I felt his depression, phobia and fantasy. Personally, I don't like the way he "drops a few tears" easily. Although I also agree that he wrote a part of the spiritual history of intellectuals in old China, and some features (such as the weak confrontation between individuals and society) are historically penetrating, and there are some * * * features with the current intellectuals. He still blames others for all his symptoms, and also blames the present China. Through this passage, we can see some thoughts and feelings of the author at that time. It is the shortcomings of literati, plus the shortcomings of this person as a person. So I thought, in such a cruel and sultry era, why do some people commit suicide, while others are sad and indifferent, still alive, resisting and not giving up the struggle. I think the country can't meet the personal ideal in a short time, so how to improve itself is the most urgent task. So how can a young man with multiple disabilities find a psychologist like Freud and cure his illness first? Sometimes, I feel powerless. If the author knows, will that "he" commit suicide? I think that loneliness in silence is very, very shameful. Yu Dafu fought against his melancholy self by writing. Although the explosion of writing has brought him catharsis, will the writing that proves his depression make him more and more painful?
What Yu Dafu's works convey is a little bit in every era, but these things will not become the mainstream in every era. They belong to the marginal zone, but things in the marginal zone can often reflect an era more clearly. Yu Dafu's ills, his depression, his depression, his depression seem to belong to his motherland outside of himself. He complained that he could not love and be humiliated because his country was not strong, so that he had no position in a foreign country and could not get the favor of the opposite sex. Although the external objective environment is closely related to his feelings, it is not pinned on the distant motherland, but undoubtedly the shift of his own weak perspective and deception to himself. Duff still saw his own shortcomings, looked around, hesitated and struggled psychologically. He knows very well that all the reasons are caused by his fragile mind. However, he couldn't find a solution and let his morbid psychology develop. When he wants to vent his anguish in his chest, he transfers this emotion to external factors.
Reading Yu Dafu's article, I feel deeply depressed. He often describes the image of "redundant people" in some society. By describing their depressed life, it reflects the spiritual mileage of young people in the 1920s and 1930s. "Depression" is a kind of sentimental beauty and morbid beauty often presented in Yu Dafu's novels. The protagonist's depression has the characteristics of the times, which represents the empathy of the oppressed intellectual youth who began to awaken during the May 4th Movement. Yu Dafu shouted their inner demands through bold and frank descriptions, and then accused the evil society that was oppressed by imperialism externally and ruled by feudal forces internally. The author attaches great importance to this description of psychopathy, showing the suffering of soul and body incisively and vividly. All these are in line with the psychology and atmosphere of the whole society during the May 4th Movement-the contradiction between the old order's suppression of the new and the new creation under the old system. So we can see that Yu Dafu's "surplus" image is the product of this era.
Yu Dafu's novels mostly describe the knowledge points of frustrated young people, often boldly expose themselves and are full of romantic sadness. Guo Moruo said, "The self-exposure in Duff seems to be a morbid state." Yu Dafu advocated accepting old and new romanticism, declaring that "literary works are autobiographies of writers". His novels have a distinct "self-narrative". The difference between him and other writers is that he often takes his own experience as the material of his novels. Perhaps, as he said, only in this way can I "write my mind naked and let the world know my inner anguish."
Yu Dafu's novels are obviously influenced by Rousseau, Dostoevsky and German philosopher Nietzsche in the aspects of revealing morbid psychology and describing naturalism in his works. In his novels, there are both Rousseau-style confessions and Witt-style self-pity, self-shame, self-esteem and pride. In the painful self-exposure, self-reflection and even self-atonement, we can express people's mental illness and achieve a kind of introspection through our own reflection.
