midnight
midnight
Mao Dun's masterpiece, its appearance makes 1933 a memorable year forever. Wu Sunfu, the hero of the novel, is the man of the hour in 1930 Shanghai. He traveled in Europe and America, trying to develop China's national industry to save the country. Unexpectedly, due to the malicious dumping of foreign goods in China, many small factories he bought at great pains became "wet shirts" that he couldn't get rid of. At the same time, farmers in Wu Sunfu's hometown rioted, and his bond speculation business was repeatedly frustrated by the comprador Zhao. Under the circumstance of being attacked on all sides, Wu Sunfu, who was ambitious and headstrong, tried his best and struggled desperately. Due to the shortage of funds, he had to deduct the wages of workers, which eventually led to the outbreak of labor unrest. Finally, he had to put all his eggs in one basket and use all his property as collateral to fight it out in the public debt market. ...
Introduction to midnight
Brief introduction of the author
Mao Dun (1896 ~ 198 1), formerly known as Shen Dehong, was born in Tongxiang, Zhejiang. China is a pioneer of modern progressive culture and a great revolutionary writer. 19 16 After graduating from Peking University Preparatory College, I entered the Commercial Press and began to engage in translation and creative activities. 1920, he participated in the activities of the Shanghai Communist Group and became one of the earliest party member. 192 1 initiated the organization of "Literature Research Association" and edited the monthly novel. In the mid-1920s, he devoted himself to cultural criticism and made important contributions. After 1928, he joined the "Left League" and engaged in the left-wing literary movement, creating a large number of works. War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the liberation war, has been under the leadership of the party, actively involved in the national democratic revolutionary movement. After liberation, he served as Minister of Culture, Chairman of Chinese Writers Association and Vice Chairman of All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles. Mao Dun's literary activities are various. Since 19 16, I have edited various publications, translated and introduced a large number of foreign literary works, written a large number of literary works, created many literary works, and cultivated and fostered many new literary people. His main works include the novels Eclipse, Midnight, Rainbow, Erosion, Exercise, Country Trilogy, and Drama before and after Qingming Festival.
Title explanation
"Midnight" originally refers to midnight, that is, midnight 1 1 to early morning 1. This is the darkest moment before dawn. As soon as this moment passed, dawn came. Taking this as the title, the author vividly summarizes the main features of China society in the early 1930s, which has profound implications.
abstract
Midnight is Mao Dun's masterpiece. Written in 1932 65438+ February.
The story begins on an evening in May 1930, when three snow cage cars flew across the Waibaidu Bridge and came to an abrupt end at the entrance of Daishengchang Ship Bureau, the assembly place of small inland river ships. Wu Sunfu, an industrial and commercial tycoon, and his second brother-in-law, Du Zhuzhai, a financial tycoon, came here to meet old Wu Man who came from his hometown Shuangqiao Town to avoid chaos.
The old grandfather Wu's conservative thought is incompatible with the son of the new entrepreneur Wu Sunfu. As soon as he arrived in Shanghai, he was strongly stimulated. Mechanical noise, dazzling neon, fragrant smell, fashionable men and women all make him nervous. As soon as I entered the Five Blessingg Gate, I died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
The next day, Wu Fu held a grand funeral. Among the guests are business owners, financial giants and officialdom politicians, who are parasitic among them. They are called mourning, but in fact they are pregnant with ghosts, or having fun, or making deals in secret. At this time, Wu Sunfu's mind was no longer on the funeral. Peasant riots in his hometown and strikes by silk factory workers forced him to arrange countermeasures. Tu Chu-chai pulled him into partnership with Zhao, the financial demon king, and he was busy planning negotiations.
The success of peasant riots in Shuangqiao Town broke Wu Sunfu's fantasy of establishing a "Shuangqiao Kingdom". But at this time, he, Tu Zhuzhai and others are preparing to build a "Zhong Yi Trust Company" in an attempt to annex a series of small and medium-sized enterprises. He decided to convert the remaining property of Shuangqiao Town into cash and invest it in Zhong Yi Trust Company to do great things. He used Tu Yuewei, a silk factory employee, to deceive separatist workers and quell labor riots in the factory. At this time, Tu Chu-chai drove his car to report the good news of the successful speculation in public debt. Wu Sun-fu broke through the encirclement one by one, filled with pride and felt that greater victory was beckoning to him.
