Cao's tragic fate and its roots.

Summary: The Golden Lock portrays Cao as a female image with human nature variation, a witch who lashes at lust and greed, and a blood sacrifice on the altar of feudal ethics and money worship! In her body, there is a serious lack of experience and lonely experience. From the perspective of Freud's psychiatry, the suppression of lust is the motivation of Cao's individual psychological variation. From Maslow's humanistic psychology, the need for security is to make him a slave to money. At the same time, feudal ethics and money worship are the social factors of his psychopathy, so Cao's characters are "slaves" and "freaks" produced by the mixture of ethics and money. Thus, it shows a female image with a lack of soul under the semi-colonial and semi-feudal background of Hong Kong and Shanghai, and profoundly reveals the reasons for female spiritual loss and psychological abnormality under the fierce collision between Chinese and Western cultures. Her tragedy is the tragedy of that society, the tragedy of that era!

Keywords: ethics, money → lust suppression, security needs → slaves, freaks.

John Husbit pointed out in "The Megatrend of Women": "Women need three things: self-esteem, economic ability and fertility." (1) Yes, when we look at the bloody modern history of China, women in China have no economic ability, so they can only use sexual value to compensate, and become tools for bearing children, just dolls for men, accessories for men, and bloody sacrifices on the altar of feudal autocracy and traditional culture for thousands of years! Zhang Ailing was a legendary female writer who was very popular in Shanghai in the 1940s. She revealed the living conditions of women in China from the perspective of abnormal sexual relations and abnormal marriage, and described the vicissitudes of life and the world. Cao is a typical tragic figure portrayed in Zhang Ailing's masterpiece The Golden Lock. As a sacrificial object of the alternation of old and new cultures, it has a strong practical significance in itself.

1. Cao's tragic fate

The Golden Lock is a novel about women. Writing female novels, I have never seen anyone who can render a woman's psychology to such a chilling degree like Zhang Ailing. Cao lost his lust because of his property, and turned back to his lust for others and his children as compensation for his lack of lust. The horror and pity of this abnormal erotic flow are the source of the novel's shocking power; The construction of various images makes the movements, psychology, hints, feelings, props and colors of the characters integrate, and there is a tension and synaesthesia between the characters. According to Freud's theory, primitive desires are like a river. If it is blocked, it will overflow into other rivers, which will directly lead to sexual dysfunction and abnormal behavior. The Legend of Shanghai and The Golden Lock This is a legend about the original desire of human nature, a thrilling story of abnormal and alienated human nature. Generally speaking, Zhang Ailing's novels are all related to women and money. In order to survive or not be poor for a lifetime, she regards marriage as the only coordinate in the sky of life, while youth is a bet and money is the ultimate destination. Bet your youth on tomorrow, and you will lose miserably, not only losing your youth, losing your love, but also losing your personality, happiness and affection. In the arena of life, you can only take one dollar and nothing else. The Golden Lock not only describes an ill-fated and miserable life, but also tells the helplessness of the times and the sadness of women: Cao, a beautiful young and energetic "sesame oil beauty", married her husband with bone tuberculosis for a living and made a beautiful vase, which ended up in a feudal fortress of cannibalism. What's more worth mentioning is that The Golden Lock also describes that people's lust gradually degenerates in the teasing of fate and the helplessness of life, and gradually becomes abnormal, and the abnormal fate of several generations brewed by this abnormal personality. Husband is a pile of "lifeless bodies". Under the serious lack of erotic experience, Cao destroyed his fiery enthusiasm and pursued material desires and money crazily. Brother-in-law Ji Zexian refused and then emotionally tempted, and her brother-in-law also treated the family as a pile. After selling it as a commodity, after the ore of lust was smelted by the fire of "money worship" in semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, a witch who lashed at lust and was greedy for money appeared, and a "freak" wearing a gold chain appeared.

Therefore, this is a legendary story of revenge, a legendary story of revenge for lust with money; A story of imprisonment, a story of being imprisoned by lust and evolving into a crazier material desire! Cao used to run a sesame oil shop. When she was young, a butcher boy liked her very much, and her sworn brothers also took a fancy to her. Although Qiao Qi is rude and provocative, she is full of youth, enthusiasm and vision for the future. However, after Jiang became a second grandmother, she walked into this dark prison and became a beautiful canary in a cage! More precisely, tigers and wolves in cages eat flesh with blood and bright gold that kills lust.

