(1) For example, Ge in "Love in a Fallen City" and "Fragments of Aquilaria Resinatum, the First Furnace Incense" were born in poverty and had to sacrifice their youth and marriage in exchange for material satisfaction. In the end, they became rich women, but their souls were distorted and their behavior became inhuman.
(2) These images are vividly written in Zhang Ailing's works, which shows the women's compromise and helplessness to their own destiny in the society at that time, and shows that they are doomed. Because of this, the works have also brought the readers closer to the characters in the book.
2. Full of tragic colors: Zhang Ailing's novels are full of strong tragic colors. The strokes of her novels are sad, and almost all the stories described are tragedies, and the tragic fate of the little people is described in an almost cold style.
(1) Looking at Zhang Ailing's novels, we can find that Zhang Ailing was deeply influenced by Aristotle's aesthetic theory about the tragic hero when she wrote novels, which can be traced back to her life experience. Born in Shanghai, Zhang Ailing lived in a family influenced by feudal traditional thought and western progressive thought. Because her parents divorced, her mother lived in Europe and her father married her stepmother, this family environment made Zhang Ailing precocious, and also gave her a tough attitude and personality in troubled times, which directly affected her creative mentality. This also makes her works full of strong tragic colors and become a wonderful flower in the history of modern literature in China.
3. Continues the keynote of China's old novels: Zhang Ailing's novels have one feature, almost all of which are narrated from the perspective of God. This perspective is omniscient and omnipotent, which is one of the characteristics of old novels.
(1) For example, at the beginning of "Aquilaria Resinatum", she adopted a storyteller's tone to lead out the whole story: "Please find out the copper incense burner handed down from your family with gorgeous mildew rate, light a furnace of Aquilaria Resinatum, and listen to me tell a story about pre-war Hong Kong. Your agarwood fire is over, and my story is over. " In China's old novels, most of them only have a single clue, and most of them are structured in the order of time and space, so the context is clear and orderly.
(2) Most of Zhang Ailing's novels also have such characteristics. Although there are some flashbacks and interludes in the middle, the overall clues are mainly in chronological order, such as Love in a Fallen City and Blockade.
(3) Most of Zhang Ailing's novels focus on the fate of characters, strung together the structure of the whole novel, and constructed in strict accordance with the order of beginning, development, climax and ending, which is a typical old novel.