Some people say that Yu Dafu is decadent. This statement only sees Yu Dafu's side, but does not see his resistance and pursuit. It cannot be used as an overall evaluation of Yu Dafu. But it is true that Yu Dafu's works reveal sentimental and decadent emotions. This is the case with Sinking, and so are some of his later works. This is a prominent feature of Yu Dafu's romantic novels, and it is also a big weakness. Yu Dafu's sentimental and decadent mood is closely related to his personal life experience and ideological character, and it is undeniable that this mood has its background in the times. Yu Dafu has a strong desire to transform the real society and life, but he is surrounded by strong dark forces and has deep doubts about the transformation of life and society. This is precisely the ideological characteristics of petty-bourgeois intellectuals in the May 4th Movement, and it is also an important ideological source for the formation of Yu Dafu's tragic character. Sinking is the first and most representative work of this kind of ideological character. From the subjective lyricism in the first novel, Sinking, to the mixed subjective lyricism and objective description in Wave Point and A Night Intoxicated by Spring Breeze, and then to the more calm objective description in Running Out, the realistic factors in Yu Dafu's novels have been growing, and the depth and breadth of expressing life and reflecting life are also expanding. He began to pay attention to the fate of working people, and his creative theme expanded from personal experience to expressing the lives of working people living at the bottom of society, and created several images of workers struggling for death, and protested against the old society in a deeper and broader sense, breaking through the self-expression situation of creative society's works. His literary activities ran through several important revolutionary periods from May 4th to War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. From the initial expression of the distress of young people, it gradually expanded to reflect the misfortune of working people, and even described the arrival of the revolutionary storm. This change shows the development of the author's thought under the tide of the times. He keeps pursuing, but the result is often disappointment, even depression. This represents the similarities and differences between petty-bourgeois intellectuals who demand progress but cannot combine with workers and peasants. Mentally speaking, Yu Dafu has always maintained many characteristics of the May 4th intellectuals. He has always been loyal to the May 4th Movement and has never betrayed it. This is his strong point. He is a patriot and a democrat who sympathizes with the revolution. His attitude towards revolution and life is sincerely reflected in his own creation.
Duff loves freedom and hates oppression and exploitation. He is not a fighter, but a very thorough messenger of democracy. He is the darling of the motherland, and patriotism is the most prominent tendency in his words and deeds all his life. Xia Yan once said, "Duff was a great patriot, and patriotism was the spiritual pillar of his life.". "Profound patriotism and humanitarianism ... are the mainstream in Yu Dafu's whole life and creation.
Some characters in Duff's works record the mental state of some young people after the May 4th Movement. They resisted the ethical code but could not completely get rid of the habits of old intellectuals, and sympathized with their suffering compatriots but could not find a way out for them. With the loneliness of the times when there is no echo after shouting, I long for individual liberation, but I have nowhere to exert my strength, unwilling to sink but difficult to fly. Their hearts are intertwined with personal and national grievances, revealing the sense of disillusionment and crisis brought by a keen intellectual's examination of his own scars and national scars during the national awakening period.
His novels clearly express patriotic and humanitarian feelings. In his works "Sinking" and "Death in Silver Gray" with Japanese life as the background, the humiliation of the protagonists as subjects of weak countries made them express their sincere desire to love the motherland and long for prosperity, challenged the hypocritical feudal ethics through shocking self-exposure, exposed the bullying and darkness of society, and made their works show strong national self-esteem.
When he feels that there is no way to serve his country, when he feels that he is not understood, he will also complain, feel sad, have the illusion of escape, and even have pathological self-mockery. "He hates life without love, just as he hates desert without flowers. In the dark iron room, with grief and confusion after waking up, he shouted for love, rebelled against the feudal class that oppressed young people, and rebelled against the old times of indifference, ignorance, cunning and poverty. He never goes with the flow, but faces the harsh reality. When he can't see the light, the feeling of despair and depression keeps coming to him. But the spirit of realism, as an antibiotic, constantly induced him to cross the swamp and become solid. " -Liu Haisu "On Yu Dafu" (3)
"I want to cry, but I have no tears. I want to sue. Who should I sue? Sages and heroes are everywhere. Who can understand such a person who does not hesitate to grovel and feed the tiger? I don't want to talk about it anymore. " -Guo Moruo "On Yu Dafu" 4 Yu Dafu was unhappy all his life. But his voice seems to be able to penetrate time and space, and it still echoes today. Yu Dafu, a name that should not be left out.