Text|Furukiyuki
Editor|Furukiyuki
Preface:
After Yu Hua emerged in his 1986 book "Away at the Age of Eighteen", he had the figure of "father" in many of his works, at that time, "father" and "father and son structure" were only his vassals, and his father was like a ghost wandering on the edge of the text, without much pen and ink and without much use.
More often than not, he simply sees himself as a vehicle for a writer's thoughts and thoughts.
In Yu Hua's second phase (1991-1995), due to the dominance of "blood" ties in the novel, the "father" stage is seen as Yu Hua's "transformation" stage, in which his "father" image is portrayed in large numbers and has a wide influence.
After Yu Hua completed "I am timid as a mouse" in 1996, he completed "Brother" in 2005, and once again completed the shaping of "father", at this time, Yu Hua has entered the third period, in this period, Yu Hua placed the character of "father" between "center" and "edge", giving "father" the meaning of the character model and ruler, which is the result of the synthesis and development of the first two stages.
I. On the Evolution of the "Father" Image in Yu Hua's Novels
The "father" image created by Yu Hua in the three periods has its own characteristics, which not only reflects his creative style in the three periods, but also reflects the evolution of Yu Hua's literary thought and world view.
In the book "Away at Eighteen", many scholars are adding new meanings to "father", but this also proves that the role of "father" is not a lifelike "father", but a symbol full of various symbols and metaphors.
Before that, Yu Hua created five completely different "fathers" in 1991's "Shouting in the Drizzle", Yu Hua paid great attention to their portrayal, and deeply excavated their past, making the image of these five "fathers" more real and vivid.
Yu Hua has found a suitable "father", he also knows very well what he wants to express, from "Brother" to "The Seventh Day" to "Wencheng", Yu Hua's creative techniques are changing, the time of the story is changing, his language is changing, but his portrayal of "father" has always maintained a plump image.
"Wencheng" added three more characters to the genealogy of its "father": Lin Xiangfu, Chen Yongliang, and Gu Yimin.
These three people are very similar in personality, and when the history of modern Chinese literature was prevalent, there were similar characters, such as Lu Zilin and Bai Jiaxuan in "White Deer Plain", and Xiang Xi in "Stupid Flower", all of whom were landlord class figures in the new period, and they were all a typical "master" in Chinese history.
Comparing these three works with Yu Hua's other two works of the same period, Song Fanping in "Brothers" in 2005 and Yang Jinbiao in "The Seventh Day" in 2013, it can be seen that these three works are more consistent with the silent fatherly love in Chinese's heart.
In "Wencheng", Lin Xiangfu is compared to "weeping willows", "land", in fact, it also combines "humility" and "silence" with the "humility" and "silence" of his father, the "father" represented by Lin Xiangfu is a bright color, covering up their inadequacies, while the "father" depicted by Yu Hua is a "bright" color that covers up their inadequacies.
The fathers in Yu Hua's early works are cold and dark, and their motivation for action is determined by a twisted desire, in "Inescapable Numbers", Luzhu's father asked her to use acid to ruin Dongshan's appearance, in order to let his daughter occupy Dongshan for a long time.
In "A Kind of Reality", the road of revenge of the two people of Dashan and Shan Gang is squeezed out by the venting of violence, such a sick father, which cannot be found in classical Chinese novels, and is also completely different from "father" in the traditional sense. In traditional Chinese Confucian culture, "father" is a symbol with a sense of responsibility and responsibility, and Jin Ying of the Qing Dynasty wrote in the "Aphorisms and Walls": "Being a parent, the world is the best."
However, the "father" image in Yu Hua's early works often has tragic and calamitous implications: in "Traveling Away at the Age of Eighteen", "I" followed his advice and went out of the house, only to be robbed and beaten by the farmer; In "The 3rd of April Incident", the fathers are all members of the outside world trying to hurt "me"; In "The Inevitable Robbery", Mung Bean was killed by Dongshan after being poisoned by his father; In the book "The World Is Like Smoke", the five children of the "Divine Stick" passed away one after another.
In Greek legend, Ouranos swallowed his children for fear of seizing power, so symbolically, this image of a father is very "imported".
The weirdness of this character also reflects some characteristics in modern literature, and Yu Hua's description of this character is still a kind of Western modernism, and Lin Xiangfu's image is completely two extremes.
"Shouting in the Drizzle", "Alive", "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood" and other more radical fathers, although also a little absurd, but it is a localized, Chinese absurdity, without the taste of "imported products", replaced by a fatherly love full of ethics, family affection, and blood, which has become all the fatherly love after Yu Hua, and has become the fatherly love he wrote.
However, there is a difference from the "father" who tends to be perfect in the later stage, although the "father" at this stage already has the concept of "father", and many actions are also out of the consideration of "father's love", but the role of "father" always has some personality flaws, and sometimes, it will also contribute to the development of the story.
