Cao Xueqin's Jia Baoyu is cunning and eccentric, with "obedient mentality", "remote behavior", as well as "obsessive" and unique feelings, often saying "to the point of being demented and incomprehensible" (his own comments), known as "the demon king of the mixed world", "the evil root of the evil fetus", can be described as "one of the people who have never been seen in ancient times", "a person who has never been seen in ancient times" (Gengchen Ben comment), so his predecessors often commented on him as "lover" and "love species", and even the book "Dream of the Red Chamber" also called Bao Yu an "adulterous person". Lu Xun's "madman" is even more full of "cannibalistic" crazy words, incoherent, strange thinking, and grotesque actions. Where is the meaning of this "delusion" and "madness", and where is the taste?
In order to understand the taste, the study of "Red Dream" has become a specialized discipline for more than two hundred years - "Red Studies"; although the study of Lu Xun's works has not yet fully formed a science, "Lu Xun Research" has been more than seventy years, and the depth of research and the breadth of influence are unprecedented.
In order to "understand the taste", the author chose the "obsessive" performance of the two protagonists, and intended to make some new explorations, not from the perspective of the "narrator" (the author's) view, to see through the free connotation of the "story", that is, to get rid of the narrator's tendency, leaving the narrator's stipulations, which are also the perspective (referring to observations in literary reading) recognized by traditional readers for decades and centuries, to capture the other side of the character that exists as a three-dimensional image: people see Baoyu as "stupid", but I am "delusional" Behind the scenes, I saw the return of human nature; people saw that crazy people were "crazy", but under the "madness" I saw the truth that demanded the liberation of human nature, and saw the complexity of human nature.
Because literary reading has the characteristics of "looking horizontally into the peak of the mountain side", when the perspective angle is different, we will see and discover many valuable meanings covered by the characters themselves in the places that the narrator calls "crazy" and "crazy", and the essence and connotation of human nature are the unity of the richness of human natural attributes and social attributes.
The love between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu and the marriage with Xue Baochao are the central events of "Dream of the Red Chamber", and the natural author has the most ink, the deepest sustenance, and writes entangled, bitter and sweet, joy and sorrow. In addition, "in addition to Qin Zhong Jiang Yuhan, Gui is circling between the sisters in the middle table and the attendants such as the raiders in the clear sky, Ping'er Purple Crane, and respecting them, fearing their intentions, loving and working hard." (Lu Xun: "Chinese Novel Shi Zhan Qing Zhi Zhi Zhi This can be seen as a perspective of the ancients and the present. Nowadays, people regard Baoyu as a breakthrough in the concept of feudal hierarchy, feudal ethics, and order, and there is a hazy concept of equality between men and women, concubines, and masters and slaves (see Chinese literature history textbooks). It is true that the benevolent see the benevolent, and the wise see the wise.
The author understands "Baoyu is not affectionate", mainly saying that he has feelings and no feelings, that is, he has feelings for those who have feelings and feelings for those who are not; Dai Yu is feelings for those who have feelings. This "second comment is on top of the evaluation. It seems that this perspective is indeed much smarter and more accurate than the terms "love obsession" and "love species", and it is not conventional and unconventional.
Mr. Lu Xun's reference to "many loves" is, of course, not to see one love and one. "Love" and "love" here not only refer to love, the relationship between men and women, it should include a broad sense of "human feelings", its meaning is very deep, when there is respect for others, respect for human nature, respect for will, sympathy and care for people, love for what they love, people as "people" and other content. This is the most precious and valuable new feature and new content in Jia Baoyu's personality.
We know that Lu Xun's enlightenment also took attaching importance to "human value", maintaining "human dignity", and awakening "human consciousness" as its basic characteristics. When he wrote "Diary of a Madman", he had already seen that under the feudal autocracy, "people should not be treated as human beings" ("The Pen Under the Grave Lamp"), "Since the beginning of history, Chinese has always been slaughtered, enslaved, plundered, tortured, and oppressed by the same race and foreign races, and the poison that is not tolerated by human beings has also been experienced. This is a vivid portrayal of feudal society's "impersonality of people".