However, the good times did not last long. After the Dragon Boat Festival, there was an order from the provincial government. In order to support the market in Shuangqiao Town, Five Blessingg's factories and shops there must not be closed. Wu Sunfu's withdrawal plan failed, and he flew into a rage. But at the thought that "Zhong Yi" would be swallowed up by seven or eight small factories, he couldn't help but feel happy and readily agreed to obey the orders of the provincial government. However, the new contradictions put him in a dilemma: those small factories that lose money need funds to expand and rectify; To speculate in government bonds and make a lot of money, Wu Sun-fu also needs funds, and Wu Sun-fu increasingly feels that funds are not handy. At this critical moment, Zhao blocked Wu Sunfu's way again. Under the pressure of Zhao, Tu Zhuzhai quit Zhong Yi. Wu Sunfu is in a dilemma.
The ambitious Wu Sunfu was unwilling to fail. He is determined to compete with Zhao in the public debt market. He bribed Zhao's mistress and recruited Han, a foreign exchange broker. However, the development of the times is very unfavorable to Wu Sunfu. It is reported that Yan Jun will attack on all fronts and will enter Jinan in four or five days. Public debt plummeted and bulls were in danger of fiasco. Wu Sunfu couldn't hold back. He decided to pass on the loss of speculation in public debt to the workers, even though new industrial unrest in the factory was imminent. He flatly ordered: layoffs, pay cuts and extended working hours. The workers were angered and went on strike. Tu Yuewei is very helpless. Wu Sunfu was trapped in the factory and had to slip out the back door.
The bleak future and career crisis tormented Wu Sunfu's heart. In order to get rid of boredom, he frantically sought excitement. He took a social butterfly with him and took a small steamboat to play on the Yangtze River. After landing, he visited the secret grottoes again. When he got home, he still felt depressed. Suddenly, an unexpected guest, Zhao, came, and he wanted to merge the company through Wu Sunfu's merger of a small factory.
Wu Sun-fu certainly won't stop there. After consulting with others, he decided to give it to the foreign firm in the west and the commune in the east at an appropriate price, and then put the factory's capital into the bond market to make a final duel with Zhao. But at the critical moment, the briber defected. Wu Sunfu put all his eggs in one basket and built the house. The signboard hanging on the exchange is falling down step by step. At this time, if Tu Chu-chai can cooperate with Wu Sun-fu, the "bears" will win completely. However, Tu Chu-chai finally sided with Zhao. Wu Sunfu lost all his money and was a complete failure. This once famous industrial giant is now a lost dog. He aimed the gun at his chest in despair, but then calmed down. He ordered his wife to tell her family to pack their bags quickly, and boarded a boat that night to spend the summer vacation abroad.
Work guide
This article starts with Mr. Wu's family from the countryside to the city. Because Mr. Wu couldn't stand the honest noise and died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Many people attended Mr. Wu's funeral. Wu agrees with the suggestion that "several entrepreneurs of different sizes should form a new group to do short selling". At the same time, Wu's brother-in-law also agreed to join the multi-head company headed by Zhao. From then on, the contradiction and struggle between Wu and Zhao began. At that time, the situation was turbulent, and Wu's rural hometown was robbed and suffered serious losses. In order to raise capital to start a new factory, he exploited the silk workers, which led to the strike and demonstration of the silk workers, and finally became a "comprador" because of the failure of stock trading.
Chapter 1 of the novel opened the prelude of the book through Mr. Wu's coming to town, and chapters 2-3 invited almost all the main characters in the book through Mr. Wu's funeral, which also laid the groundwork for the "three major fire lines". The fourth chapter describes the peasant riots in Shuangqiao town, which is suspected of being divorced from the whole book because it was not continued in the later period. Chapters 5-8 describe Wu Sunfu's attack on three sides and his victory on all fronts, forming a small climax. Chapter 9- 12 talks about Wu Zhao's fighting methods, chapter 13- 16 talks about Wu Sunfu being caught between Scylla and Charybdis because of the rise of the workers' movement, and chapter 17- 19 talks about Wu Sunfu's last struggle.
