In the content of the whole play, the "three unifications" are strictly followed. "Thunderstorm" describes eight characters from two families, involving 30 years of grievances in one day. It can be said that the dialogue between characters is full of the seeds of tragedy, and finally the tragedy broke out in the downpour. In the play, Zhou Puyuan and Fan Yi, Zhou Puyuan and Shi Ping, Zhou Puyuan and Lu Dahai are entangled in three contradictions. The harsh reality made Sifeng unbearable. She rushed to the garden, ran into a leaky wire and died. Zhou Chong was electrocuted to save her, and his drought-striken fields shot himself. Two women are crazy. Three of the eight characters in the play ended in death. Since then, death has become a lingering plot in Cao Yu's plays. This kind of content reflects the destruction and cruelty of feudal thoughts to human nature, denounces the hypocrisy and cruelty of capitalists, expresses sympathy for the lower working people, reveals the root of the tragic fate of characters (feudal hierarchical consciousness), and expresses the author's sympathy for the impermanence of life.
Thunderstorm has the following characteristics in structure.
First, the plot is tortuous, the story is strong and full of legend.
Second, the structure is closely concentrated.
Third, the double lines of light and shade are criss-crossed and fascinating.
On the basis of the reappearance of the old scene 30 years ago, the dramatic contradiction was pushed to a climax and a series of tragedies broke out. The fates of the eight characters in the play are intertwined and different, but they still can't escape the word "tragedy". The script is characterized by gripping plot, concise and implicit language, distinctive characters and extremely rich subtext. Like a sharp sword, it glides slowly on the reader's heartstrings, and the lingering sound does not stop. Of course, the director and performance of this play have made great efforts. The director of the play spared no effort to render the tragic color of the whole stage with sound and lighting. Actors also try their best to describe the tone, eyes and breath of the characters.
Two families, eight characters, a tragedy. Cao Yu's Thunderstorm is about family affairs, but it is full of the shadow of state affairs. The intricate network of characters, different personalities, 30 years of grievances broke out in 24 hours, and many suspense and foreshadowing poured down on the narrow drama stage, which made people memorable.
Thunderstorm has achieved great artistic success. The author is very familiar with the life in his hometown, has a deep understanding of the characters he created, and has a fairly accurate grasp of the characters' personalities. Zhou Puyuan's overbearing hypocrisy and Fan Yi's surly unruly all give people a vivid impression. Thunderstorm, influenced by the tragedy of Greek fate, is filled with an indescribable tragic atmosphere. The author is good at bringing many characters into a unified plot structure, creating one tense scene after another and a strong drama conflict. Coupled with the lively language, Thunderstorm has achieved unprecedented success.
When I finished watching Thunderstorm, I thought of Kant's sentence: "Evil torments us not because of human nature, but because of human cruel selfishness." When we take off our rose-colored glasses and look at the real world, how many wars, violence and robberies have taken place in the world during the period when I wrote the above words.
Speaking of good and evil, just as there will be a thousand Hamlets in a thousand opinions, there may be a thousand standards of good and evil in a thousand people's minds. Cao Cao said, "I would rather lose the world than lose me." Louis XV also said, "Even after my death, there will be a big flood." This is the greedy and sinful nature of human beings.
Zhou Puyuan is a character. That's all I can say about him. He is the most typical specimen of that era. The whole story is intertwined with human greed, and in the unrestrained desire of human beings, Zhou Puyuan gives full play to his nature. Fan Yi, like a flame in the dark, is cute because it is not cute. She really saw the evil nature of Zhou Puyuan, and she expressed her dissatisfaction with her weak resistance. But what happened? And his drought-striken fields, Zhou Chong and Sifeng, three completely innocent children, are they victims? Their death, paleness, may only show their "cynicism". They can't control this evil world, and death is a relief for them.
In such a greedy and evil society in Qi Fei, we should have a rational understanding of the "evil human nature" society. Knowing "inherent bad habits" is not a shame, but a kind of progress and a reflection of human beings on themselves. Just as moving from heteronomy to self-discipline and from law enforcement to legislation is a kind of progress of mankind. Let greed be over-contained!
Just as the night gave me black eyes, I used them to look for light.
