The Art of Moving Heartstrings – Tudor's Novel The Last Lesson

Text/Ma Jiajun

The Tang people have such a verse: "Advise the king not to cherish the golden robe, and advise the king to cherish the youth." "In today's boiling years, we should really cherish the beautiful learning time of our youth. People who learn freely in happiness often ignore the happiness of learning. It is the most painful thing for those who have lost their country to learn the culture of ancestral Chinese. Tudor's famous "The Last Lesson" tells us this truth, and also provides us with a treasure to learn from the art.

Alphonse Tudor was a French nineteenth-century realist novelist. He was born on 12 May 1840 to a middle-class family in Nîmes, Provence, France. At the age of fifteen, the family went bankrupt and he dropped out of the Lyon School to work as a tutor at the Arre School. Two years later he went to Paris, joined his brother, and began to write literature and art. In 1858, Tudor wrote his debut collection of poems, The Female Lover, but it was unsuccessful. At the age of twenty he served as a private secretary to the Duke of Morne, dabbled in high society, socialised, and wrote poetry and comedy. His most famous work was the collection of short stories published in 1866, The Mill Wenzha. It turned out that he had returned to his hometown of Provence and traveled to Alquiri; when he returned, he wrote a book describing the scenery and living customs of the South, "The Mill Wenzha". In 1868, Tudor published the autobiographical novel "Little Things", which described his life in elementary school, exposing the deceitful atmosphere of capitalist society and the corruption of bourgeois education, which brought the author a very high reputation.

The Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870. The war was an unjust war between Louis Bonaparte, the dictatorial emperor of the Second French Empire, and King William I of Prussia, the de facto chief of the German Confederation, for supremacy over the European continent. France lost the war, followed by the September Revolution, which overthrew the Second Reich, but the newly formed defense government engaged in traitorous activities, and the Prussians occupied large areas of France. The provinces of Lorraine and Alsace on the left bank of the Rhine River were ceded to Prussia, and the French people were in dire straits. During the war, Tudor was conscripted into the army, experienced the life of the war, and saw first-hand the tragic experience of the people after the defeat of France. After the war, he wrote many patriotic works on the themes of the Franco-Prussian War and the life of the French people after the war, such as "The Siege of Berlin" and "The Last Lesson", which were mostly collected in the "Monday Story Collection" published in 1873.

Tudor embraced Zola's naturalistic theory, and in the 1870s and 1880s he wrote a series of novels such as Jack (1876), Naba (1877), The Emperor's Dust (1879), Numa Lumeistan (1881), Evangelical Believers (1883), Safer (1884), The Immortal, etc., which have many factual basis. But he did not mechanically imitate nature, but realistically criticized the ruling class in Paris, sympathizing with the fate of the little people, showing his own tendencies to love and hate. During his lifetime he wrote thirteen novels and several collections of short stories, as well as a number of theatrical works. In 1897, Tudor died in Paris,

"The Last Lesson" is a famous part of Tudor, popular with people around the world, a good textbook for children to read, and a model for short story writers to learn. This novel is written by a child Who loves to skip school and play, who is late for class one day, and wants to take advantage of the noise of the classroom to avoid the teacher's reprimand, but it was particularly quiet that day, and the teacher Mr. Hammel did not rebuke him. Only after he sat down did he see that the atmosphere was unusual: the teacher was wearing a solemn dress, and the townspeople had come to listen to the lesson. It turned out that the Prussian occupation forces had issued an order not to allow French children to learn the Chinese of their ancestors and to learn German instead, and today it became the last French lesson. Little Franz was very remorseful that he usually did not study well, and he could not even divide the word. At this time, the students and Franz understood the value of learning, and they carefully learned this last lesson, but tomorrow the teacher will leave the school, and the French class will be suspended. The teacher, Hamel, was very excited, and when he was about to leave class, he wrote several big words on the blackboard" and let everyone disperse.

