Wen 丨 Qingxin Junyue
Recently, the creative material has dried up, and Zhang Ailing's novella "Serial Set" has been revived.
When I first read it, I only felt that This woman was a bit watery, good at showing off the style to "set" men, and when I read it again, I saw a tragic woman in the old era who was confined to emotions and survival in this set.
All her life, she has been practicing the "truth" of Israelites, in her view, relying on men in exchange for everything she wants is also by herself, but the three periods of widowhood life, but in the end, she did not get what she wanted - love and respect, and in one "set" after another she set, she sacrificed her life.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="8" > the shackles of the old times, firmly trapping the fate and self of women</h1>
Fourteen-year-old Nixi, who was sold by her adoptive mother for one hundred and twenty yuan to an Indian merchant Yahya who opened a satin shop, was repeatedly picked up like a commodity to be sold, "I don't want those with trachoma", "I don't want if there is moisture", and finally in the bargaining between her adoptive mother and the buyer, Nixi began her first period of life of concubinage.
Why a concubine?
Because there is only the truth of husband and wife, but there is no name of husband and wife.
Yahya has always adhered to the posture of being a buyer, exercising the absolute right to dispose of the things he bought, even if Nixi gave birth to a pair of children for him before and after, he did not change the situation of beating and scolding at every turn, as for The desire to be corrected in Nixi's heart, he knew it, but he turned a blind eye.
In Yahya's eyes, Niki is a servant, a lover, a fertility machine, but not a woman in the full sense, so she is not worthy to be his righteous wife.
Later, looking at the more handsome Nixi, Yahya also moved her mind to straighten it out, but the thoughts were gone, perhaps he still could not accept the person he bought and became his wife.
In the face of Yahya's contempt from beginning to end, Nixi is not willing, she urgently needs to do something to elevate herself and fill the self-esteem that has been frustrated, so she begins to use her posture to flirt with different people, one to gain comfort, and the other to prove her charm in disguise, just like in the novel:
"The only way to maintain her self-esteem is to flirt anytime, anywhere— she's a strong person in pornography circles, and once out of that range, she's the mud under people's feet."
The tenants downstairs, the small si who had been to the pharmacy, and the foreign officials in the Chinese territory had all become the objects of her charm, and she enjoyed it tirelessly and enjoyed it, especially the flirtation with the foreign official Mill, which made her mistakenly think that she had the conditions and capital to sit on an equal footing with people with status, which made her extremely satisfied and proud.
I have to say that Nixi's origin is doomed to the beginning of this tragedy, the "bought person" is a label that is difficult to erase on her, and this label has become an insurmountable gap in her life, and the fame and respect she longs for are all to tear off this hateful label, but it seems that no matter how hard she tries to get rid of it, it will not help.
Perhaps this is also the sympathy and pity that the author Zhang Ailing wanted to express for women in the old era when creating "Serial Set", and Nixi is just a microcosm of some women in that era.
Niki's first period of widowhood ends with Yahya being discovered by Yahya with a courtesy at the street pharmacy guy, and she is swept out of the house with her two children and the package she came to Yahya's house for twelve years.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="57" > between relying on herself and clinging to others, she chose the latter</h1>
If Nixi's first tragic "marriage" is a tragedy created by the old times, then her second "marriage" stems more from a wrong choice.
Driven out of the house by Yahya, Nixi, homeless, rented a house in a more remote area with only savings, but never moved in, but brazenly lived in the convent.
And the reason why she did this, first, was that she felt that living in that remote area, suddenly lowered her status, and could not see a high-class person all year round, it was difficult to turn over, and second, the monastery was clean, and once Yahya regretted taking her back, she could also prove her innocence during the period.
Of course, the main reason is the first point, after all, Mr. Miller next door to the monastery has flattered her, and if he can really get on the throne, it is also a good place to go.
However, Nixi's little calculations were all disappointed, and the foreigner Mir knew that after she was driven out, he was afraid of being blackmailed by her, and he had long avoided it, and Yahya never went to look for her.
Just when she was struggling with how to continue her next life, Cui Yuming, a medicinal herb shop partner who had flirted with her, found her, but not for herself, nor for some people imagining the true feelings, but for his boss.
I had always felt that Nixi was a poor person, and in order to survive, she had to get into one set from one set to another, but when I tasted it carefully, was this really the case?
