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Xu Zidong video column: Why in the novel, women save men can't be together, men save women

In Qian Zhongshu's "Siege of the City", Fang Hong gradually said bluntly that he was afraid of talented women. Zhang Xianliang, Wang Meng and other writers have a kind of plot in the novel, the man is rescued by the woman when he is in distress, and eventually the woman will disappear silently, the two cannot be together, and the woman is in distress, the man rescues, they will eventually come together. What is the reason behind this? On the occasion of Qian Zhongshu's death anniversary, Xu Zidong talked about the concept of marriage in the novel "Siege of the City" and in the current reality.

Xu Zidong on "The Siege of the City" (07:40)

What do you think of the parents' view of marriage in "The Siege"?

Simply put, women want to find men with higher academic qualifications and culture than themselves, so theoretically wrong, in reality.

I have published a book, analyzing 50 to 100 novels describing 10 years, these novels have a common pattern, if a protagonist is in trouble for various reasons, (such as) a disaster, going to the countryside, farm labor reform, being knocked down, sweeping the street, etc., there will be a person to save him, usually this person is the opposite sex, the result is that the novel is the hero, the end of the novel The man's spirit, rehabilitation, and return to the old land, then the woman who saved him at this time will disappear and disappear.

Xu Zidong video column: Why in the novel, women save men can't be together, men save women

The Siege

For example, the most famous Zhang Xianliang's novel "Green Tree", the male protagonist Zhang Yongxuan was hungry and had nothing to eat when he was suffering in the countryside, and a woman was very kind to him. This woman has a nickname called "American Hotel", which is actually an insulting statement, "America" refers to moral degeneration, and "hotel" refers to being able to receive many people. She is a single mother, but there are several men in the relationship, according to today's parlance is not a proper woman, but he is a working person, so she is more superior to this male protagonist. This woman fell in love with this man, the sign of love is to give him a white-faced bun, the man saw that there were finger lines on it, and the tears fell, because he had not eaten the bun for many years. Wonderful! The love manifesto in the novel says that if I have food in the future, you will eat, which I think is very remarkable, a bit like the "you jump I jump" in Titanic (Titanic). This woman saved this man, so that he regained his self-confidence, overcame the disaster, the man later escaped, after the disaster passed, he became a famous writer, (novel) adapted into a movie, drove a very luxurious car back to this place, he still has a conscience, everywhere to inquire where the lantana flowers are, where the lantana flowers are. Gone, gone. It wasn't his responsibility, it was her own where she went.

Xu Zidong video column: Why in the novel, women save men can't be together, men save women

Stills from the movie "Wrangler" based on Zhang Xianliang's novel "Spirit and Flesh"

This is not a writer who writes like this, and so does Wang Meng. Wang Meng's "Butterfly" writes that a cadre went to the countryside, met a female doctor to help him survive the disaster, and when the cadre returned to be a vice minister, he went back to the woman and said you follow me into the city. The doctor told him, I am very good in the country, why should I go to the city with you? You will be a good official in the future, and don't forget the people.

These novels—not one or two, but dozens of them—simply put, the man meets the woman who saves him, and then the woman disappears. But on the other hand, when a woman encounters a man in difficult times to save him, they will be reconciled in the future, and they will always be beautiful and build a family. Like "Furong Town" that we all know, "Sister Furong" swept the street and Got on well with Jiang Wen, and it will continue to be good in the future. Behind this model, in fact, is the question raised above, when the man is in distress, the woman who saves him is beautiful, sexy, kind, and gives food, but when a woman is in distress, what is the man who saves him? Except for the previous these standards are not important, but what is important is more cultured than she is.

These writers are not negotiable, they are writing such stories for the sake of the reader's approval. In other words, we have to criticize theoretically why men have higher diplomas than women to fall in love, but so many novels invisibly describe such a pattern, behind which according to academics, is the collective unconscious and cultural accumulation. Of course, we can say that this is wrong. There are three kinds of people, men, women, and female doctors, all of which are wrong.

Xu Zidong video column: Why in the novel, women save men can't be together, men save women

Stills from "Hibiscus Town"

A very specific example, I was asked to write an article one year, commenting on "The Two of Us". At that time, Yang Dai was still there, and I proposed inside that in the novel, why was Fang Hongzhi afraid of talented women? We all know that he didn't like Miss Su, and he could accept whatever Miss Bao was on the ship, and later Miss Tang was also good, and the woman who finally married him also thought she was too scheming. All in all, Fang Hongzhi is afraid of talented women, and I even made a bold speculation - maybe it is wrong - I said, this is not because the writer has vented his doubts about talented women in his works, so he can be happy with talented women in life. They later said that the writer who was commented on was not satisfied with your statement, but this was written by Qian Zhongshu himself in the novel, and Fang Hong gradually said that describing the beauty of a woman and saying how smart she is equivalent to a flower, and you have to put it on the weighing plate and weigh it (original: Women have women who are particularly smart, light and lively like her actions. Being smarter than this, learning is nothing more than sedimentary dregs. To say that a woman is talented is like praising a flower, saying that it weighs two pounds of cabbage sweet potatoes on the scale. A really intelligent woman never works hard to be a talented woman, she is only cleverly lazy. )

Xu Zidong video column: Why in the novel, women save men can't be together, men save women

Stills from the TV series Siege

We see it clearly today and know some of the basic principles of gender politics. Such a statement (above) is false. As for why it is wrong, the relationship with tradition (related) and the worldly power (related) are easy to explain, but there is another, I think, relatively simple is the inferiority of men. Because if you think about it, men's secondary school and college grades are not as good as women's, and there is no female intelligence, and there is no female ability, and the male dominant position is in the era of picking wild fruits in the woods to beat wild boars, and now even machines have become keyboards, and you don't need to use hammers. From the traditional moral standards, men are not as kind as women, and they are not as loyal as women. Under the overall disadvantage, men have no other way but to insist that we still have diplomas. In fact, even this last advantage is difficult to maintain, because I have heard that women in college now generally have better grades than men. Therefore, the positive statement is that female doctors should be pursued.

(For more content, go to "The Paper" to buy Xu Zidong's new book "Rereading 20th Century Chinese Novels")

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