Because of Chinese has never competed for the "value of man". When the "value of people" is lost, there will be people who "eat people" and there will be people who will be "eaten". Because of this, the purpose of the Diary of a Madman is to "expose the evils of the family system and the old etiquette", accuse it of its "cannibalism", and strive for the liberation of humanity and the freedom of personality in order to "attract the attention of the healer" ("The Second Collection of Miscellaneous Essays of Jieting").
Lu Xun's "madman" has the character characteristics of wildness, resistance, and unswervingness, and he not only curses people who eat people, but also persuades them not to eat people. The author has extended his brushstrokes to the history of history, pointing out that the fact of "cannibalism" has been around for thousands of years and is currently eating revolutionaries (Xu Xilin). Lu Xun's cleverness lies not in seeing the fact of "cannibalism" and that feudal society is a cannibalistic society, but also in pointing out that this phenomenon is not a time or a place, it exists in all aspects of social life, and runs through the entire history of feudal society.
Aren't Jin Xun, Qingwen, Mandarin Duck, Xiangling, etc. in "Dream of the Red Chamber" swallowed up by this "cannibalistic" society? Even Qin Keqing, Miao Yu, You Erjie, Dai Yu, Yingchun, etc. did not escape? From the perspective of exposing the sense of "etiquette cannibalism", "madmen" are completely consistent with Baoyu. Our chinese feudal society for thousands of years is the history of cannibalism, this "cannibalism" is the feudal family system and etiquette, and what Cao Xueqin and Lu Xun expose and attack is precisely the "essence of cannibalism in the social system ruled by the exploiting class, which embodies the anti-feudal justice demand of the Chinese people." (Liu Shousong: First Draft of the History of New Chinese Literature)
Jia Baoyu is a newcomer image, he has not lost his "childlike heart", he is the child of the birth of capitalist production relations. We cannot leave that era, and the demand for the emancipation of individuality is a characteristic of the entire era, and we should see that the thinking of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties was relatively liberated. However, Cao Xueqin could not talk about direct resistance to the struggle due to the limitations of the times and classes; but Lu Xun, as a patriotic fighter who was a democrat at that time, not only proposed to revolutionize the life of this "cannibalism" system, but also pointed out the revolutionary method and way - "saving children", that is, to let the next generation no longer be eaten and cannibalized, and envisioned that the future society would be a peaceful and good society in which individuals "walked, ate, and slept for doing things".
It is precisely because Lu Xun has such an ideal goal that his style is even more powerful, and he wants to "obey the orders of the revolutionary pioneers" and completely "destroy this "iron house", destroy this kitchen, and destroy this feast of human flesh. "Sweeping away the old laws" and realizing the liberation of human nature is a heavy historical task entrusted by the literary revolution in the "May Fourth" era. Lu Xun, on the other hand, became the first great Enlightenment writer in China to stand on the most resolute democratic stand, oppose cannibalism, and advocate "the rights of man." (Zhou Yang, "The Road of a Great Democratic Realist") Lu Xun once praised Cao Xueqin for "knowing the depth of human nature." ("The Flower Lord of the Cave" Small Quote), isn't he himself a human liberationist! Isn't the light of human nature and the beauty of human feelings that Jia Baoyu and the "madman" pursue and admire precisely the spiritual portrayal of the two writers?
The image of Baoyu was produced at the end of feudal society, and the image of "madman" was produced after the Xinhai Revolution and the October Revolution, although the time gap was one and a half centuries, but in the feudal system of using human liberation as a spiritual weapon to oppose "cannibalism", a "crazy" and a "crazy" are exactly similar and similar. From the perspective of inheritance and development, "it can be said that Baoyu is the pioneer of the 'madman', and the 'madman' is a higher development under the new historical conditions, a deeper and more intense indictment of the 'cannibalistic' feudal system." (Wu Ying: On the Historical Content of Jia Baoyu's Image)
Cao Xueqin only wrote about the irrationality of the patriarchal principles of feudal society, but Lu Xun saw that the relationship between the father and son of the monarch and the master and slave also carried the nature of the relationship of personal dependence, which was the basis for "not treating people as human beings". Therefore, the "madman" has a more distinct and stronger revolutionary significance than Jia Baoyu. Lu Xun's era was a chaotic world of heroes rising in all directions, not only the pen was a knife and gun, but also a struggle of real knives and real guns, the rulers were too busy, and those who wrote and wrote had the opportunity to criticize and write. The Qianlong period was relatively stable, and as a novel, it was more obscure.