Of course, the fruit of love hangs high on the high branches of happiness, and Cao can't pick it, so he can only look forward to it silently under the tree. However, even lust can't be obtained. For her, it is undoubtedly a cold spring and a heavy snow in the spring of life! What makes her feel suffocated is that anyone in Jiang can look down on her, and even some girls dare to sneer at her. The dignity of her second grandmother, which she bought with her youth, is gone. Coupled with the suppression of her humanity by feudal ethics, this thick frost of ethics forced her to crush the fire of her own lust, and the volcano that began to erupt began to go out. "The bones and roots of the whole body are sour." As a result, her emotional field became a wasteland and desert in winter, dead silence. Therefore, she longed for the sunshine that the third young master Ji Ze loved, hoping to soothe her injured heart and emotionally warm her long-lost frozen soil. But the ruthless reality, like drizzling autumn rain, extinguished the only spark in Cao's heart; The romantic third young master, like a headless fly, dares to touch, provoke and stab anyone, but is unwilling to cross the threshold of uncle and sister-in-law's prevention! Let the seven smart flowers of youth fade slowly in the ruthless west wind, and yellow flowers are everywhere. After that, she was cold and bitter, and began her journey of revenge: first, she "loved her son", asked her son Changbai to accompany her to smoke cigarettes all night, took pleasure in spying on her son and daughter-in-law, forced her daughter-in-law to keep the air alone, and finally committed suicide. Secondly, the "jealous woman" didn't get happiness and didn't even want her own daughter. The design killed the pure love between Chang 'an and her boyfriend Tong Shifang. In the end, she also became a demon with no family and only money.

Like a wounded female wolf in a cage, grinning with bloody fangs, licking the wound and howling in a low voice, hurting the next person at any time. ...

Of course, this is a story about a cannibal being eaten by others. The story of harming others and yourself. The difference between Cao and Ge in Zhang Ailing's "The First Kitchen of Aquilaria Fragrant Tablets" and Cao in "Love in the Whole City" is that her marriage was not voluntary. She has her own pursuits and dreams. Her marriage was entirely out of "parents' orders and matchmakers' words." Therefore, from the beginning, she was destined to be a pitiful victim and abused, just a sacrifice on the altar. However, when her spring water flows to the east, she will decline, sink, retaliate and retaliate against people around her! And he became a victim, a sadist, a cannibal and a demon!

Notes on the History of Gan Er. "Financial Marriage" said: "All marriages are based on financial money, so it is not surprising to fight for more and less." Cao's marriage is just a deal in her eyes. She just made a dirty deal with the devil, sacrificed her youth, happiness, love and affection, and exchanged her life for a dream of spring. I only have one dollar. Therefore, in her life, Tian Ping should be inclined to money, not family, not feelings. Because the price is too high! She bought the money with her life. She earned it too hard.

When the love with Yan Ze went up in smoke, especially when Yan Ze with ulterior motives came to the door to plot property and calculate her money, she was like a wounded beast, moaning alone, despairing of all logic and the whole world. I don't know where to fly, I don't know where I am. I can't find the Big Dipper in the sky of my life, I can't find the habitat of my soul, I can't find my own clear sky. The conclusion is that "people are unreliable, only money is reliable" and "this is a crazy world." At this time, Pandora's box was opened in misery, helplessness, sadness and despair, and she gave her soul to the devil. In order to get money, she became an out-and-out "slave" wearing a gold chain and a "freak" combining feudal ethics with capitalist money supremacy. Reading Zhang Ailing's novel The Golden Lock, Cao went from colorful to gloomy and hard, and finally lost his love, and slowly disappeared with the dust in the long river of history. ...

Second, the personal psychological factors that caused the tragedy.