This novel is deeply loved by the people of the invaded and oppressed nations of the world, and the fundamental reason for this lies in its patriotic ideas. The people of a nation are ruled by foreign and enemy countries, and even the right to learn the language, history and culture of their own motherland and nation is deprived, and reading works such as "The Last Lesson" will naturally arouse resonance and arouse patriotic enthusiasm. At the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, this novel had a tremendous impact on the primary and secondary school students in our country, who sympathized with the fate of the Chinese children in the occupied areas, summoned up the spirit of defending their families and the country, and were determined not to be slaves to the country and to resist foreign imperialist aggression to the death. Today, the anti-imperialist, anti-colonial and anti-hegemonic people also like the world-famous novel "The Last Lesson". All this is very profoundly inseparable from the patriotic ideas and themes of the novel.

The profound ideas of "The Last Lesson" are cast in its mellow and rich artistic appeal. It uses a huge artistic power to pluck the heartstrings of the reader and affect the reader emotionally. That's why it's touching and loved. The study of the artistic charm of "The Last Lesson", the high skill of displaying images, and the exquisite means of revealing the theme helps us to understand the author's ingenuity, and it is also helpful for us to learn from the creation of short stories.

The Last Lesson uses a first-person narrative. And the narrator is the protagonist, Franz Jr. The limitation of this method is that we readers cannot see the appearance and clothing of the character, and we cannot see his portrait and facial expressions. Or it can be said that the author completely omits these descriptions. The protagonist of this novel is not shaped by the objective description of him from the side, but he himself is looking at the surrounding world, feeling the various things in front of him, recalling what he has done in the past in association, and thinking about everything he can understand. Therefore, the observation angle or the "viewpoint" of the description of the whole novel is all from the eyes and hearts of the little Franz, which uses a kind of "subjective lens". This brings two great characteristics to the novel, which is also its advantage, that is, first, to go deep into the heart of the character, delicately analyze and show his psychological activities, so as to reveal his personality; second, to dye all the things described with a layer of emotional color, to understand the surrounding world from the perspective of the protagonist's unique psychological characteristics, thereby increasing the moving artistic charm of the work.

The novel analyzes Fransz's inner world very carefully, very concretely, and has a lot of psychological characteristics of children. Before going to school, because he was late, Mr. Hammel would scold him and ask him about the word division, and he could not even say a word, so he "did not want to go to school, go to the wild and play", but he "could still control himself and rush to school." Here, through the narration of the inner thoughts of the characters, it is revealed that Frantu is not a naughty child who is blindly greedy, but a child with self-control, which lays the foundation for him to understand the preciousness of learning and to be aroused by the reality of life. When Franz passed by the town office and saw people reading the bulletin, the author wrote about his inner activity according to the level of a child's understanding of things: "In the last two years, all our bad news has come from there: defeat, conquest, all kinds of orders from the headquarters. I didn't stop, just thinking in my heart: 'What happened again?'" This psychological description is very measured and in line with the actual situation at that time. To say that there is a measure means that it is written about the psychology of a child who begins to understand things but does not understand very well. At the beginning of his understanding, it was he who drew from his actual life that the bulletin board of the town hall was a harbinger for the Prussian ruler to issue various orders to bully and humiliate the French. He does not understand very clearly, which means that he is not very keen on caring about the fate of the nation-state, otherwise he will take a closer look and think about it. To say that it was in line with the actual situation at that time was to say that Franz was only concerned with going to school without being late for too long, hurriedly crossing the road, and not bothering to gather around the billboard to see what was said on the notice. In fact, the notice said that it was a matter of canceling French classes. So The blacksmith Washit shouted to Frans, "You're always early in school anyway," and Frans, who arrived late, "I think he's kidding me." It is still the psychology of a child who does not have a deep understanding of the country's major events and has no time to take care of it.

The author writes that the psychological activity of Franz after the school class is even more penetrating and deeper. Franz "had intended to sneak into my seat in the midst of the noise," but the unusually quiet of the classroom did not fit his intentions at all. The author asks the protagonist to describe his actions in this extremely embarrassing scene, hinting at his inner thoughts: first looking in through the open window, then "I had to push open the door and enter the quiet classroom in front of everyone." You can imagine how red my face was and how panicked I was! Tudor did not add a large section of psychological dissection that was customary in nineteenth-century critical realism, for it did not correspond to the reality of the content of the work of the rapid development of the scene, the atmosphere, and the plot, nor to the extent to which the child might have described his inner activity in detail. He used only concise language to say, "How red your face is, how panicked your heart is!" Inside, it contains all kinds of internal psychological contradictions that Franz is ashamed, remorseful, embarrassed, and forced to do. Once Mr. Hammel did not rebuke him but gently asked him to sit down, so Franz "sat down as soon as he crossed the bench." At this time, my heart calmed down a little, and I noticed that "the rapid change of the heart brought about by the child's vertical jumping action from tension to relaxation, the author wrote incomparably concisely, concretely, and reasonably."