From the content of the novel, it mainly writes about what happened on three lines: first, the struggle in the public debt market; Two: Yuhua workers went on strike; Three: the struggle of farmers in Shuangqiao town against bullying landlords. It takes Shanghai, a typical semi-colonial city, as the background, and the contradiction between national capitalist Wu Sunfu and comprador Zhao as the main line, showing a broad picture of China society in the early 1930s. -the struggle between workers and peasants in urban and rural areas, the merger of national industry and commerce, the scuffle between warlords and the bankruptcy of rural areas are magnificent. Through numerous clues and complicated social relations, the works show the "midnight" before dawn in many ways.
The creation of Midnight has been fully prepared for life and thought. In order to have a deeper understanding of China society in the early 1930s, the author visited entrepreneurs, civil servants, revolutionaries and others, visited the stock exchange, inspected the situation of the national bourgeoisie, and read controversial articles about the social nature of China at that time. Midnight is written on the basis of mastering a lot of materials and in-depth investigation and study, which reflects the writer's analysis and evaluation of Marxism in the social reality of old China.
Midnight vividly reflects all kinds of sharp and complicated social contradictions in the early 1930s: factional struggles within the Kuomintang intensified, the people suffered from war, the imperialist countries passed on the economic crisis of the capitalist world to China, and China's national industry and commerce were on the verge of bankruptcy; The workers and peasants in urban and rural areas have launched an all-round revolutionary struggle under the leadership of the Party. The story is unfolded in such a broad background, and the characters are shaped in such a broad background.
The characters in Midnight are active in such a broad historical background. Moreover, through the development of character and destiny, it clearly and powerfully shows the development trend and grandeur of the whole era. It takes Shanghai as the center and reflects the whole picture of China society. It describes the events of 1930 for two months (May to July), which concealed the context of the past and future of China society. Complex life phenomena with great historical and social significance are expressed through rigorous and grand artistic structure.
The plot center of Midnight is the struggle between the financial comprador bourgeoisie represented by Zhao and the national bourgeoisie represented by Wu Sunfu. As a result, Zhao Sheng was defeated by Wu. With its panoramic grand picture, the work powerfully shows that in 1930s, "China did not take the road of capitalist development, and China was more colonized under the oppression of imperialism".
Artistic image
Midnight has successfully created many vivid artistic images. Among them, Wu Sunfu's typical creation is the most outstanding. As a representative of the national bourgeoisie, Wu Sunfu has a strong enterprising spirit, and he is not an insignificant person. He is ambitious and wants to bring down all the so-called half-dead entrepreneurs. He has the courage to know the famous saying that "small quantity is not a gentleman, and non-toxic is not a husband", and he knows how to control the fate of others in his own hands. He also has academic qualifications, experience and rich experience as an experienced entrepreneur. However, in semi-colonial and semi-feudal old China, his career could not be moved. He faces two sets of contradictions: one is the life-and-death competition with the imperialist broker and financial comprador capitalist Zhao; The second is the sharp opposition with the working class. He is at the center of contradiction, and the development of things fully shows all aspects of his personality: he is sometimes decisive, sometimes hesitant, sometimes confident, and sometimes decadent and horrible. When he meets things, he seems to have answers, but in fact he often behaves perversely. The richness and complexity of Wu Sunfu's personality is a true reflection of the duality of China's national bourgeoisie.
In Midnight, Mao Dun tells a basic idea through the mouth of Lin, and Wu Sunfu is her "hero knight and' prince' in the mechanical industry era of the 20th century" (Chapter III). On the one hand, Wu Sunfu bullied smaller enterprises, but he couldn't compete with bigger ones, such as Zhao. Therefore, Wu Sunfu later thought, "He knew that the circle he used to put on Zhu Yinqiu's head was now expanded by Zhao, and he set up that company" (Chapter 17), which was also "the big fish eat small fish, the small fish eat shrimp". The tone of the author's description of Wu Sunfu is full of passion: "Sun Fu has great ambitions. He is adventurous and has the courage to work hard. He likes working with people like him. When he saw that some good enterprises were in the hands of mediocre people without knowledge, means and courage, he was very annoying. For such half-dead so-called entrepreneurs, Sun Fu often deliberately beats them mercilessly and holds the enterprise in his own iron fist. " (Chapter III) This kind of vision and tolerance is not available to others, and there is a feeling of extraordinary and condescending. Mao Dun endowed Wu Sunfu with romantic temperament in Midnight.