From the psychological point of view, Cao has a serious lack of experience. Missing experience refers to the subject's experience of various kinds of missing (spiritual and material). (4) Lack of satisfaction. At this time, in order to overcome the lack of experience and achieve psychological balance and satisfaction, the subject will mobilize and activate various spiritual forces. Therefore, the lack of experience includes not only changes in emotions, but also changes in cognitive activities. Kant noticed the role of lack of sexual experience. He said, "Because imagination is conceptually richer and more productive than senses, if there is lust, the lack of an object can stimulate imagination more than the possession of an object." Please look at this passage in The Story of the Golden Lock: "She went to the street to eat vegetables, wearing a blue summer cloth shirt and trousers, and the mirror was inlaid with black silk. She saw Lu Chao in the butcher shop through a row of copper hooks hanging on the pork. Lu Chao urged her to call Miss Cao. It's rare to call Qiaojie, so she patted the hook on her back, and countless hooks swung over and tapered his eyes. Lu Chao took a foot-wide piece of lard from the hook and threw it at the meat locker. A warm breeze came and smelled of dead bodies ... She frowned. Her husband fell asleep in bed, a lifeless corpse ... "It is the lack of love experience and the dissatisfaction of erotic experience that will mobilize spiritual strength and stimulate cognitive vitality. In this absence, Cao's cognitive activity is to "dispel" his own missing experience (that is, the lack of love), but it does not always achieve the goal. In this case, Cao has a strange psychology. Have this illusion.

In addition, "psychologists also believe that many illusions and hallucinations are related to individual desires. When the individual's strong self-employment is not satisfied and is in a state of serious lack, individuals often fantasize about the image formed by their inner desire to listen to another real object. " 6. In The Story of the Golden Lock, because she married Jiang to make a living as a second grandma, she faced a soft, heavy and lifeless body, didn't talk about love, and even couldn't get her passion, making the beautiful and enthusiastic Miss Cao look at the vase and sigh, and become a canary in a cage! In the cage of ginger, you will consume your youth bit by bit, and your humanity will be swallowed up bit by bit.

In the absence of this lust, Cao couldn't sit still and turned his inner desire into "a strong man with round place, bright red cheeks, wet eyebrows and watery black eyes". Ji Ze said: "She tried to sit down next to Ji Ze, only occupying a corner of his chair. She put her hand on his leg and said, "Have you touched his flesh?" It's soft and heavy, just like people's feet sometimes feel numb, that's the feeling ... "Another example:" She looked straight ahead with her eyes open, and the solid little gold pendant on her ear nailed her to the door like two copper nails. The butterfly specimen in the glass box is bright and sad. "From these descriptions, we can see that Cao transformed the third young master into his love object, and planted the seeds of figs in this love on his emotional wasteland in order to bring some comfort to his heart. Soothe that fiery and restless heart. Waiting for the bitter expectation, expecting the rain of love from the third young master to moisten this dry land. However, "JiZe looked at her and was moved. But that won't do. You can play as you want. He has made up his mind to leave his family alone. His temporary interest has passed, and he can't hide or kick. Being in front of him all day is a burden. Besides, Qiao Qi's mouth is so big and his temper is so impatient. How can he deceive people? Besides, she is so unpopular, who will forgive her for her? She may be desperate, but she doesn't care about being caught. He is still young, why take the risk? "In this case, the third young master didn't want to cross the uncle's defense threshold and enter Cao's life. Kan Kan said, "Sister-in-law, although I am young, I am not a fool." These words made Cao's eager sky overcast and suddenly darkened. Cao's husband died, so did her mother-in-law, and she shared her fortune. When the third young master Jize approached her again to calculate her money, "Jize said,' Believe it or not! Anyway, half our lives have passed, and it's no use talking about it. I only ask you to forgive my heart. I have suffered for you, so I am not wronged. "Qiqiao's serious lack of experience has been comforted at this time, and her heart is full of happiness and joy." She lowered her head, bathed in the light, listened carefully to the music, listened carefully to the joy ... Over the years, she played hide-and-seek with him, but that was just too close to her body. It turned out that there was still today! Yes, the rest of my life is over and the flower season is over. Life is so complicated and unreasonable. Why did she marry the Chiang family in the first place? For money? No, in order to meet Jize, in order to be destined to fall in love with Jize. "

To sum up, in Cao's body, she has never experienced love, and her lust is also seriously lacking. This lack of experience has become the main cause of her personality tragedy and the driving force of her transformation. She stepped into the cage of fate step by step, nibbled at her humanity, wrapped herself with the silk of lust, and finally strangled humanity and lost her life.

