Page 1 About the Author
Mother and Son is written by Romain Rolland, born on 29 January 1866 in the small town of Cramsey on the central Highlands of France. He was a humanitarian, thinker, writer, critical realist writer, music critic and social activist. He loved music from an early age, immersed himself in the works of Tolstoy and Hugo, formed a nonviolent humanitarian thought, and was a famous French humanitarian writer in the first half of the 20th century. Throughout his life, Roman fought unyieldingly against darkness for human freedom.
He was the founder of biographical literature, whose fictional characteristics are often summarized as "writing novels with music". Roman Rowland wrote 7 plays in the early days, based on the heroic events of history, in an attempt to counter the old theatrical art with "revolutionary drama". At the beginning of the 20th century, his creation entered a new stage, Roland in order to let the world "breathe the breath of heroes", for the hero tree with great spiritual power, and in 1915 for "John Christopher" won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The artistic achievements of Romain Roland mainly lie in his bold and simple writing to portray the image of intellectuals who marched forward courageously in the pursuit of justice and light in the storms of the times. Referring to artistic style, Romain Rowland said that he did not want anyone to recognize him as having any merit other than the word "sincere". He was a writer with a wide international influence and a well-known social activist who fought unyieldingly throughout his life for human freedom, democracy and light.
At the outbreak of the First World War, Roland settled in Geneva, he took advantage of the neutral environment of Switzerland, wrote anti-war articles, his position was criticized by the German writer Thomas Mann and others, but he did not give in. In 1915, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature that year, but due to the opposition of the French government, it was delayed until November 15 of the following year, when the Swedish Academy of Letters officially informed him of this decision. Roland gave the prize money to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the French Refugee Organization.
In 1917, when the October Revolution broke out in Russia, Roland, together with famous writers such as France and Babise, opposed the intervention of the European imperialist countries, declaring openly: "I am not a Bolshevik, but I think that the leaders of the Bolsheviks are the great Marxist Jacobins, who are engaged in grand social experiments." ”
In September 1937, Roland bought a house near his hometown of Klamousy and returned from Switzerland at the end of May of the following year to settle down. In 1940, the Germans occupied Paris, and Roland himself was closely monitored by the fascists. In August 1944, the Nazis were defeated, Paris was liberated, and Roland was set free. Roman Rowland died on 30 December 1944 at the age of 78.
Page 2 Summary of contents
Mother and Son is mainly about the architect's only daughter, Annède Livier, in Paris on the eve of the First World War, who suddenly loses her dependent father in her twenties: the young and carefree sleep is rudely interrupted by the nightmare of death. She casts herself into the illusion of love, but refuses to marry after being pregnant with her fiancé's child, stubbornly leaving alone.
The legacy left by the father was lost under the betrayal and speculation of the notary, and the mother, who had lost her illegitimate son, began to struggle with fate with isolated, yet surprising tenacity. Anneid's stubbornness was passed on to the character of his children, and the advent of war expanded their circle of love and hate.
Son Mark, a young anti-fascist fighter whose inner goal is freedom and truth, was assassinated by a blackshirt mob in the streets of Florence. So the mother embarked on the road sprinkled with her son's blood, joined the mass struggle, and stood on the podium of the mass assembly. Illness was about to take her life before she was sixty years old, but no one could stop the fight she regarded as her duty.
Roman Roland clearly writes in the introduction to her own account: "Every time the protagonist of the novel, Public Security Ned, begins a new dream, she must always feel elated, as if seduced by magic; after one beautiful dream is extinguished, she begins another beautiful dream, so she is charmed again, and rejoiced again; and thus continuously transitions from one dream to another, until the end of life."
Romain Rowland tells readers: "Please don't look for any propositions or theories here. This is nothing more than a sincere, long, bittersweet inner story. This life is not without contradictions, and there are many mistakes. Although it does not reach the unattainable truth, it has always strived to achieve spiritual harmony, and this harmony is our supreme truth. ”
Page 3 Background of writing
Romain Rolland is an important contemporary French writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1915. During his lifetime, he wrote a great deal of literature on a variety of subjects. Mother and Son is one of his masterpieces of fiction, documenting the self-development and self-improvement of a determined woman's soul.
The protagonist's surname "Livier" symbolizes that her life is like a long and never-ending river, full of life and hope, overcoming her own weaknesses and defects, never yielding, removing all obstacles and rushing forward. The work not only depicts the magnificent social reality of France, but also shapes a strong and powerful soul with an idealistic tone.
Mother and Son describes Anneider who inherited a large inheritance after her father's death and could have lived in peace, but she was independent and uninhibited, loved freedom, and did not want to be bound by these things. When he was in college, he was engaged to his crush Lori, and then took the initiative to break the contract, but before breaking the contract, he committed himself to Lori, and his illegitimate son was named Marques. In spite of the world's criticism and snub, she lived in seclusion, single-mindedly raising her children, and the notary who managed the finances for her went bankrupt, so that it affected her family business, and she suddenly became destitute. She took the child to fend for herself and struggled.
After the outbreak of the First World War, Anneid engaged in anti-war activities. The son has grown up and intends to live an independent life. She endured years of wandering, confusion, and bitterness. Later influenced by workers' activists, they tended to lean toward progressive politics. After marrying Althea, a Russian girl, Mark joined her in the anti-war movement, killed a spy in a struggle, and had to go to Italy with his family, and was later stabbed to death with a dagger by a fascist brown shirt mob. Anneid and Althea were devastated. The mother continues her son's unfinished business until the end of his life.
Mother and Child is a work written "under the bright sunshine of fiery real life and social struggle" (Rodagang), fulfilling Roman Roland's intention to "let the protagonist of this future novel step out of the small world of personal life and participate in the mass activities of social life", and in the second half of the novel, Annette and her son have taken to the cross streets.
Romain Rolland himself said: "You don't care about politics, politics will come to you." "The war changed their lives," the monotonous everyday life expanded. The circle of love and hate will also expand..." There is no whole body to return here, but the belief that "they walk under the same dark cloud" between the son who has grown up and goes inside in life and the mother who is always watching supports each other.
When Mark deliberately inhaled a mouthful of dirty air, he said, "In my blood, I have my Leviat. "We think he has confronted the complexity of the world with the order of the mind.
Page 4 Reader Comments
With his consistent, maximum scrutiny of the inner world and the most sincere confession, Romain Rolland took the reader's arm and walked together into the final moments of the protagonist Anned's life, where there seemed to be a clash of dreams and whispers. Anneid is like a steep black shadow, "a person staggering alone toward the end of the road", and her almost obsessive loyalty to her inner strength stretches this final struggle——
"I will never allow anyone to interrupt my fight. My duty is to fight. "Romain Rolland has given Anneid's astonishing tenacity, unquestionable sincerity, and unslack youth—even if she has read the separation of her loved ones and endured all the tragic tragedies, she will never wear down; so we are not cruelly pulled to see the dreamers being searched out and trampled on, but only a proud heart flying in the air, never falling to our feet.
Page 5 Quotes
1, you must fight with yourself to be able to conquer yourself.
2) Life passes quickly, and a moment never happens twice. You must make a decision on the spot, or you will never ask for it.
3, people can not live on emotions alone, people also have to live on money.
4, even in the ugliest child, there is something new, endless hope.
5. As long as a person retains freedom and truth in the depths of his thoughts, even if he commits many crimes, he is still not completely finished.
6, mercy is a loan, for the sake of caution, or do not abuse the good.
(7) Freedom has always been the most expensive of all kinds of wealth.
8. Good and evil are the two sides of the same coin.
(To be continued)
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