The reason why Jia Baoyu "loves more" and respects and is close to these unmarried girls is, on the one hand, because these young girls are not more involved in society and are less tainted by feudal consciousness; on the other hand, it is also because Bao Yu has witnessed a large number of ugly aristocratic masters, young masters, pilgrims, and bureaucrats, one is "cloudy and smelly", one is "refreshing"; one is "mud made of flesh", and the other is "flesh and bones made of water".
It is precisely because those young girls in the Grand View Garden are pure and white, and precisely because Lin Daiyu never says those words and does not believe in feudal dogma like Xue Baochao, that they can imprint their hearts and establish a love with similar personalities and the same pace. "It is precisely this kind of love, which is based on the awakening of human nature of 'humanitarianism and improvement of people's destiny', which respects each other's personality, treats each other as equals, and communicates with each other, that shines with new historical brilliance."
We believe that "the 'many loves' that Baoyu has insisted on all his life is an awakening of 'people' who have discovered the value of a small number of young girls and the beautiful characteristics of human nature, an awakening of the liberation of human nature, and an ideological awakening of humanitarianism and the improvement of people's destiny." (Wu Ying: "Re-understanding Lu Xun's Theory< Several Main Arguments for the Dream of the Red Chamber >") In terms of positive significance, it can be said that Baoyu's love is a kind of love with humanitarian and humanistic colors, "reflecting the requirements of human liberation, individual freedom and human rights equality, which in essence is the concept of humanity and human rights, that is, the initial democratic spirit." (Wu Zujian: "On the Typical Image of Jia Baoyu")
When Lu Xun created the image of the "madman", China had already experienced the Xinhai Revolution, the feudal monarchy had been overthrown; then the October Revolution occurred, and the climax of the new cultural movement was rising, which gave Lu Xun great encouragement and inspiration, so as soon as the image of the "madman" appeared, he became an awakened person under the persecution of feudal etiquette, a rebel who was eager to save a generation. Lu Xun's cry of "save the children" and his anxiety and concern for the next generation and the future of the nation reflect his patriotism and democratic ideas.
The author believes that whether it is a writer or an artist, as a concrete person who survives in a certain historical process, he must interact with the creative experience and methods accumulated by previous generations to achieve the transformation of objectification, Cao Xueqin is like this, Lu Xun is also like this, their "uniqueness" is precisely on the basis of inheriting the tradition of innovation, Cao Xueqin did not take the old path of "full of paper talents and ladies, Zi Jianwenjun Red Lady Xiaoyu and other common familiar sets", but focused on "making the world change their eyes", Lu Xun's "madman", Although he was influenced by Gogol's "madman" and borrowed from Nietzsche's ideas, "it was deeper and broader than Gogol's anger, and it was not as vague as Nietzsche's superman." (Lu Xun: "Preface to the Second Collection of Novels of the New Chinese Literature Series") It is precisely because they can tirelessly seek and explore the best ways between the poles of tradition and innovation, so this pair of "idiots" and "crazy people" have realized the aesthetic value of creative activities in a real sense.
What does "infatuation" really mean? Cao Xueqin and Lu Xun used the "infatuation" and "madness" of the characters to foil the deep meaning of the infatuation of the times, which must be seen and excavated. It can be said that the background of Jia Baoyu and the "madman" is the deepest meaning of infatuation - the madness of the times - which is also the basis of the character madness. Although Jia Baoyu and the "madman" have different times, they are always in the impact of the new and the old, good and evil, and it is precisely based on this impact and the imbalance brought about by it that they dare to pursue love, freedom and personality at all costs in the era of infatuation.
It is precisely through this fanatical lust that the Cao and Zhou clans rebel against feudal society and etiquette, rather than being obsessed with madness and lust for lust. Behind the "delusion" hides the "truth", and behind the "madness" hides the "goodness", they are the typical examples of truth, goodness and beauty. It can be said: "The greater the writer, the more closely and obviously the character in his work depends on the character of the times." (Plekhanov, "Commenting on Lanson's < History of French Literature>")
Jia Baoyu respects the value of the "people" of "daughters" and likes to be close to them, which is called "lover" and "love species" by worldly views, and we must look at this problem analytically, because like all personalities have deep social roots, there are also complex internal factors of the times and society intertwined in baoyu's personality characteristics.
