Lao She is the best at describing the struggle of the people at the bottom in facing life, and whenever he reads his novels, there will always be an unspeakable depression that cannot be dissipated in his heart for a long time.
Written in 1953, "Crescent Moon" tells in the first person the story of a pair of low-level mothers and daughters in the old society who became secret prostitutes for the sake of "only one mouth".
This novel is Lao She's only work with women as the theme, but it truly restores the survival dilemma faced by low-level women in the 1930s under the turbulent "cannibalistic" society.
The whole book is a total of 43 chapters, only 16,000 words, but it deeply portrays the helplessness and sadness of the mother and daughter generations, who eventually became prostitutes, and cast a tragic song of the times.
Lu Xun said that tragedy is to destroy the valuable things in life for people to see.
Lao She's "Crescent Moon" shattered the lives of the two generations of mother and daughter, rubbed them open, and threw them into the most humble darkness.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > mother's struggle and struggle:</h1>
"My" dad was so ill that he abandoned the mother and daughter in this chaotic era.
At the beginning of life, it was still possible to live as a pawn, until the mother took the last silver hairpin that her grandmother gave her and pawned it, and the mother and daughter really ran out of water.
The mother began to live by helping people wash clothes, and after each washing, she was smoked by smelly socks to the point that she could not eat, and her white hands had old skin like fish scales.
But even this kind of work is not common. When there was no work to do, the mother and daughter could only endure hunger.
At this time, the mother was still young and beautiful, but the mother's spirit was constantly destroyed by this inhuman labor, and then looked at the hungry daughter and decided to remarry.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="15" > mother's two commitments to men:</h1>
Hungry stomach is not long ears, nor long heart, followed the mother's palanquin into the home of a strange man, "I" was also forced to call the man father, this is the mother's first compromise on life.
The stepfather was very kind to the mother and daughter, and the daughter even went to school proudly, but after several years of stable days, the stepfather did not quit.
The abandoned mother and daughter can only face the pressure of life again, the mother took everything that can be done in the family, and at first leaned in front of the door to wait for the man to return, and then the heart died, and gradually began to start a secret prostitution business.
As the days passed, my mother grew old and began to seek a new way out again. Because her posture and energy no longer allowed her to serve more than one man, at this time the treasurer of the steamed bun shop was willing to accept her, and her mother rushed to marry, which was the mother's second compromise on life.
"I" am already old, it is inconvenient to follow the past, I can only find my own way. Skipping the plot about introducing "I", thinking that the mother will never see each other again, it appears again at the end of the text.
At that time, her mother was very old, and the manager of the steamed bun shop secretly returned to her hometown without leaving her a single piece of money. The mother can only find her daughter and rely on her daughter's money as a prostitute to live.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="22" > "I" struggle and struggle:</h1>
My mother was married to the manager of the steamed bun shop, and the way "I" could think of for myself was to go to the principal, who managed my two meals, and I firmly believed that after reading the book, I could survive on my own with the independence and self-esteem of a woman.
However, the school later changed principals, and fat principals said he couldn't guarantee that the new principal would treat me to her standards. I started to make some money by knitting things for students, but it was a drop in the bucket. I wanted to turn around and find my mother, but I couldn't bear to cause her trouble.
At this time, I seemed to understand the mother who had washed the smelly socks, the mother who had married twice in order to have a mouthful of food, and the mother who was willing to be a prostitute in order to live.
I started working as a waitress in a restaurant, but I couldn't bear to be teased and flirted with in public like others, so I had to lose my job again and had no job to do.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="27" > "I" used to want to rely on men:</h1>
When "I" went to the principal for help, I met a young man, and the principal's nephew rented a house for me for free, and in a trance I thought that I had met love and found a dependence.
Until his wife came to the door, it was an honest woman, and I promised him that he would leave this man, but I didn't know how to live after leaving him.
Finally, for the sake of this mouth, I followed my mother's old path and returned to the original place. Hunger is a human instinct, and I cannot resist. In the face of survival, all the moral beliefs that education has given me are so pale and powerless.
Little by little, "I" lost the supreme being, took off the clothes that were born as human beings one by one, and became an emotionless shell.
In the world of "I", I have never seen a full moon, I have always seen the oblique, cold crescent moon, which is like my desolate fate and has become the representative of thousands of low-level women.
"My mother loves me, but poverty is more powerful than mother's love." After the mother and daughter meet, the identity is reversed, and I want to rely on it to be a secret prostitute to support myself and my mother. At the end of the novel, I was arrested and sent to a correctional institution and sent to prison.
Yet for me, prison is even better than outside, because there is no hope outside now, and there is no longer maternal love.
In the context of a particular era, the only way out for women is to cling to men, but women hope that the end of men is sad, and in the end, they can only be forced to take off the "clothes of being born" one by one and live on the profession they once spurned.
Both generations of mother and daughter were eventually forced into prostitution, and even so, they did not live a stable life. It's just that "I" have more emotional and mental struggles than my mother.
In the end, my mother fully embraced the social rules of male superiority and the universal value of money; and because of those intellectual, cultural, and personality independence, I had self-doubt and even self-destructive revenge.
"Crescent Moon" in the end failed to save the clouds for women's survival, the so-called education in the penitentiary is to "find someone to marry", and the so-called marriage is just a man to spend two dollars to choose a woman to take away.
At the end of the novel, "I" would rather go to prison than return to society to experience the hunger and desperate suffocation that runs through it. In prison, at least there is no need to think about where the next meal will be, at least the last shred of dignity of being human.
At this point, in order to obtain the most basic needs of human existence, "I" not only took off the "clothes of being born as a human being", but also resolutely abandoned the freedom that should have been obtained as an individual.
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The world is so big, thank you, you can see me!
[This article is originally produced by Wei Wei'an, plagiarism must be investigated / The picture comes from the network, invaded and deleted]