The lesson had begun, and little Franz had just turned from nervousness to calm, but then came more surprised, surprised by the teacher's dress, surprised by the serious atmosphere of the class, and even more surprised by the old man of the town coming to listen to the lecture. He was amazed that Mr. Hammel had uttered the Berlin order that only German should be taught, and That French had become the last lesson, and at once Forsyth had changed from surprise to sadness, and the whole process of mental activity and the transformation of emotions were written naturally. Because this process is relatively fast, the author only takes the protagonist's impression to the past. When it came time to write about Frans's sadness, the author stopped narrating the plot and used five natural paragraphs to carefully describe Franz's inner world, and kneaded his sadness, and the hatred for the enemy, the regret for the wasted time in the past, the nostalgia for the lost learning opportunities, the sympathy and respect for the teacher, and the understanding of the people who came to the town, into a complex and integrated thought, delicately revealing in front of the reader. Tudor's psychoanalysis is the result of digging into the inner secret activities of Franz, the awakened child. The strengths of the first-person narrative underscore the plausibility of this psychoanalysis.

Just when Franz was remorseful for his old truancy and pity for Mr. Hammel, a "poor man", the teacher suddenly asked him for endorsement, but he could not answer because of his poor study. Poor me. At this time, Tudor presents the inner monologue of the character directly to the reader: Franz fantasizes about being articulate, speaking the participle from beginning to end, and even "I am willing to take out whatever the price", but the reality is that "I am confused with the first few words". The discomfort in Franz's heart reached its peak. For this kind of discomfort, the author only uses the writing that Frans dare not look up and listen to the training sincerely. The reason why it is not described in large paragraphs of dissection is because the author now regards Franz's "discomfort" as the internal motivation and opportunity for his awakening. And the impetus for awakening and transformation could not have made him turn a deaf ear to Mr. Hamel's teachings. However, as soon as Hammel said the preciousness of learning from his ancestor Chinese s, Franz became clear-minded and moved, and he was thinking about the whole classroom and all the subtleties of this last lesson, that is, while being taught in class, looking inside and outside the classroom with another eye, and thinking about the cost of all this at the same time. The author completely integrates the description of the environment with the description of the character's heart. Thus, instead of skimming or skimming, it is delicately dissected and concretized in a great deal of detail. And the whole mental process is so natural, and the several links of the process are so seamlessly connected.

When Mr. Hammel finished speaking the grammar of the last lesson, "The people who have perished as slaves in the country, as long as they remember their language firmly, it is as if they are holding the key to open the prison door", little Franz listened to the lesson and became active in his heart: "It is strange, listening to the lecture today, I understand it all." He seemed to speak quite easily, quite easily. I don't think I've ever listened so carefully, and he's never been so patient. This poor man seemed eager to teach us all that he knew before he left, and to stuff it into our minds at once. "Franz's consciousness has been raised, he has linked learning to love of the motherland, his eyes and heart have become brighter, and he has understood a new relationship between him and learning, with his teacher, with his teacher, with teaching, with his teacher and with his student. "Strange", "all understand", "very easy", "careful", "patient", "very bad"... It not only has practical content and profound meaning, but also shows the improvement of the hidden spiritual realm of Furlong's inner world.

