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Since the opening of new shipping routes in the early 16th century, the rise of Western countries, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain, France, Germany and Italy and other countries have gradually advanced to the world, and the ancient continents have become colonies of the great powers, of which India, one of the four ancient civilizations, has not been spared. From the establishment of the East India Company by the British in 1600 to the annexation of punjab by the British in 1849, India was completely reduced to a British colony. Since then, in this ancient and fertile land, the conflicts and contradictions between colonizers and colonized people, invaders and invaders, and different religious beliefs and different castes have been staged one after another. The novel "Gora" takes place in such a background of the times, and the work draws a magnificent picture of India's life in the 1870s and 1880s, realistically presenting the many contradictions and conflicts between Indian Protestantism and the Sanskrit Society, and also profoundly revealing India's colonial contradictions, racial system, and women's issues.
The author of "Gora" is the famous Indian literary artist Tagore, Tagore is famous for his romantic poetry, he wrote more than 50 poems in his lifetime, known as "poetry saint", of which "Jitanjali", "Flying Bird Collection", "New Moon Collection" are all familiar works, "Jitanjali" is his Nobel Prize in Literature winning works. However, in his more than sixty years of creative activities, the most profound and extensive reflection of the real life in India at that time was his novel. Unlike the romantic presentation of poetry, his novels mostly use critical realism. In this way, he reflects many major social issues, including the current situation of life of the Indian people in that era, contradictions and conflicts, rebellion and struggle.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Indian version of War and Peace</h1>
From 1863 to 1869, the Russian writer Tolstoy spent six years writing the long historical novel War and Peace. Set against the backdrop of the Russo-French War, the novel projects the rise and fall of the four major families of Borkunsky, Bezukhov, Rostov and Kulagin into the big shadow of war and peace, and praises the patriotic enthusiasm and heroic fighting spirit of the Russian people by depicting the growth of aristocratic youth in the turmoil of their home country and the exploration of the fate of the country. "War and Peace" is hailed as the most accomplished "epic" of Russian realist literature in the 19th century, which not only profoundly restores the current situation of people's life in Russian society in the context of a specific era, but also promotes a patriotic spirit against war and a humanitarian sentiment of pursuing peace.
From these perspectives, Gora is an Indian version of War and Peace.
"Gora" takes two Bangladeshi families as the stage and creates many characters who are closely linked by friendship, love and family affection. Represented by Gora and Binoye, the author tells the story of the young intellectuals of India in that era who continued to progress and grow in order to explore the way out of the country by setting up various character confrontations and plot conflicts. Tagore expressed fiery patriotic feelings and deep national feelings in the emotional world of the characters, while also criticizing the sectarian prejudices and retro tendencies of progressive intellectuals. Friendship, love, and family affection are no longer simply limited to the category of emotions in the novel, but have become more of a driving force for the characters to pursue progress and explore the light, and finally guide them to embark on the correct anti-imperialist and patriotic struggle path. Like War and Peace, Gora not only reflects the current situation of india's people in feudalism, caste system, and colonial environment in the 1870s and 1880s, but also praises the protagonist's anti-feudal and anti-colonial patriotism. What is even more valuable is that the work reveals the author's concern about the fate of the country and his exploration and thinking about the future of the country.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the language expression of poetry and the shaping method of the novel</h1>
(1) The linguistic expression of poetry
"Let life be as splendid as a summer flower, and death as the quiet beauty of autumn leaves." The beauty of the language of Tagore's poetry makes his words always filled with an idyllic, quiet and leisurely mood. This kind of aesthetic language is used in the environmental description and psychological description of his novels, which not only forms a picture that jumps on the paper, but also makes his character image more three-dimensional and plump.
This passage describes the reconciliation between Gora and Binoye after an argument:
The two friends went to the roof, laid a mat on the open-air platform, and lay on it. The brilliance of the autumn moon sprinkled the sky, and the thin white clouds, like sleepy-eyed short-term duty people, gradually scattered after walking in front of the moon. Rows of roofs, high and low, large and small, stretch out in all directions and stretch into the distance, and the roofs are mixed with the treetops from time to time, forming meaningless, illusory and bizarre patterns of light and shadow.
This section of the environment description, the sense of picture is full. This quiet and peaceful environment sets off the calm psychology of two friends after experiencing fierce quarrels and then reconciling. Lining people with scenery, bringing scenery with people.