Appreciation of the drama Thunderstorm Part II Watching Thunderstorm in Wuyi Theater last night was as depressing as the title of the play.
I watched Thunderstorm in junior high school, but after watching the drama version of Thunderstorm, I kept repeating "Why is it so hot?" .
Generally speaking, Thunderstorm is a tragedy that comes straight to the point. The whole play is full of tragedy, and the depressed atmosphere is getting worse.
The first appearance was the housekeeper of the Zhou family. He condescended and kept saying, "Tell your wife that Gui Lu sends her regards." "Yes, madam", a lowlife, breeds greed for money in the story of his daughter and young master. The role is really good, the lines, the catwalk and the eye movements are all in place.
Zhou Puyuan, the contradiction started with him. Thirty years ago, in order to marry a rich and powerful lady, he drove Mei Shiping, a maid who had just given birth to her second child, and her newborn child out of the house. Mei Shiping threw herself into the water, and after being rescued, she married Gui Lu. The first feeling of the whole drama is that the world is very small, and Mei Shiping's husband, daughter and son all work in Zhoujia. Mei Shiping and Gui Lu's daughter Sifeng fell in love with her half-brother Zhou Ping. Mei Shiping and Zhou Puyuan's second child, Lu Dahai, is a worker in Zhou Puyuan Coal Mine and a worker's representative against Zhou Puyuan.
In the scene of Zhou Puyuan's "savage concern" for Fan Yi, Fan Yi is forced to drink the medicine. Fan Yi felt a thousand kinds of reluctance, but Zhou Puyuan asked his drought-striken fields to invite her to drink medicine. Fan Yi had to drink it for his drought-striken fields. The two children's "cautious" father-son relationship with him, his ruthless attitude towards Lu Dahai ... The love for those furniture is only because those things that used to be Mei Shiping's favorite are reluctant to throw away after moving many times, and I always remember Mei Shiping's habit of not opening the window. I saw something in his heart that has not disappeared. I heard Mei Shiping say what he said: "Don't you have five shirts? Which one do you want ... "I gradually found that after Shi Meiping, the old woman in front of me was very upset, and it seemed that his image began to reverse again. Especially after he gave Mei Shiping a check for 5000 yuan, it was a heavy blow to the audience.
I have always felt that although he kept the furniture, even Mei Shiping's habit may have become an inertia of life. But how difficult it is to integrate habits into life. This shows that he once deeply remembered, deeply regretted and deeply missed. Although for various reasons, he began to lose his original mood, but no one can deny that he has that kind of mood.
As for his son Zhou Ping, who has many similarities with him, I think it is almost a negative textbook in the play, and I can't even find the bright spot in him. Like his father, he gave up the whole thing at first, although he was condemned by his conscience for his unhappy love with his stepmother Fan Yi. Although he dared to break through the secular world and love Sifeng, the whole process only showed his coldness, evasion and cowardice.
His drought-striken fields is an irresponsible person, and going to the mine has become his means of escape. He never dared to face his stepmother, Fan Yi, and even treated the woman he once loved mercilessly, saying that she was unworthy of being a mother, but he didn't know that he was unworthy of being a son.
Zhou Chong is a hope. He is only seventeen years old and full of hopes and fantasies about life. He hoped that Sifeng could study and someone could accompany him to watch the sunrise. Ridiculous and pathetic. Facing the reality that Sifeng, who he likes, and his brother are in love, he chooses to criticize himself, saying that he is fooling around and doesn't really like Sifeng. ...
Extended content
Thunderstorm is a drama created by playwright Cao Yu, published in the July issue of Literature Quarterly, 1934.
Based on the China society around 1925, the play depicts the tragedy of a bourgeois family with strong feudal color. In the play, two families, eight characters and thirty years of grievances are the main lines. Zhou Puyuan, a hypocritical capitalist, Zhou Chong, a simple teenager influenced by new ideas, Fan Yi, a woman who was driven crazy by an indifferent family and hurt to pieces by love, Zhou Ping, who felt guilty about her past behavior and tried to escape, Lu Shiping, who came back unexpectedly, Lu Sifeng, who was simply in love and loved, and Lu Dahai, an oppressed worker, were all greedy. No matter family secrets or life secrets, all contradictions broke out on a thunderstorm night. While describing family contradictions and entanglements and denouncing decadent and stubborn feudal families, it also reflects deeper social and times problems.