For example, "Sun Guangcai" in "Shouting in the Drizzle" was forced by "color" and finally solved, "Fugui" in "Alive" lost money due to gambling, while "Xu Sanguan" in "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood" married "Xu Yulan" to "Xu Sanguan" with his "little cleverness", and the way this series of "father" images advance the story is completely different from "Brother", "The Seventh Day" and "Wencheng".
In "Brother", although Li Guantou's father is also a flowery carrot, it did not have much impact on the plot, but it was Song Fanping, with his deep affection and integrity for Li Lan, pushing the plot of "Brothers" to a new height.
Similar to Yang Fei in "The Seventh Day", for Yang Jinbiao's deep father's love for him, but in "Wencheng", Lin Xiangfu finally found Xizhen with his extraordinary persistence and persistence, which led to the later plot. Among them, the flash of the character image of "father" has become an important driving force for the development of the novel.
From "Shouting in the Drizzle" to "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood", Xu Sanguan and several other characters are part of the father created by Yu Hua, connecting the absurd, negative, and Westernized father image of the previous era to form a traditional, positive, perfect, positive, and traditional father image in China, and the father image created by Yu Hua has also produced the transformation of the former to the latter.
Second, the deep meaning of the "father" image
From "Going Out at the Age of Eighteen" to "Wencheng", the change of Yu Hua's "father" image in his novel is actually a process of deconstructing the patriarchal discourse system.
China's modern first-class writers seem to have left deep memories of the "ten-year catastrophe" period, and Alai's "Heavenly Fire", Yan Lianke's "Hard as Water", and Mo Yan's "Late Mature People" are all written in their writing, either seriously introspective or funny.
In that era, they were all using serious or funny techniques to deconstruct the mainstream discourse system of that era again and again, and this system was like a "father" that affected all aspects of the author, so when the writing system was broken, literary works also had a more cathartic taste.
For example, "Scars" Lu Xinhua, "Class Teacher" Liu Xinwu, "Green Tree", suppressed feelings, suppressed ideas, can be shown at this time, this denial and denial of the past, once became a "golden rule" in the Chinese literary world.
From the perspective of literary schools and literary ideas after the "Ten Years of Catastrophe", "obscure poetry", "scar literature", "reflective literature", "innovative literature", "new historicism", "new realist literature", "avant-garde literature", etc., are constantly denying, reflecting, and dissolving that era. Of course, Yu Hua is also among them, and in his early novels, his father is like an invisible shadow that binds his son.
In his novels, the contradictions and contradictions between them are a huge hidden danger, a slight carelessness, can lead to tragedy, not so much the father's generation caused the tragedy of the son, but the father's oppression of the son, such as "Classical Love", although Liu Sheng's father did not appear, but was driven by his ambition and chose to participate in the imperial examination.
More precisely, Yu Hua also began to question at this time whether the "patriarchal" system in the "Ten-Year Disaster" was a real patriarchal system. Although patriarchy also has some drawbacks, such as unbalanced rights and insufficient independence of members, if you want to enjoy rights, you must have a sufficient sense of responsibility, and no independence is the price of protection.
Take Fugui in "Alive", he is not a competent father, he lost all his property, fell to the point of poverty, and did not even protect his wife and children, which can be seen from his performance.
However, Yu Hua did not blame him excessively, but refined everything he experienced, and in the end, Fugui became a figure independent of the world, and what he showed was no longer a person, what he showed was a spiritual fantasy, a tenacious spirit of a Chinese farmer in pain.
As he got older and his son got bigger, Yu Hua's idea became more and more profound.
Finally, he created a father image in "Brother", one is Sun Wei's father, these two characters are one of the few characters in "Brother" who can reflect the advantages of human nature.
At this time, Yu Hua compared these two characters with the patriarchal theory in "Brothers", and when both fathers died, Yu Hua once again overturned the unsound patriarchal theory in the ten-year catastrophe and completely returned to the Chinese patriarchal theory, and the father in "The Seventh Day" is the same, and the father in "Wencheng" is the same.
At this time, Yu Hua separated patriarchy from mainstream thought, and he abandoned negative things and only retained positive things.
Yu Hua's resistance to the patriarchal discourse system is that "poetry can complain", and now, "poetry can complain" has become the morality of "king, courtier, father, and son", Yu Hua's second deconstruction of the patriarchal discourse system.
Epilogue:
Chinese has a long tradition of ethics and morality, and under the influence of ethics and morality, the unique meaning of the role of "father" is a question worth exploring. Starting from the image of the father, the investigation of society and literature will always have interesting discoveries, and the role of "father" can often set the tone for the entire literary creation.
[References]
[1] Yu Hua: "Traveling Long at the Age of Eighteen"
[2] Yu Hua: "Wencheng"
[3] Yu Hua: "No Road Is Repeated"