And this paragraph is Binoye's psychological monologue after the quarrel between Binoye and Gora:
Gora lost his temper and left, and Binoye didn't blame him, but they had been friends for many years, and this was the first time there had been a real discord. The sky was covered with dark clouds, and from time to time there was a rumbling thunder, and Bi Nuoye felt very heavy as he walked on this miserable rainy night. His life seemed to have suddenly left the right path and gone in a new direction. In the darkness, Gora walked one path and he took another.
The dark clouds are closed, the thunder roars, and the oppressive environment sets off Pinoye's low and heavy mood. "In the darkness, Gora walked one path, he took another." It also hints at the end of his soon-to-part ways with his friends. Tagore uses superb language art to contrast the surrounding environment and the psychology of the characters, which enriches the character characteristics of the characters while promoting the development of the storyline.
(2) The shaping method of the novel: the plump character image
The novel is a literary genre that focuses on the portrayal of characters and reflects social life through a complete storyline and specific environmental descriptions. Gora creates images of intellectuals of all types, and the central figure of the work, Gora, is a typical representative of Indian democrats. Through Gora, Tagore clearly expressed his opposition to imperialism, feudalism and the caste system.
Gora is a strong-willed, decisive, radical but leadership-minded patriotic and enthusiastic youth. The image is not perfect, and even a little stubborn and stupid. He had tended to be more open and modern Sanskrit, but since he saw Western missionaries criticizing orthodox Hinduism and patriotism, he immediately became a loyal Hindu. To this end, he suppressed his true self and did a series of things that were opposed to his own heart. In order to show that he maintained the caste system, he repeatedly attached his caste brahmin mark on his forehead; in order to maintain the purity of his Hindus, he did not hesitate to destroy the love between mother and son, refusing to eat with her mother, because the maid who cooked for her was a Christian; in order to maintain the Hindu tradition, he sacrificed his love and friendship only because the girl he loved was Sanskrit, and his best friend was married to a Sanskrit girl.
However, just as he was about to sacrifice everything to become a loyal Hindu, a turning scene occurred: he was not Indian at all, he was of Irish descent, adopted by his Indian mother in the chaos of the war. Although this dramatic plot makes everything Gora has done before seem stupid and ridiculous, it still allows us to see the patriotic heart of a fist under his extreme thoughts. After learning his true identity, he completely changed his extreme thinking, abandoned the narrow nationalist ideas, stood at a new starting point, and truly realized the great cause of India's national liberation.
In addition to the protagonist Gora, Tagore also created the image of many other intellectuals. His classmate Bi Nuoye was a well-educated Bengal disciple who was intelligent, studious, self-denying, respectful of women, and not superstitious about religion. Tagore often used his debates with Gora to articulate his views on women, religion, love, and so on. Binoye's shortcomings were hesitation and accommodation, but he eventually broke through the feudal shackles and gained freedom of love and thought. Mr. Parrish was the representative of an enlightened and wise intellectual. He was an open-minded, calm man. He opposed the caste system, the decadent traditions of Hinduism, and the sectarianism of the Sanskrit Society. He respects the beliefs of others, respects the freedom of the individual, and encourages young people to think independently. He is like a teacher, guiding young people such as Gora, Binoye, Lo Lida, and Sucharida to think and explore themselves.
What amazed me most about this book was Tagore's female characters. From ancient times to the present, women in India have been pitiful, and this pity is not only because of the atrocities of men or the injustice of fate, but also a systematic discrimination with cultural roots. India's oldest legal scripture, the Manu Code, regulates all aspects of secular life, but if you look closely, these pages are filled with rules and regulations for "cannibalism." For example, the child marriage system stipulates that high-caste men should marry girls who are half or even one-third of the age; it defiles the boudoir system for women, prohibiting women from meeting with men other than their husbands, and condemning women as the source of evil. India's classical culture is vast and profound, but the brutality shown in the female issue is an indelible stain, and in the classical and traditional world, women have no way to liberation. Even in modern times, women's survival status has not become much better, and in the so-called civilized world, women's education, equal employment, and free love, all of which seem to be taken for granted, still seem so absurd in most parts of India.
In the context of the story of "Gora", although the advanced ideas of Western freedom and equality entered India with colonial culture, India still adheres to the traditional concept of inequality in the status of women. In "Gora", the image of three women is emphasized.