Wu Sunfu's birth and educational background are also different. He is an overseas student studying in Germany, a returnee, who came back from studying to start a business. He received modern western science education with modern background. In the world of 1930, Germany is at the forefront of modern science. At that time, in the eyes of China people, the worship of Germany was a bit like the worship of the United States now, and it was highly disciplined in science, economy, including people and so on. Germany is a model of the world in all aspects. Therefore, Mao Dun asked Wu Sunfu to study in Germany, which obviously revealed that he had a modern educational background. According to what we said today, it is the most in line with the world.
As soon as Wu Sunfu appeared, it caused quite a controversy. He took advantage of his father's funeral to set up a trust with two other bosses. If this trust is completed, he can eat eight factories in one breath and monopolize many undertakings such as transportation, textiles and electricity in his own hands. Today, it will become a large group company. The cotton spinning industry is now a sunset industry, but it happened to be a new industry at that time. Therefore, what he does is cotton textile, electricity, transportation and so on, all of which are closely related to modernization. On this basis, Wu Sunfu, as a capitalist, does not consider making money by himself. He has consciously linked his business behavior and enterprise behavior with the interests and prospects of the country. So, when they were going to unite with this company and eat all eight factories, Wu Sunfu looked at the draft of enterprise merger, and through this draft, he already had an imagination in his mind:
Wu Sunfu took the "manuscript" and, while reading it, put forward a big idea from the paper: tall chimneys are like forests, smoking black smoke; The boat braved the wind and waves and the car crossed Yuan Ye. He couldn't help smiling slightly. And his ideal may not be completely squeezed. (Chapter 5)
At that time, a Kuomintang politician named Tang Yunshan, who was in partnership with them, talked with Wu Sunfu about the Three People's Principles and Sun Yat-sen's general plan for founding the country. Others just want to make money and don't care about it at all. "Only Wu Sunfu's eyes sparkled with excitement." The third chapter explained that it was actually imagined by Wu Sunfu, which was consistent with the imagination of Sun Yat-sen and all the national bourgeoisie in China at that time. According to what we say today, that is imagination modernization. When the Chinese entered the 20th century, their greatest dream and "orthodoxy" was how to modernize China and how to make China the most prosperous and powerful country in the world. At this time, Mao Dun suddenly gave Wu Sunfu a great personality. The writer gave him a high starting point from the beginning, that is, to infiltrate the quality of modernization through this personality. In other words, this person was originally associated with our national imagination of how to develop modernization in China, which is seamless.
Such capitalists are bound to put forward their own ideals and demands for politics and the country. There is a detail in it, that is, Wu Sunfu talks with his brother-in-law Tu Chu-chai. Because Tu Chu-chai was a banker, he said, "What factory do I run? What a naughty boy! Why don't you open a bank? With my capital and spirit, running a bank should not lag behind others, right? Now, when the huge Shanghai Bank opened, it was only 10 million yuan ... "But then again," as long as the country is like a country and the government is like a government, China's industry has hope! " (Chapter II) The capitalist power imagined by Mao Dun is actually great. Their economic activities have been closely integrated with the politics of modern China at that time, and they can even manipulate the military and politics at that time to some extent.