If the lack of sexual experience is the main cause of Qiao Qi's personality tragedy, the lonely experience in her body is also an important factor of her tragic fate. Qiao Qi's communication with the people around him belongs to "expediency conformity" in psychology: "On the surface, he still maintains a certain degree with the people around him, but in his bones, he persists and always experiences the differences between himself and others." ⑦ Because she came to Jiang's house to make a living as a second daughter-in-law, and because she only runs a sesame oil shop and has no family background in society, her status in Jiang is very low, and even the servants inside can sneer at her. For example, Xiao Shuang said, "Dragon begets dragon, and phoenix begets phoenix." You haven't heard her yet! ..... Another example is: Xiao Shuang said, "Grandma doesn't have to feel sorry for them, just come in full and go out full." . Don't say that gold and silver are flat, even odd uppers and trousers are good! "In this environment, no one treats her like a human being, but a beautiful and practical vase when she comes back from home. Moreover, elder brother and sister-in-law regard affection as a commodity and a tool to make money. People around her added a handful of cold and heartless salt to her already injured wound! Surrounded by the cold world, surrounded by the cold hierarchical barriers, no friendship, no affection, no love! Helpless and helpless, she is suffering, painful and lonely, and her inner world is still full of strong loneliness and sadness.

After JiZe left, the aunts were scolded by Qiao Qi and ran away. Sour plum soup drips down the table, like a slow night leak, one drop, one drop … one watch, two watches … one year, one hundred years. What a long time, this silent moment. "Cao's candlelight burning life has dimmed. After Jize left, he couldn't stand the storms of his life any more and went out. Jize not only took away her love, but also took away her only hope. The rest is only darkness, loneliness, dismay, loneliness and desolation, waiting for Cao to chew and taste slowly.

Freud believed that psychological disorder was caused by the accumulation of sexual tension. On the surface, it is caused by Cao Qiqiaozi's personality defect (that is, he can't speak, can't handle things, is rude and provocative, and has no talent), but when we unveil this mysterious veil, open this table and look below, we will find the real motivation, that is, dissatisfaction with lust and sexual tension. This subconscious is the motive source of Cao's loneliness and strange behavior. It is the most profound and primitive part of Cao's spiritual activities, full of all kinds of instincts and desires that society does not allow. It always wants to show it. However, Cao, who was in the cage of feudal ethics, had to leave his desires in the depths of his subconscious. Therefore, Cao's subconscious has become a reservoir of energy in her inner life, which is a repressed thing. Although Cao's lust can't be presented on the level of consciousness, it affects and even stipulates Cao's most subtle psychological activities in the dark. It affects her words and deeds all the time. For example, getting along with Jize naturally comes out: "Keep your eyes open." "Qiqiao waited for the fight, and then he took back his hand and said enthusiastically again," I really did it! " Raise your hand, chop down a fan, stop in mid-air, giggle ... "From these descriptions, we can see that Cao's subconscious affects her words and deeds. Because Freud believed that consciousness is a very small part of people's spiritual structure, and most of people's spirit is subconscious.

Freud pointed out that sex is the cause of mental illness and the motive force of human activities. If the subconscious always affects Cao's words and deeds, then sex (especially repressed sex) has become the main content of Cao's subconscious. Freud believed that instinct refers to an innate state in which the internal strength of the body determines people's spiritual activities. Instinct is people's inner needs and impulses. In the book, Freud summarized this as "the instinct of life": an instinctive force to express the development of individual life and love. This kind of energy is the object of external love and the inner love for self. Freud believes that Cao has a strong "father-loving complex", which is manifested in the complex of "loving children and hating women".

First of all, I love my son. For example, she squinted at him. There was only one man in her life all these years. She is not afraid that he will miss her money, it is hers anyway. But because he is her son, he is less than half of this ... now he can't even keep her half, he is married! ""Changbai smoke cannon, also dropped my head together. Qiao Qi poured him a cup of strong tea, and the two of them ate candied fruit and discussed the privacy of their neighbors ... Among them, when Qiao Qi listened to Changbai's story, this detail was meaningful: "The old ladies who handed tea and water next to them all turned their backs to laugh, and the girls all covered their mouths and laughed. Qiao Qi gritted his teeth, burst out laughing and muttered curses. He took down his pipe and ate the ash hard, making Toto ring. Changbai slipped away and kept talking. He talked all night. " When her husband was a disabled and lifeless body, Cao's lust was suppressed, so he accumulated his lust in his heart and sought the release and transfer of libido energy. Transferred to the third young master Jize, but Jize didn't want to cross the defense of uncle and sister-in-law. When Jize finally disappeared from her life, she moved Libido to Changbai, filling the emptiness in her mind after Jize left, which was reflected in an "Oedipus" complex, and then there was the loneliness of longevity. Cao announced his daughter-in-law in front of his mother.