Lorida is a new type of Indian woman with ideals and ambitions. She hated the colonial rulers incomparably, she rebelled against all the evil forces in society, jealous and hateful, brave and decisive. She is not afraid of the world's vision, and she does not follow the tide. It is she who makes Binoye have her own thinking, to explore the truth and approach the truth, rather than blindly pandering. Another heroine in the book, Sucharida, is another typical, she is gentle and quiet, likes to think deeply, although not as fearless and courageous as Luo Lida, but once she has made up her mind, she can persevere to the end, and the most valuable thing is that she can always be brave and fearless to insist on herself.
Gora's mother, Ananda Moyi, was the ideal Indian woman in Tagore's mind. Although she was the daughter of a Hindu, she did not foolishly observe feudal and backward customs. She was kind-hearted, gentle and loving; she was clear-headed, calm and determined; she had the enlightened mind of Mr. Parrish, but stronger than he was decisive. When Binoye hesitated, she enlightened him; when Lo Lida was isolated, she was not afraid of other people's discussion, ignored the noise of her family, gave her specific help, and arranged marriage for her. She believes that marriage is the union of two hearts, and people of different religions can still be united. In her mind, there is no distinction between religion and caste, and the only thing she believes in is truth. It was her selfless maternal love that awakened Gora's natural nature:
That night, when Gora returned home, he saw Ananda moyi sitting quietly on the balcony in front of his house. He walked up to her, sat down in front of her, and put his head on her feet. Ananda Moyi lifted his head with his hand and kissed him. "Mom, you're my mom!" Gora exclaimed excitedly, "The mom I looked around for used to be sitting in my room all the time. You have no caste, no distinction between nobility, no hatred – you are just a symbol of our happiness! You are India!"
(3) The shaping method of the novel: the storyline of the conflict
The storyline is often the backbone of the novel, through the beginning, development, climax and ending of the story, the reader is brought into the story, and together to experience the joys and sorrows of the characters, to think in the story, and to experience the emotions that the author wants to express.
The storyline of Gora unfolds in sharp contradictions. Gora's patriotic passion prompted him to constantly clash with the colonialists and foreign slave compradors, and his religious beliefs also caused him to constantly clash with his family, friends, and lovers, which made the work full of suspense and pushed the story forward. One of the most dramatic turning points in the book is Gora's life. Gora learns that he is not Indian at all, but of Irish descent. His father was killed by the rebellious Indian soldiers; his biological mother, who was saved by his Indian adoptive mother, also died after giving birth to him. He was not a Brahmin at all, did not belong to any Indian caste, and his efforts to uphold the Hindu tradition and the sacrifices he made to uphold principles as an example of himself were meaningless. After discovering his true identity, Gora regains his true nature and true tendencies, and the contradictions that previously existed in his heart are also solved.
The characters grow, awaken, and finally realize the truth in the contradictory storyline, and this truth is the main idea that the author wants to express: "If a religious society wants to use external customs as shackles, and binds people's religious consciousness to a place, this religion, once it begins to respect it, you have to become a pure puppet for life." "
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks</h1>
An author's work often has a strong color of the times. Tagore lived in an era when the Indian people were oppressed by both imperialism and feudalism, and deeply engraved in his soul the fall of the motherland, the humiliation of the nation, and the extreme hardships of the people's lives. Therefore, his works have a sense of compassion and fraternity against aggression and peace.
In the 1870s, the class and ethnic contradictions in India became more and more acute, the squeezed peasants spontaneously revolted, and a large class of petty-bourgeois intellectuals was formed, many of whom had realized the disaster brought to India by British colonial rule, and the demand for national liberation became stronger and stronger. The novel "Gora", which is full of patriotic passion, is a work of critical realism set against the background of the national liberation movement, reflecting the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle of the Indian people, the contradictions between Sanskrits and neo-Hindus, and the arduous process of India's advanced figures in modern times to explore the road of national liberation.
In the nineteenth century, when the countries of the world were at war and capital was colonized and plundered, a large number of great writers emerged in this special period: like Tagore in India, Tolstoy in Russia, Lu Xun in China, and so on. They oppose aggression, they oppose war, they sympathize with the broad masses of toiling people, they pin their hopes on a pen, they want to criticize the dark reality through words, to educate the ignorant masses, to seek a way out of the future of the country. Some people say: A truly great writer must stand in the times, but his works are higher than the times. It is true that whether it is Tagore or Lu Xun, the feelings displayed in their works are still beyond our reach in modern times.