Wu Sunfu has a strong modern character. It has been studied in the past that Wu Sunfu's scenes, such as living room, factory, office and car, are all public scenes. Almost none of them are claustrophobic and still scenes. And some other bosses, such as his competitors Zhao and Zhao, are secretive. The first scene is behind the rockery in the garden, as if they are plotting, and then in the hotel, which is also a very private place, this figure has been in the dark. In public, all Wu Sunfu's actions are in a hurry, always one action. He got out of the car, went into the living room, lost his temper, dealt with his official business, and then went out at once, as if Mao Dun was a camera, following this man all the time. This artistic image has been moving, the mood is moving, the face is moving and the body is moving. It always expresses this person's character through a strong dynamic. For example, in chapter 7, it is written that Wu Sunfu is waiting for news of speculation in public debt. As soon as he appeared, he paced up and down the living room alone, looking at the time, talking to himself, talking to Fei Moustache on the phone in the study, and even his eyebrows moved: "Wu Sunfu cried impatiently, and he was bored for a while, feeling gloomy and miserable in the room. As soon as he stretched out his hand, he turned on the headlights covered with yellow silk on the desk. A yellow light fell on Wu Sunfu's face, and his face was black and blue. Two heavy eyebrows rustled above his fierce eyes. " There is a strong sense of tension here, and the appearance of this role gives people a unique feeling. Later, Wu Sunfu collapsed completely. When he was desperate, he suddenly raped a maid, still relying on the animal power generated by vitality.
Such a strong sense of movement, combined with cars and the most modern scenes in the 1930 s, has been endowed with some aesthetic pursuit characterized by modernity. At the beginning of the car, it said: "The car is going faster and faster, going east along Suzhou North Road, and turning south at Waibaidu Bridge, the three cars are like a gust of wind, and the speed is half a minute, setting a new record of 1930 years." In his works, he wrote "1930" cars several times, "moving forward like a whirlwind", emphasizing a kind of speed and rhythm, which is the feeling of modern people, and this feeling is intertwined with inner anxiety. To understand the beauty in the classical sense, beauty must be pastoral and quiet. We look at Chinese painting, and no one is running in it. People are fishing and drinking, which is peaceful. Only in this case can we form a kind of beauty. This is the aesthetic tradition of China's classical works. Most scenes in China's ancient literary works are in a relatively static state, and then a detail is infinitely expanded and infinitely regenerated. For example, if you eat a bowl of tea in a dream of red mansions, you can eat a chapter, which is a classic description method. Not all modern literature is dynamic, but after19th century, due to the development of industrial civilization, people seem to be in a whipping environment, and the whole person is involved in a social system, which is a kind of rushing dynamics. This has also become an aesthetic phenomenon concerned by western modernist artists in the early 20th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, it also existed in a large number of modern writers in China. Guo Moruo's early Goddess is full of such poems. The city is moving, the horn is shouting, and the drums are ringing. Why? It is through this very strong voice and action that he embodies the rhythm of an era. Then, such a rhythm of the times must be related to a noisy and unstable modern city.
Every detail of Mao Dun's performance of Wu Sunfu is dynamic everywhere, which can't be said to be intentional. This kind of intentional behavior can be called the character of modern people. It is not that recklessness and running around are the characteristics of modern people. Wu Sunfu has a modern cultural background, modern people's quality and modern personality, which is a rare image with modern personality in China's novels.
However, we must understand that Wu Sunfu is not realistic. It contains Mao Dun's strong emotional color and is written from the perspective of looking up. For example, in the fifth chapter, Wu Sunfu wrote it from his wife's point of view, with an adoring look. First of all, Mrs. Wu Shaofu was worried that her affair with Staff Lei would be discovered by her husband, so she was very scared. Wu Sun-fu said, "What should come is here after all!" She is pale, neurotic and neurotic, and there is no equality between husband and wife at all. It seems that she will have to wait for Wu Sunfu's ruling. "Mrs. Wu Shaofu suddenly looked up and asked." Sitting on the sofa, she always looked up at her husband walking up and down in front of her. This sentence shows Wu Sunfu's majestic and tall image: "Sharp eyes are full of energy ... it is a terrible sight that tears people's hearts." "He stood up, paced for a few steps, and waved his arms vigorously", "He stared at the air with fierce eyes", "Then, without waiting for the housewife to answer, he suddenly put down his hand and strode out". This is a powerful image with great destructive power and creativity. Later, the name "capitalist" was not very glorious in politics, and critics analyzed Wu Sunfu into several personalities when analyzing his characters. They all applied some political concepts, which destroyed the integrity of artistic image and violated the law of artistic creation. In fact, from beginning to end, Wu Sunfu has not been vilified in this novel, and there is no duality. From Lin's standpoint, Mao Dun himself is looking at a "heroic knight and' prince' in the era of machinery industry in the 20th century".