Secondly, "misogyny": in Cao's mind, it is a selfish and secret world full of shameful contents and ulterior motives. She pursues the release of repression or the transfer of libido, which provides me with strong enough power. When I saw the happy love between Chang 'an and Tong Shifang, the balance in my heart was out of balance: "Shame on you! What's wrong with what's in your stomach? Urgent, I can't wait to enter the door! ..... you don't measure yourself. What is important about you? Don't deceive yourself, or it will be too late! The boy named Tong took a fancy to Jiang's family background! ..... Young masters don't know anything, and ladies all know that bullying men is better than bullying pigs and dogs! " It is precisely because of her daughter's spring breeze in love, unsatisfied lust and the great contrast between reality and ideal that Cao has such an "inferiority complex". Cao has an internal drive to improve this disadvantage and seek inferiority compensation, and has developed such an extreme (that is, excessive compensation)-designing to kill his daughter Chang' an's marriage! In this way, a happy marriage ended with "a beautiful and desolate gesture". Cao was pleased with his daughter's marital pain and was psychologically compensated, but it was so sad!

No matter Cao's "son fetish" or "jealous woman", he still enjoys spying on his son like Tigress's "voyeurism" in Camel Xiangzi, which is related to Cao's subconscious mind and imprisoned and repressed lust. All weird actions and outrageous language are special reflections of this subconscious!

If it is a little biased to talk about Qiao Qi's psychological causes from the perspective of Libido, then we can also talk about the causes of Qiao Qi's personality tragedy from the perspective of humanistic psychology, which has a great influence in this century.

Humanistic psychology is a schools of psychology that rose in 1960s. Maslow, as his representative, divided human needs into seven levels: "physiological needs, security needs, belonging and love needs, respect needs, cognitive needs, aesthetic needs and self-realization needs." Among them, physiological needs, as the need to maintain individual survival and racial development, are the most primitive and basic needs of human beings. As a lack of need, it will lead to a lack of motivation. For example, once sex and lust are satisfied, tension is eliminated, excitement is reduced, and motivation is lost. This kind of demand is the first need to meet all human needs.

If Cao in The Golden Lock is satisfied, the sexual tension is eliminated, and the excitement is reduced, she will lose her motivation, and there will be no "love for her son", no "jealousy for her daughter", no "pleasure of spying on her son, and no tragedy of her two daughters-in-law", so she will not become a witch step by step and kill people with golden cangue horns.

Unfortunately, however, the husband is a lifeless body, and she can't even get lust, not to mention the higher-level "need of belonging and love" and "need of self-realization" closely related to sex. Maslow believes that these seven levels of demand will only occur when the needs of the lower levels are basically met. On Cao's body, there are only two dominant demands at all times: 1, the demand for lust and the demand for security (to be a mistress for a living and to wear gold shackles voluntarily for later life), so these two demands dominate Cao's consciousness and become the core force to organize her behavior. Therefore, under the control of erotic demand, I will fall in love with the third young master Ji Ze, and I will have "love for children and jealousy for women". For the sake of security, I will exchange love, affection, happiness and personality for money, and do whatever it takes to defend the property she bought with her youth. When I realized that Jize was plotting her property and calculating her money to please her, the need for security overcame her lust and angrily scolded, "You want me to go to your farm?" You want my field? Once the money is in your hands, you don't have to say that you lied to me! You lied to me! Do you take me for a fool? ""Your mother's money is easy to get? If you get married in the future, I will accompany you for the New Year! Paying is also a white pay! " "He misses her money and the money she bought with her life. "

Therefore, the author thinks that the psychological root of Cao's tragic character is desire and security.

Third, the social and historical factors that caused the tragedy of the Seven Cracks Cave.