Nixi's choice is not just for survival, but more between relying on her own hands and efforts to exchange for the future, and relying on hue to take shortcuts, she chose the latter, so it is not others who push her into the set, but herself.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="82" > a lifetime of Israeli people, but eventually "faded and loved to relax"</h1>
After Being with Dou Yaofang, Nixi spent a few years of leisure, during which Nixi added two more children, and for the ambiguity between Nixi and others, she also opened one eye and closed one eye, until Dou Yaofang was seriously ill, she knew that her good life was over, but she did not expect that the back road that Dou Yaofang promised to arrange for her had long been blocked.
Originally, before her death, Dou Yaofang promised that she would give the branch to her lover, Cui Yuming, the partner of the medicinal herb store, and told her to live a good life in the future.
This was exactly in response to Ni Xi's thoughts, and for a while she was full of guilt for Dou Yaofang, but when she went to find Cui Yuming the day after Dou Yaofang's death, she found that Cui Yuming had already become a relative under Dou Yaofang's arrangement, and he also expected that she would not be willing to be a concubine of a buddy, so Ni Xi had nothing:
"The old man lied to her, the young man cheated on her, she had no money and no love."
In this way, Nixi's second "marriage" ended, and she left Tongchuntang with four children, when she was thirty-one years old.
Therefore, After experiencing two failed "marriages", Ni Xi did not learn her lesson, and she still practiced her life theory - Israeli people to get the life she wanted.
As a result, she quickly entered the third "marriage" with charm.
At her sisters' house, she met the Englishman Thomson, an engineer working in the government, and the two came together again. Thomson rented a bungalow for her, bought a lot of exquisite objects to decorate the house, and under the entanglement of Nixi, Thomson also helped Nixi and her children to join the British.
It seems that Niki can finally raise her eyebrows, and she shows off her life in her "sisterhood" all day long, because she likes this feeling of returning home, and she feels that she can finally be valued by others.
However, she only saw the jealousy and superficial sympathy in the eyes of others, but never saw the mockery and disdain hidden behind these.
Ni Xi had a good life for four or five years, during which she gave birth to a daughter for Thomson, she thought that she would be stable for the rest of her life, but some things were doomed from the beginning, and the end of israel was the end of the sex and love.
Thomson secretly married In England, and Nixi's third "marriage" came to an abrupt end.
In fact, Thomson did not treat Nixi as a wife from the beginning, nor did he intend to marry her, only to treat this relationship as a "dew marriage", he began to be attracted to some of the characteristics of Nixi, but Nixi's age, weight gain, the beauty that once attracted him has long disappeared, and once the factors supporting their relationship collapse, Thomson has no reason to stay for her.
As the book writes about the scene when Niki goes to find Thomson after marriage:
She thought herself was too big and too shocking. Thomson was immediately aware of her feeling, and she shrank in front of him, losing the blatant beauty that had attracted him before.
We can accuse Thomson of being irresponsible, but we seem to have to wonder, is there really no problem with Nixi herself?
The loss of Thomson's neil is not sad for this emotion, but is not satisfied with the amount of breakup fees given by Thomson, neither of them has paid sincerity and love for each other, how can only one person be blamed?
Nixi's understanding of marriage or life seems to be only staying in exchange for life and material security with beauty, which is her life principle and her own set of life theories, if interpreted in the current way, perhaps this belongs to the disguised "you are responsible for beautiful flowers, I am responsible for making money to support the family." ”
But in my opinion, this kind of thinking is only suitable for talking, or can also be understood as a kind of love story, which is difficult to implement in real marriage.
Marriage is two relatively independent people, choosing to live together, resisting the wind and rain of the outside world together, being husband and wife, and also comrades-in-arms. Once in a marriage, one person is completely dependent on another person to survive, the drawbacks of this model are obvious, and this marriage is relatively fragile, because the only thing that supports this marriage is "beautiful as a flower", and once the beauty is gone, what else is used to maintain this marriage?
I don't know if the final Neon Joy has seen the "trap" of the Israelites.
Maybe she saw it clearly, but one step was wrong, one step was wrong, and she wanted to turn back, but found that there was no way to go, so she had to continue to harden her scalp and go on happily.
Maybe I never saw it clearly, and I have been confident and blindly living, but in the end I played a wrong song and never really got the love and respect I wanted.
Qingxin Junyue, an emotional observer, ta said book critic, film critic. Warm you, me with words.