The plot is gripping, the language is refined and implicit, and the characters have their own characteristics. It is "the cornerstone of China's drama realism" and a milestone in the maturity of China's modern drama.
Creation background
1930 In September, Cao Yu was admitted to the Foreign Languages Department of Tsinghua University from Tianjin Nankai University and entered the second grade. He loved drama since he was a child, and actively participated in the performances of Peking Opera "The Fisherman Killed a Family" and Ibsen's "A Doll's House". His passion for drama made him have a strong desire to write drama, and he began to conceive the drama Thunderstorm based on his personal experience and knowledge for many years. 193 1 year, when the September 18th Incident broke out, Tsinghua University students organized an anti-Japanese propaganda team, with Cao Yu as the propaganda team leader. He and his classmates from the propaganda team went to Baoding by train to publicize. On the train, I met a burly man named Zhao, a worker at Changxindian Iron Works. Cao Yu sincerely admired the worker's patriotic spirit. He remembered the drama Thunderstorm that he was conceiving, and he had the character image of Lu Dahai in Thunderstorm. After pondering and writing for half a year, Cao Yu finally finished the originality of Thunderstorm. 1 In July, 934, Thunderstorm was first published in the third issue of Literature Quarterly, the first1volume.
Creative background When talking about writing intention, the author said that Thunderstorm was "the product of a day without the sun". "At that time, I wanted to resist. Trapped in the darkness and corruption of the old society, I was unwilling, so I picked up a pen. Thunderstorm was my first groan, maybe a cry. " (Postscript to Selected Works of Cao Yu) It is also said that "writing Thunderstorm is an urgent need of emotion" and "it seems that there is a surging emotion pushing me. I am venting my repressed resentment and slandering China's family and society. "
theme
Thunderstorm shows a great tragedy of life and is a cruel trick of fate on people in an unequal society. Zhou Puyuan's tyranny, cruelty and hypocrisy; Zhou Chong's enthusiasm and simplicity; And Fan Yi's deep and even slightly abnormal persistence in love; A weak Zhou Ping repents his sins without knowing it; Poor Ma Lu who was insulted and teased ... and the secrets of family and life, all of which broke out on a thunderstorm night. Finally, the wrong, guilty, innocent and innocent people go to destruction together. It tells the complicated tragic stories of the Zhou family of the bourgeoisie and the Lu family of the urban common people. First, the life tragedy of the bourgeois family with strong feudal color represented by Zhou Puyuan; Second, the tragic situation that the urban civilians, represented by Ma Lu, can't control their own destiny and are manipulated by others. However, the complicated blood relationship between Zhou and Lu families highlights and vividly reflects the contradiction between two different class families. It exposed all kinds of dark phenomena of the old family in old China and the tyranny, cruelty and hypocrisy of the landlord and bourgeoisie, reflected the social reality that a great change was brewing in China in the 1920s and 1930s, and gave deep sympathy to the oppressed.
Artistic feature
(1) distinctive language personality.
The personalized language of the characters in the author's works is very prominent. For example, the description of Gui Lu language in the first act. That sly smile and obscene language show the face of a slave to the fullest. Impress the audience. The author made great efforts to describe Fan Yi's inner world. She felt unbearable for the vulgar and monotonous life of the Zhou family, tired of this gloomy atmosphere and mentally bound, and she demanded to get rid of all this. In a sense, she is also an insulted and hurt person. The script made her develop abnormally in an irresistible environment: love turned into hate and stubbornness turned into madness.
⑵ Rich and profound language beauty.
Due to the limitation of time and space, drama language must be refined. The refined beauty of drama language is manifested in the richness and profundity of lines, that is to say, the most abundant and extensive content is expressed in the most economical language, with one as ten and less as more. There are almost no particularly awkward lines in Thunderstorm, which is easy to understand, concise and profound. Moreover, the lines are full of subtle pauses and omissions, allowing the audience to completely enter the scene created by the lines with the development of the plot.