When Chinese people were immersed in the splendor of sunset, foreigners knocked on the door of China with their guns, awakening their unconscious dream of spring. With the signing of treaty of shimonoseki and Eight-Nation Alliance's invasion of boxer indemnity, it marks the full formation of a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. The incompleteness of the Revolution of 1911 did not change the semi-colonial and semi-feudal nature of China. As the bridgehead of China, so is Shanghai, the most commercialized city in China. Here, Chinese and western cultures collided fiercely, and feudal culture and western money worship merged and precipitated in Shanghai, which formed the social background of The Golden Lock, and also crossed Cao, a slave and freak, with a golden chain.

In this context, Qiao Qi lived in a semi-feudal and semi-colonial "ten-mile ocean field", as described in Mr Wen Yiduo's Dead Water, full of decadent and morbid things. In this moldy social environment, the old traditional ideas can't disappear, and they don't want to quit the historical stage. The children of the Eight Banners fled to the concession in the late Qing Dynasty, and lived a drunken life. In such a rigid and closed space, "preserving righteousness and destroying benevolence" and "parents' orders and matchmakers' words" still dominate people's fate. However, after capitalism swallowed up the colonial new world, "almost all nations-if they don't want to die-have adopted the bourgeois mode of production; It forces them to elect a so-called civilized system in their own place, that is, to become the bourgeoisie. In short, it created a world for itself according to its own appearance "10. The bourgeoisie's greed for copper has torn off the hypocritical mask of feudal ethics, making "everything-not only land, but also human labor, human personality, conscience, love and science, will inevitably become possible" 1 1, thus forming a strange phenomenon that feudal culture and capitalist culture are intertwined: on the one hand, feudal family relations and ethical norms are gradually disintegrating. What is even more frightening is that people's hearts are swallowed up by the silt in Chinese and Western cultures, eroded and poisoned, and become slaves and slaves. For example, "Although my cousin is not an outsider, all men in the world are the same bastards." You know, be careful. Who doesn't want your money? Another example is: "Tuition fees must be recovered in some way. Why are they not cheap? " Another example is: "If you don't get married early, you won't get married late, and you won't make up for it in the past two years." There is also: "He misses her money and misses the money she bought with her life." It can be seen that Cao has a strong color of money worship, and she will sigh: "People are unreliable, only money is reliable." "This is a crazy world. "

Secondly, her tragedy and misfortune are mainly reflected in her incomplete marriage. In feudal society, marriage pays attention to family status and status. Cao is only the daughter of a sesame oil shop, with humble origins and poor family background; On the other hand, the Chiang family is rich and famous. Under the background that bourgeois marriage pays attention to money, her marriage with the second young master of the Chiang family has planted the bitter fruit of fate, which is doomed to be a bitter and desolate ending. For example, "Everyone in this room looks down on her and steps on her head", which shows how despised Qiao Qi is and how strict her family is! As George shouted: "Who is not snobbish, dogs look down on people." There are even people who look down on her and say that she is a "living signboard of sesame oil shop", which makes people's dignity and humanity trampled and strangled. Even Cao was assimilated by his family concept and sacrificed his daughter's happiness. For example, "Don't deceive yourself before it's too late. That boy has a crush on the Chiang family. "

Indeed, in the 1920s and 1930s, it was hard to imagine what Shanghai would be like without money. The world crazy about money and the era crazy about money have been destroyed by ethics and money worship and divorced from human nature. So she came out of the big dye house where money is supreme and was dyed golden. She can't see anything but money!

Thirdly, there are still strong feudal factors in Qiao Qi. For example, he said to his daughter Changbai, "It is said that you are thirteen years old this year, and it is too late to bind your feet. It was my fault for delaying you. I'll wrap it up for you right away, not too late. " Another example: "Qiao Qi whispered:' I hit you, unfilial slave! Did you become unfilial while playing? Don't look at your home, it's all different! A long time ago, I was weak in the outside world, and I couldn't even stand up these two years. As for people, each generation is worse than the next. How can there be a relationship between heaven and earth? "

Four. Concluding remarks

In The Story of the Golden Lock, Zhang Ailing portrayed Cao as a female image with abnormal human nature and variation, a witch who lashed out at lust and greed, a wounded beast in a cage, and a bloody victim of feudal ethics and money worship!

It was the feudal ethics that suppressed human nature and imprisoned love that made the ore of lust cast such a victim, a "slave" and a "freak" wearing gold shackles under the fire of money worship. Her tragedy is the tragedy of that society, the tragedy of that era!