The "prince", that is, Prince Charming, came from far away in the sky, and Wu Sunfu came back from Germany after reading a book. He is a successful man. Hero, an artistic model with modern personality, has a special charm under the background of Shanghai. "Knight", I think this is a key word. The knight disappeared today. Nobody uses this word anymore. Even in Cervantes' time, "knight" was incomprehensible, don? Don Quixote is completely ridiculed, but the knight has a basic spirit, that is to say, for his own beliefs, for his own ideals, for the people he loves, he can risk exceeding his ability and fight hard with the car. Fighting with the wind is doomed to failure in the end, but it can be destroyed for an inexplicable belief that no one can see. Wu Sun-fu actually has such a spirit, so this is a tragic hero image.
The structure of Midnight is grand and rigorous. In order to contain complex contradictions, rich life and many characters, and to make the clues clear, the author took great pains in conception. First of all, the author carefully designed a special preface. In the first two chapters, by describing the sudden death of Taigong Wu, all kinds of people came to the Wu family to pay their respects, which naturally and skillfully made many characters appear, which not only initially showed the typical environment of the characters' activities, but also led to various contradictory plot clues. Secondly, in the main part (chapter 3 to chapter 16), a network structure with a main line and several branches intersecting is arranged. The struggle between Wu and Zhao is the main line that runs through the plot development of the book. Each branch line not only has its own development context, but also serves the development of the main line together, which is colorful and orderly. The last three chapters are the climax and ending of the book, and the brushwork is restored to the main line, rewriting Wu Sunfu's efforts to save the crisis, which is ups and downs.
The appearance of "Midnight" is the time when the proletarian revolutionary literature movement in China is advancing in the "encirclement and suppression" of counter-revolutionary culture. It shows the fighting achievements of the left-wing literary camp and proves that proletarian literature is an invincible and most promising creative force.
Related comments
Midnight —— A picture of old China in 1930s.
1933, at midnight, published the representative work "Using realistic social science to express China's social relations and class relations in literature and art". Decades have passed, and the dark China described in Midnight is gone forever, but the heavy history left in the book is worth thinking about. "Midnight" takes the panoramic overall construction of describing China's large-scale social phenomena as its value orientation, and explores social and political issues with a sense of conscious participation.
In 1930s, China was under the dark rule of the Kuomintang. At that time, the landlord big bourgeoisie represented by Chiang Kai-shek, with Chiang Kai-shek inside and imperialism outside, usurped the fruits of the victory of the Great Revolution. They further pushed China into the abyss of a "two and a half" society. The historical terms of the national bourgeoisie and the revolutionary struggle of workers and peasants have been profoundly interpreted in Midnight. Midnight correctly reflects the melody and class relationship of the times with the viewpoint of social science and the method of class analysis. Feng Xuefeng once commented that Midnight is one of the milestones that Lu Xun led China's modern fighting literature and realistic pioneering heroic road to the PLO revolutionary literature.
Wu Sunfu is the most distinctive figure among more than 90 characters in Midnight, a typical national industrial capitalist in the 1930 s and a typical interpretation of the national bourgeoisie. The duality of the national bourgeoisie is vividly reflected in him. He has the ambition, courage and means to develop national industries, and he is "aggressive". As a result, he not only set up money houses, pawn shops, oil mills, rice mills and power plants in Shuangqiao Town, his hometown, but also set up Yuhua Silk Factory in Shanghai, and even co-founded trust companies with national industrial capitalists such as Sun Jiren and Wang. They fantasize that "their light bulbs, thermos bottles, parasols, soap and rubber slippers have traveled all over the hinterland of China!" They shouted, "As long as the country is like a country and the government is like a government, there must be hope for China's industry." .
But "he always thinks of conservatism and compromise." When his ambition was blocked by comprador financial capitalist Zhao, he chose to suppress the workers' strike to pass on his own crisis, and at the same time engaged in "public debt speculation" in an attempt to defeat "public debt devil" Zhao. The reality is cruel. The social and historical reality at that time and the inherent weakness of nationalists determined that Wu Sunfu's fate could only be overcome by "selling" and "one-dollar goods" like Mr. Lin, a small businessman. His sorrow is not himself, but the whole society.
