The character of Runtu in Mr. Lu Xun's article "Hometown" is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, with a silver collar around his neck, a purple round face, and a steel fork stabbed at the field.
As Lu Xun's childhood playmate, Runtu allowed Lu Xun to see different fun and friendship in the fields, but in reality, Runtu has experienced unknown suffering.
After being dismissed by Lu Xun, he was cornered, penniless but seriously ill, and finally died of a violent illness, leaving five children who were also miserable, but his grandson became a celebrity.
初识闰土
The leap earth in "Hometown" is actually very different from the word leap earth. When he was born, he calculated that the five elements lacked water, so he gave him the name Yunshui, called Zhang Yunshui.
In Zhejiang dialect, the pronunciation of "Yun" and "leap" is very similar, in order to avoid using his real name in the article, Mr. Lu Xun changed the lack of water to lack of soil, and named the boy as Runtu.
As a big family in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, the Zhou family will have some sacrificial activities every year, and when the family is short of manpower, they will ask short-term workers like Zhang Yunshui's family to help.
Zhang Yunshui, who was fourteen years old at the time, often followed his father everywhere to do short-term work to help earn living expenses, plus Zhang Yunshui's mother was Lu Xun's nurse when he was a child, so his family often returned to Zhou's house.
Lu Xun, who was only twelve years old at the time, was the little master of the Zhou family who had not yet grown up, and he had not seen the world outside the Zhou Mansion.
Because his mother is Lu Xun's nurse, Runtu also has a good impression of Lu Xun, and the two children of the same age have become good friends.
Although Runtu's mother said to Runtu: "He is the young master of the Zhou family, respectful and orderly." ”
But Lu Xun said to Runtu: "I'll call you Brother Runtu, you take me out to play." ”
The friendship between the children is very simple, and both of them are boys of the same age, and they soon become friends who talk about everything.
Coming from the leap soil by the sea in the countryside, he told Lu Xun a lot of things in the countryside, including the story of climbing trees and fishing, and stinging and receiving melon fields, which made Lu Xun yearn for it very much.
In the article "Hometown", Lu Xun described the story of the leap soil in the countryside and guarding the watermelon field at night.
Compared with Lu Xun's expectation of wanting to feel the life in the countryside, Runtu is very envious of Lu Xun's life, as the young master of the Zhou family, Lu Xun has been reading and writing since he was a child, and went to school in a private school.
These are all dreams that leap earth does not have, and does not have the conditions and opportunities to realize.
But the happy time was very short-lived, and after the sacrifice was over, Runtu followed his father back to the countryside.
When Runtu left, Lu Xun also secretly sent it, and he was very reluctant to let Runtu leave with tears in his eyes.
But after all, the identities of the two people are different, and it is impossible for Runtu to stay in the Zhou family all the time, and the Zhou family has no spare strength to organize such a large-scale sacrificial activity in the later period, so Runtu has never come to the Zhou family again and played with Lu Xun.
Since then, the lives of the two childhood playmates have begun to take different paths.
Childhood playmates parted ways
Not long after Runtu left Zhou's house and returned to the countryside, Lu Xun went to Hangzhou to study, and Runtu stayed in the countryside all the time.
Lu Xun, who is studying outside, has always been very homesick, this is the first time Lu Xun has left home to live alone, which makes him miss his childhood playmate very much.
Therefore, when Lu Xun went home during the summer vacation, he took the initiative to find Runtu and wanted to meet his friends again.
This meeting made Lu Xun see a different leap earth, and he was completely different from the purple round-faced child in his memory.
The nineteen-year-old Runtu has been tanned because of his perennial work, and the wind and sun have made him look much older than his peers, which makes Lu Xun have mixed feelings in his heart.
Lu Xun, who was studying in the school, also learned that Runtu had no chance to study at all, so he asked him if he would like to go to Hangzhou to study with him.
After going home and asking his parents, Runtu replied that Lu Xun was very willing to go, and his father also took out all the family funds and asked Master Zhou to help him give Runtu the opportunity to sign up for the school.
Master Zhou also agreed, and just as everyone was looking forward to a new life, the Zhou family and the Zhang family underwent earth-shattering changes.
At that time, Lu Xun's grandfather was imprisoned because of some problems in officialdom, the Zhou family declined, and Zhou's father suddenly became seriously ill, and the original big family collapsed.
However, when Runtu's father was planning to go to Hangzhou with Lu Xun to study, he suddenly fell seriously ill, and after the family's savings were spent, Zhang's father also died.
The sudden change made both of them grow up in an instant, and they had to face the problems of life.
