First, in the subjective description, the author's feelings are mutual, and the feelings are "inspired by the excited soul"
Yu Dafu's novels downplayed the objective narrative and strengthened the subjective description. Both the description of natural scenery and the description of characters' psychology are integrated with the author's strong subjective feelings, which is one of the important signs of the lyric characteristics of Yu Dafu's novels.
First of all, we can observe the lyrical features of Yu Dafu's novels from the description of natural scenery.
In Yu Dafu's novels, there is a strange phenomenon, that is, the description of natural scenery is very detailed, while the description of characters' actions and disputes between people is quite rough. This is also the reason why he doesn't pay much attention to depicting typical characters in character movements. His description of the characters is very rough, but he pays attention to expressing the emotions, feelings and psychology of the characters, and his poetic and meticulous description of the scenery helps to form a unique artistic style of his novels-simple lyric style.
At the beginning of When Flowers Bloom in Ma Ying, the natural scenery outside the window is described as follows:
Outside the window is the night of the first quarter moon, which is not too short. The treetops, open spaces and white asphalt roads in the garden are all covered by silver moonlight and covered by semi-transparent shadows. It's just quiet around, quiet, just like the world in a dream. In the first summer, it should be a little hot, but the air in the room that intruded from the seam of plush pajamas was dripping with spring cold.
The description of this scene is very detailed, and it is eye-catching. Using "twenty sides" and "not too big" to describe "the second moonlit night", the concepts of quantity and shape are very clear. Then describe the moonlight in the garden. For some writers, I'm afraid it's enough to say "full moon and silver powder". But Yu Dafu insisted on writing "on the treetops", "on the open space" and "on the asphalt pavement with white lines" one by one. Such a detailed description gives people a vivid feeling of moonlight everywhere, which aggravates the atmosphere of the moonlit night. The following description is more detailed. The author did not directly describe whether the "early summer season" was hot, but felt the trace of "late spring cold" in "the air in the room intruded from the knitted eyes of plush pajamas". This kind of concrete, true and meticulous brushwork is rare in the description of scenery in general novels. However, the author then describes the actions of the characters and the relationship between them, which is completely another style:
This is the special ward building of a charity hospital run by the French Catholic Church. When I entered the hospital this morning, the rude young French doctor listened to it again and didn't reply until evening. Only at night, the shepherd in the white hat came once. Ask her what's wrong. She just smiled and shook her head, saying that she had to ask the chief doctor to know.
There was a sharp contradiction between these three characters, but it was diluted and disappeared in the author's highly summarized bold strokes. The "young French doctor" has no description such as name, portrait, appearance, clothing, etc., and nothing but an adjective of "rudeness", even though the appearance and characterization of the characters have been completed. As he is a "rough" doctor, the author did not describe his rough behavior. He just "vaguely listened" and then summed up all his actions with an adjective. After listening to it again, he "didn't reply until evening". This leap-forward summary description completely removes the relationship and entanglement between patients.
Yu Dafu pays attention to the subjective feelings of characters in a specific environment. Therefore, his description of natural scenery and characters' emotions is quite detailed. For example:
But it's already midnight. These people who eat charity meals are really heartless and irresponsible, and have no similar love for all beings. Fortunately, the disease is still very mild. What if it is serious? After such a delay of more than ten hours, can the miracle of Jesus' resurrection really reappear in the modern twentieth century?
In my heart, I am so anxious. I am used to holding my forehead against the cold glass window, and my eyes are not interested in watching the dim moonlight and dim flowers in the garden outside the window. Standing for a few minutes and complaining for a few minutes, I learned madame roland's famous sentence in my mind and cried:
"Charity! Charity! In your name, I really don't know how many innocent victims have been killed and how many despicable sages have been fattened! "
What a strong and meticulous subjective emotion this is. The above three fragments are in turn. If read together, it seems more like prose than a novel in general. Here, the scene, atmosphere and feelings are integrated into one, and when the scene blends, there is a touch of poetry.