For today's readers, through Midnight, we can understand the social reality of China in the early 1930s, the duality of the national bourgeoisie, the semi-colonial and semi-closed social nature of old China, and the surging trend of the struggle between workers and peasants led by the Party in the 1930s.
Therefore, Midnight is a historical picture that Mr. Mao Dun showed to future generations, so that people today can clearly understand that history.
At the same time, the arrest of Cao Pi, uncle of the old landlord Wu Sunfu, and the strike of female workers in Shanghai Yuhua Silk Factory described in Chapter 13 and Chapter 14 are all historical events from the perspective of literature, so that people can appreciate that magnificent history in literary appreciation.
Midnight is like a mirror, reflecting a corner of old China society. Mao Dun is like a storyteller, telling the painful history and showing the blood and tears of a nation full of holes.
The history written by literati is the reality in the eyes of future generations.
Mao Dun, with a keen eye and a sharp pen, has an insight into various tendencies, trends and forces of China society in front of the stage ... so his description has obvious real documentary value. Park Xing-bing, a North Korean scholar, believes that "the historical achievement of Midnight lies in the development of China's social realism literature." It can be said that Midnight is an advanced social document. It shows the "cross section" of China's social development in 1930s to later generations. Midnight not only describes the ever-changing struggle in the speculative market, the bleak prospect of national industry and the urban bourgeois society, but also describes the strike struggle of the working class, the revolutionary riots in the countryside and so on.
Midnight, a social analysis novel, was banned not only during the Kuomintang period, but also during the Gang of Four. We can also see the social influence and progressive significance of Midnight. These are all based on Mr. Mao Dun's sense of worrying about the country. Comrade Wang Ruofei commented on Mao Dun:
Mr. Mao Dun's creative career has always been linked with the liberation cause of the Chinese nation and the people of China, and reflects this cause. In his creative years, great changes have taken place in China's national liberation cause and China's people's liberation cause, and the trend of China era has been reflected in Mr. Mao Dun's creation ... From Mr. Mao Dun's creative process, we can see the great changes in China society and the ups and downs of China's people's liberation movement. Mr. Mao Dun's greatest success lies in that his creation reflects the dynamics of China's tense, and more importantly, the central content of his creation is related to the people's liberation movement in China.
A great man left, leaving behind a batch of works. A period of history has passed, leaving behind a spirit of caring for the country and the people. This is the greatness of Mao Dun, and it is also the greatness of midnight.
Mao dun
Modern writers and social activists. Formerly known as Shen Dehong, Yan Bing, Mao Dun, Zhu Xuan, Fang Bi, Zhi Jing, Pu Li, Tian Xing, etc. They are all his common pen names.
1896 was born in wuzhen, Tongxiang county, Zhejiang province on July 4th. His father Yongxi Shen was a scholar in the late Qing Dynasty. He is proficient in Chinese medicine. He is an open-minded reformer and attaches great importance to new learning. In addition to natural sciences such as sound, light, chemistry, electricity and mathematics, he also likes to spread social science works with progressive ideas. My mother, Chen Aizhu, is a liberal arts, visionary and strong-willed woman. Mao Dun 10 lost his father. As a child, he accepted the knowledge of literature, history and geography taught by his mother. Mao Dun said, "My first teacher is my mother".
Mao Dun's enlightenment education began earlier. I studied at home and in a private school before elementary school. At the age of 8, he entered Wuzhen Lizhi Primary School and later transferred to Zhicai Senior Primary School, becoming the first student of the school. Here, he not only read textbooks on Chinese, self-cultivation and arithmetic, but also became interested in painting. At that time, in the eyes of ordinary conservatives, children were forbidden to read novels and other "casual books", but Mao Dun got the permission of informed parents. The Journey to the West's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio and The Scholars are all his favorite books at this time. From Mao Dun's essays in primary school, we can see that he is concerned about the country and the people, strengthening the body and eliminating evil spirits.