(3) contagion
In the second act of Thunderstorm, when Lu Dahai reveals Zhou Puyuan's sinful family history. Shi Ping witnessed the painful changes in her inner world when Zhou Ping, her eldest son who left home for more than 20 years, beat another son, Lu Dahai. Lu Dahai: You bastards, let me go. I want to say that you drowned 2200 coolies on purpose ... She burst into tears and blurted out the following words: Oh, "What a bunch of robbers! (Go) [20] You are Ping, why ... why did you hit my son? " This passage is full of Shi Ping's extremely complicated feelings. She was shocked, then awakened, then angry, and finally denounced, a series of emotional dramatic changes. Shi Ping didn't expect the Zhou family to treat Lu Dahai like this. She was very shocked, but the fact woke her up, so she angrily scolded, "What a bunch of robbers!" " "His drought-striken fields took Lu Dahai twice, as if hit her heart. She didn't expect Pinger, who wants to see her day and night, to be so vicious. So, she said in surprise, "You are Ping", apparently trying to recognize her long-lost son. The implication is that she wants to say "you are Ping". The sound just came out. She promised to refuse her son's request, rationally changed "Ping" to homophonic "Zhi" and angrily rebuked "Why did you hit my son? The clever use of the homophonic word "by" accurately expresses the dramatic changes in her feelings and the great pain and indignation in her inner world.
(4) The implied beauty of lines.
In Thunderstorm, subtext is everywhere, such as: "Are you ready?" Does this mean you are ready to run? Or are you going to get beat up? Another example is the scene where Zhou Puyuan and Shi Ping meet in the second act of Thunderstorm. When Zhou Puyuan didn't know that Shi Ping was standing in front of him, he showed a feeling of mourning and repentance. When he recognized Shi Ping, he exposed the truth of bourgeois hypocrite. He asked sternly, "What are you doing here?" "Who sent you?" These two sentences come from the subconscious, which have internal language and subtext. What are you doing here? The subtext has two meanings: first, you don't have to come here; The second is the threat. Are you trying to blackmail me? The last sentence is "Who told you to come?" The subtext is: It wasn't you, but Gui Lu must have ordered you to blackmail me. He is very afraid that his affair with Shi Ping will be discovered by his servant Gui Lu, which is a serious threat to his reputation and social status. The subtext of these two sentences plays an important role in expressing Zhou Puyuan's hypocritical character. Expressed the potential meaning through implicit language.
5. Exciting sense of stage
For example, in the first act of Thunderstorm, when Fan Yi appeared on the stage, she said, "At first sight, I knew she was a brave and feminine woman. Her face is pale, only her lips are reddish, and her big black eyes and high nose make people feel a little scared. Her eyes will be filled with the pain and resentment of a young woman after disappointment. " "She is an old-fashioned woman in China. There are her weaknesses, her sadness, her ... her love for poetry, but she also has a more primitive wildness. " "She will love you like a hungry dog biting its favorite bone for three days. She will hate you like a vicious dog. No, she will eat you silently. However, her appearance is quiet and worried. She will fall gently beside you, like leaves on an autumn night. She feels that her summer has passed and the sunset in the western world has long been dim. " Look at this stage trick. This has played a very good role in grasping Fan Yi's personality characteristics.
[6] profound poetry and lyricism.
Cao Yucha used the lyricism of language to build a mansion of his plays and poems. It can also be said that it is precisely because of the comprehensive application of some poetic language skills such as metaphor, symbol and implication that his dramatic language is lyrical. In Thunderstorm, Cao Yu likes to describe the appearance, personality and life experience of the characters he depicts, and explains and describes the scenes of the characters' lives in detail. This language, like narrative poetry, has a strong lyricism. Poetic language is lyrical, profound, thought-provoking and intriguing, and achieves the artistic effect of blending scenes. Cao Yu is by no means writing characters' lines in isolation and stillness, but letting the characters speak on the spot, closely linking the depiction of the characters' inner activities with the scene effect and the description of the scenery, which has a strong dramatic effect. Cao goes deep into the soul world of characters and is good at uncovering the mysteries of characters' hearts with artistic language. The lyricism of his drama language is manifested in the infiltration of characters' meticulous thoughts and feelings and tortuous emotional will in their psychological language and lyrical loneliness.