I don't know which critic once said that the essence of novel drama always belongs to poetry, a lyrical narrative, or a lyrical narrative. We can feel from the description of scenery in Yu Dafu's novels, which is different from ordinary prose, that this lyrical feature lies not only in rendering the environment and atmosphere, but also in "infiltrating enthusiasm at all times to achieve ecstasy."
At the same time, we can also observe the lyrical characteristics of Yu Dafu's novels from his description of the psychological activities of the characters.
Whether it is a story novel or a character novel, it depends on the characters to unfold and demonstrate the story, because no matter how clever the plot or layout is, it will be boring without vivid characters to cooperate. So it can be said that "the characters give life and meaning to the plot."
Yu Dafu is very good at depicting characters, not only from the aspects of expression, action, dialogue, posture, clothing and so on. , but also from the performance of the characters' voice, appearance, charm and other aspects, pay more attention to the description of the characters' psychology, vividly show the conflicts, turmoil and uneasiness contained in their inner world, and create characters with different personalities. Therefore, Yu Dafu is better at penetrating the inner psychological level of characters through delicate emotional clues, and more uses the artistic expression of "confession".
The psychological description of Yu Dafu's novels is different from ordinary novels: it highlights the characters' self-feelings and inner contradictions. Because the characters in his novels are in adversity, they are particularly sensitive, have a strong sense of self and have sharp inner contradictions. This concentrated expression is that after their ideals and wishes are shattered, they can't get rid of their sentimental emotions, and they are so angry that they can only end up dead.
Sinking is the representative work of Yu Dafu. The first sentence at the beginning of the novel is: "He has been feeling miserable and lonely recently." This is completely a psychological self-feeling. Lonely and indifferent to the point of "pity", showing a low mood. In the form of expression, a sentence is a paragraph of one's own, and the word "feeling" is directly used to express the hero's inner self-feeling.
In order to highlight the psychological feelings and inner contradictions of the characters and profoundly reveal the soul world of the characters, Yu Dafu hardly describes the characters in his novels. As Lu Xun said:
Anyone who shows the depth of the soul should be regarded as a psychologist; Especially writers like Dostoevsky. When he writes characters, he hardly needs to describe their faces. As long as they speak in tones, they not only express their thoughts and feelings, but also their faces and bodies. (Introduction to the Poor, Complete Works of Lu Xun, Volume 7, People's Literature Publishing House, 198 1, 1 version)
Yu Dafu is such a "psychologist". It seems that he is holding a scalpel instead of a brush. When the knife went straight into the character's heart, everything inside him was revealed. Although the characters seem to have no clear external characteristics, readers can draw the imaginary characters through their contradictory psychological characteristics of sadness, melancholy, indignation, unwillingness to degenerate and sinking. It can be said that the psychology of the characters in Yu Dafu's works is always a bit "morbid", and readers can imagine the "morbid faces" of the characters accordingly.
Yu Dafu sometimes outlines the appearance of several characters, but this is to help reveal the psychology of the characters. The description of the protagonist's appearance in Death of Silver Ash is the most concentrated and full one in Yu Dafu's novels. But this description is special. It does not appear at the beginning of the novel, nor is it in the process of plot development. But with the help of a notice posted by an old servant in a district prison, it describes the face of the character at the end after death. The notice said:
Road patients,
One is about 24-5, 5 feet 5 inches long and thin; The color is yellow, the cheekbones are quite high, and the hair is several inches long and hangs on the forehead. Besides, it is even less distinctive.
Wearing black, I'm wearing a dress. There is a collection of poems and essays by Ames Downes, a 50-cent bill, a white silk handkerchief, and some statues of women with their initials on them. I have a black soft hat around me and yellow light leather shoes on my feet, and the left and right sides have been damaged.
The protagonist's haggard and yellow "sick face" is a reflection of his lonely and melancholy "morbid" psychology. The author's description of his appearance at the end is only an external mark after his inner world exposes himself. Therefore, under normal circumstances, Yu Dafu always uses straightforward psychological description-naked self-exposure of characters to highlight self-feelings and inner contradictions. Even if he occasionally writes about the appearance of the characters, his focus is still on revealing the "morbid" psychology of the characters.