Dissolve a lot of details of the described environment to dissect the psychology of the characters, which is very prominent when writing a word lesson in the novel. The series of "new posters", the "iron rods" of hanging posts, the "rustling" sound of students writing, the "golden beetles", "bars" and "pigeons" are closely related to Frans's patriotic ideas and the improved spiritual realm. These details are not so much used to describe the environment around Franz, but rather as a means for the author to reveal the inner state of the characters. In Franz's mind, these things were sacred and extraordinary, and they aroused his love for the motherland. The poster was specially sent by Mr. Hamel for the last lesson, and the content of the circle characters painted on it is all the names of the motherland and the countryside. Such posters hung on the iron bars, and to Franz", they were "like many small flags flying in a classroom." The junior class practiced strokes and concentrated on drawing "bars," Franz seemed, "as if that were also French characters." He tied everything to his patriotism. While the students were concentrating on their studies, not even paying attention to the golden beetles that flew in, Frans's thoughts were drawn to the sound of the pigeons: "On the roof, the pigeons are grunting and whispering, and I thought to myself: 'Should they force these pigeons to sing in German too!'" The author also highlights this idea in a separate natural paragraph. Frans's inner thoughts, on the one hand, are childish, which is the same as hearing the strange voice of the old man hao so in the town when he solemnly and solemnly learns pinyin with the primary school students, and "wants to laugh and be sad", which has a childish side; but on the other hand, he is noble and firm. He resented the reactionary measures of the Prussian authorities to stop French children from learning French, and this hatred turned into mockery, mocking the Prussians for their inability to force the pigeons to sing in German as well. This, like his complex emotions of "wanting to laugh and be sad", is both naïve and arrogant. In this way, the author reveals step by step the protagonist's complex psychological processes and rich spiritual worlds from playfulness, indifference, and stealing, to embarrassment, surprise, sadness, and remorse, until he is excited, hates the enemy, regrets precious learning moments, respects and sympathizes with the teacher, and other complex psychological processes and rich spiritual worlds, thus completing the portrayal of the character's personality.

Linked to the above psychological analysis, the author paints all the objective things depicted with emotion. He guides the reader into the inner world of Franz, and then uses Franz's eyes to look at the surrounding environment, and feel the things depicted in the work with the joys and sorrows of the characters, so that the reader can imperceptibly in the moving artistic charm of the work.

At the beginning, the innocent and lively Frans wanted to skip school and play, so nature became beautiful: "The weather is so warm, so sunny!" Thrush sang and drank softly in the woods. Even the Prussian soldiers were practicing, which he thought was "interesting." When the school peeked out of the window at the quiet classroom, "Mr. Hammel, pacing around, holding the fearful iron ruler under his arm." "A solemn scene, an awe-inspiring mood, jumped on the paper. Are "interesting" and "afraid of people" inherent in things? No, it is the color of Franz's eyes and mood that the reader has to look at that way.

In the classroom, Franz's heart calmed down, and only then did he notice the strangeness in the classroom, and the reader also followed his visual lens to pay attention to the very eye-catching details: "Our teacher put on his very beautiful green dress today, wearing a wrinkled bow tie, hiding the little black silk hat with embroidered edges"; in the back row sat the people of the town, among whom "there was the old man of Hao Shuo, hiding his tricorne hat, the former mayor, the former postman, and some people next to him." Everyone looked sad. Hao Suo also carried a junior reading book with a broken side, and he opened the book and spread it on his knees, and his large glasses were placed horizontally on the book. "How solemn, how serious, how unusual, how it makes the child begin to be incomprehensible and it is very natural to think about it. These clothes, hats, faces, books, and glasses constitute both a surprising content for Frans and a foreshadowing for the reader to bother guessing. The reader sees and thinks exactly what the protagonist sees and thinks. Objective things are unified with subjective observation and thinking.

After Mr. Hammel broke the "last lesson" and inspired him to teach him about Franz's inability to answer his homework, Franz used a sudden and open eye to see everything again, and the teacher, the teacher, the listener, the yard, whether alive or not, became the medium of emotional accumulation or expression. The reader follows Franz's gaze to see the sitting and staring Hammel, to guess Hammel's mood, to observe the polished tables and chairs with attachment, to look through the window at the tall walnut tree and the wisteria that climbs to the roof, to listen to the footsteps of Hammel's sister upstairs packing her bags. This table, chair, and tree, which Hamel gazed at and that Franz noticed, was specially designed by the author and understandable to the reader. The footsteps were heard by Hamel and Franz, rather than the sound that struck their hearts. What is not overshadowed by emotion? Which scene is forever separated from the details (i.e., the teacher is separated from the student and the classroom, and the student is separated from the lost learning time and the words Chinese of the ancestors) and is linked? When the wisteria wraps around the protagonist's heart and the footsteps strike Hanmer's heart, doesn't the reader also shake the heartstrings? This is where "The Last Lesson" has artistic charm.