Lu Xun finally chose to study in Japan, and Runtu had to stay to support his family, and the paths of the two were completely separated.
Originally, Zhang's father had been doing short-term work, and Zhang's mother had been working in Lu Xun's house, and she had the help of the Zhou family for many years, so her life was not bad.
But the Zhou family suddenly fell into the middle of the family and dismissed the employees in the family, and Runtu wanted to find some work in the Zhou family to make money, but he was also dismissed.
In fact, it is not that the Zhou family exterminated the Runtu family and showed no mercy, but that the Zhou family itself is also a mud bodhisattva crossing the river, and it is difficult to protect itself.
Since then, life in the land has been very miserable.
The ending is embarrassing
Lu Xun studied medicine while studying in Japan, and at that time, Japanese medicine was very advanced, and many Chinese students went to study.
During his time in Japan, Lu Xun came into contact with the New World, as well as some Western science, education, and different ideas.
Compared with China, which was still a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society at that time, Lu Xun saw China's backwardness and also felt the suffering of the Chinese people.
So, after careful consideration, Lu Xun chose to abandon medicine and literature, give up studying medicine, and use articles to save the thoughts of the Chinese people.
After the May Fourth Movement in 1919, the middle-aged Lu Xun decided to settle in Beijing, so he returned to his hometown, intending to sell the Zhou family's old home.
After returning to his hometown, Lu Xun visited Runtu again, which was the second time that the two childhood playmates met after more than ten years.
At this time, Runtu was already full of wrinkles, dark skin, and empty and vicissitudes of life, which made Lu Xun very sad and helpless.
And Runtu is not the lively and cheerful person in his childhood, and his eyes are full of helplessness and gloom after being tempered by life.
After Runtu was dismissed by Lu Xun's family, he had a very difficult life, and the situation was unstable.
Runtu is doing odd jobs everywhere to earn change, it can be said that he has eaten the last meal without the next meal, and he has to take care of his mother at home, and the years have bent the waist of this young man.
After Lu Xun sold the old house, he gave some of the furniture in the house to Runtu, he took away some wooden tables and farming tools, and returned to the countryside.
From then on, Lu Xun went to Beijing, and later to Shanghai, and in any case did not meet with Runtu again.
During the drought of 1934, the Runtu family experienced another blow, when the peasants had no crops and their lives were extremely difficult.
It just so happened that at this time, a pustule was born on the back of the leap soil, and the pustule became a serious sore, because it was unable to work in the field, the family cut off its economic resources, not only could not even eat, but also had no money for medical treatment.
Because he had no money to treat his illness and was tortured, Runtu was only fifty-seven years old when he fell ill and died, and his family did not have the money to bury him properly, so he was simply wrapped in a straw mat and buried.
Two years later, Lu Xun also died of illness, and these two childhood friends passed away two years later.
After Runtu's death, the five children in the family had a very difficult time, and the eldest son Zhang Qisheng had to take care of his own children and younger siblings than himself.
The five children of Runtu all died in the plague and famine, and the entire Zhang family left Zhang Qisheng's child Zhang Gui alone.
Zhang Gui also has an older brother and an older sister, and his mother and sister died of illness and starvation during the drought, leaving himself and his brother to depend on each other.
Later, Zhang Gui's brother also died, and the young Zhang Gui lived alone in odd jobs. It can be said that the Runtu family started with his father, and the family has lived a very miserable life for several generations.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zhang Gui has been working part-time and barely able to survive.
Until the establishment of the memorial hall, Zhang Gui became the narrator of the memorial hall because of the relationship between his ancestors and Mr. Lu Xun.
Mr. Lu Xun's son, Zhou Haiying, also came to visit Zhang Gui after the establishment of the memorial hall, and the two became friends as the children of the deceased and kept in touch for many years.
Zhang Gui experienced hardships in the first half of his life, watching his family die one by one and leave him, and later after the founding of New China, he successfully became the narrator of the memorial, and he has always been very grateful.
He dedicated the rest of his life to the memorial hall, sorting out Mr. Lu Xun's manuscripts and collecting materials and objects about Mr. Lu Xun.
In 1982, Zhang Gui became the deputy director of the Lu Xun Memorial Hall in Shaoxing, and many tourists learned that he was the descendant of Runtu and came to see him.
Zhang Gui, who has become a celebrity, is still working in the memorial hall seriously, and has not changed for more than ten years, and retired smoothly in 1993.
After retiring, Zhang Gui also began to learn photography, traveled to various places in the motherland, and lived a retirement life.