The excitement of the teachers and students is suppressed after completing the phonics class of the junior class. At this time, Franz noticed that "the old man hao suo had put on his glasses and was holding his primary reading book in both hands", and spelled out a strange voice. The foreshadowing in the front is shown here. The old people of the town regretted that they did not care about Hamel's loyal service in the first place, and came to the last lesson to pay respect for the lost land, a feeling that naturally flowed in the voice of respectful reading and trembling. It is the feeling of the old people in the town, and it is also the feeling of the children of Franz who "wants to laugh and be sad". This feeling reaches a level of excitement at the end of the novel, the plot reaches a climax, and the Mr. Hamel that Franz sees also reaches the astonishing state of emotional outburst: "Suddenly, the church bell strikes twelve times. The prayer bells also rang. At the same time, the trumpets of prussian soldiers were heard,—— they had already been. Mr. Hammel stood up, his face pale, and I think he had never been so tall. ”

"'Oh my friends,' he said, 'I—I—'

But he choked, and he couldn't go on.

He turned toward the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, exerted all his strength, and wrote a few big words

"'Long live France!'

Then he stayed there, his head against the wall, without saying a word, and made only a gesture to us:

"'When you're out of school,—— let's go.'" ”

At the end of the last lesson that can never be forgotten, Franz understood the meaning of the bells of the last prayer in France and the Prussian trumpet he saw in the morning, and in the face of the pale Hammel, the students were surprised and admired, watching his hasty speech and violent movements. The short jumping passages show the sharp development of the plot and the incomparable excitement of Hammel's mood. Through the eyes of Franco, the author writes about the tall patriot in his mind, so that the reader ripples with the emotional waves of the protagonist and Hamel. And the expression of this feeling, neither with the help of narrative directly about the provisions of patriotism, nor in the words of the characters into the long preaching, the author's thoughts and feelings are all hidden in the actions of the characters, so that the image that penetrates the feelings and thoughts naturally reveals his love and hatred in the action, so as to influence the reader through artistic appeal. This is the artistic brilliance of Tudor, and it is also a place that we can learn from when creating. As for Tudor's inability to write about anti-aggression warriors, Hammel is not a hero of resistance to the enemy, which is of course the limitation of the author's thinking, and it is also where we cannot be harsh on the ancients. When we recognize Tudor's shortcomings, we should learn more from his high-level skills in art that are good at pulling people's heartstrings.

(Note: The author of this article has authorized this headline)

(Ma Jiajun, a native of Qingyuan, Hebei, born on October 5, 1929, is currently a professor at the College of Literature of Shaanxi Normal University, a member of the Chinese Writers Association, a member of the Chinese Dramatists Association, a member of the Chinese Filmmakers Association, an honorary president (former president) of the Shaanxi Foreign Literature Society, a principle of the Chinese Foreign Literature Society, a principle of the Chinese Russian Literature Research Society, a former president of the Shaanxi Provincial Higher Education Drama Research Society, a former consultant of the Shaanxi Poetry Society, and a former executive director of the Shaanxi Provincial Federation of Social Science Societies. Shaanxi Province to build socialist spiritual civilization advanced individuals, Shaanxi Province to teach and educate advanced teachers, etc., enjoy special allowances from the State Council.

He is the author of 12 kinds of "Nineteenth Century Russian Literature", "The New Stage of Aesthetic History", "Poetry Exploration", "Exploration of World Literature", etc.; 4 kinds of "The Essence of World Literature" and "History of Western Drama" co-authored with his daughter Ma Xiaoyi; 9 kinds of "History of World Literature" (3 volumes) and "Research on Gorky's Creation"; edited 4 kinds of "30 Lectures on European and American Modernist Literature"; co-edited and co-authored "100 Topics of Marxism-Leninism", "Cultural Research Methods", "50 Lectures on Oriental Literature", "Western Literature in the Twentieth Century", etc. and more than 40 kinds.

It has been listed in more than 40 kinds, such as the Dictionary of Chinese Writers, the Dictionary of Chinese Poets, the Dictionary of Chinese Social Science Scholars, the Cambridge Dictionary of International Biographies (27th Edition in English), the Directory of Experts in Russian Studies Abroad (Russian Edition) of the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Classics of Shaanxi Century of Literature and Art. ）