Because he grew up in the "land of wealth and gentleness", surrounded by pearls, living and growing up in the group of sisters, he was inevitably infected with the habits of many women and the temper of "loving red", branded with the fast green mood and class inertia of the nobleman's clothes, so that he lost such a sharp spirit of attacking the real environment, as Goth said, lacking the temperament and courage of a man. Coupled with the long-term restrictions on the homes of the filthy and decadent nobles, what they see are mostly some ugly and vulgar "bearded eyebrows" and "national thieves and ghosts", which cannot help but produce hatred and contempt for secular men, and special affection and respect for girls, which profoundly and tortuously reflects Baoyu's certain dissatisfaction and resistance to China's feudal traditional concept of male superiority and female inferiority for thousands of years.
We say that Jia Baoyu has the rebellious nature of anti-feudalism, but he needs to be constantly stimulated and promoted, and real life has given him such an education: the death of Jin Ju and Yiwen made him concretely feel the bloody cruelty of feudalism and more clearly see the vicious face of the aristocratic ruling class. Baoyu's beating deepened the contradiction between father and son, between the orthodox faction of the feudal ruling class and the rebels of the landlord class. The copying of the Grand View Garden highlights the contradiction between mother and child, and makes the struggle for power and profit open. Lin Daiyu's death intensified the contradiction between grandma and grandson, making Baoyu even more dissatisfied with the actual environment. Tan Chunyuan married, the Jia family was raided, forced to take the exam, and finally cut off the inextricable ties between this noble prince and the feudal family, and gave up on the cliff - ordained as a monk. Although this is the author's limitation and has not brought any loss to feudal society, this is just a mental anesthetic that has changed from extreme love of life to extreme sentimentality.
As we said earlier, this is a preliminary democratic idea, but how can democratic ideas arise in the "land of wealth and gentleness"?
If we look at it historically and dialectically, we will find that Jia Baoyu lives in two extremely contradictory and antagonistic worlds, one is a world of dirty and smelly secular men, and the other is a "high-class girl" and "kingdom" (that is, the Grand View Garden) who is "extremely clean" and "extremely pure". (Wu Zuyi: "On the Typical Image of Jia Baoyu") is less affected by external vices and has a lot of good influence on Baoyu.
Although Jia Baoyu grew up in a ruling class family, he did not receive a normal education from the feudal ruling forces since childhood, and the doting of the old ancestor Jia Mu spoiled Baoyu into no one dared to manage, so that Jia Zheng's strict feudal discipline of Baoyu had to be subordinated and relaxed in front of the feudal etiquette "filial piety". Baoyu's living environment is a "man-eating" world that imprisons and destroys human nature, and he has painstakingly explored in the face of painful reality in order to seek spiritual liberation. In addition to spending his days studying miscellaneously, he also learned to pan Zen enlightenment, ran to "Zhuangzi" to find answers to life problems, and tried to use Zhuangzi's natural nature to resist the various constraints of feudal orthodoxy on him, but to no avail, he did not find a real spiritual way out.
In fact, in the eighteenth century, under the conditions of the development of China's feudal society, a new system to deal with feudalism and a new way out of life had not yet been provided, and it was even more difficult to find something in this regard as an intellectual born of the nobility. Looking at Jia Baoyu's love ideals, life pursuits, ways of thinking, and his anti-feudal footprints, which have not been seen before "Dream of the Red Chamber", this image is displayed in front of us in a fresh posture.
From the perspective of "countering reason", this "new" thing can only be a slightly awakened, but also appears to be a drowsy and hazy consciousness, so Jia Baoyu is an image of an intellectual who is in a stalemate and not dead, who has reservations in rebellion and pain in rebellion, reflecting some essence of the history of feudal society that is dead and not dead.
Lu Xun also explored this "new" thing as a "madman", but he did not find a good way out. In the end, the madman can only be allowed to "go to a certain place to wait" and wait for the official. When Lu Xun became a Marxist, he once looked back on this period of history and said: "I was aware of the corruption of the old society before, and I hoped that the new society would rise, but I did not know what this 'new' should be; and I did not know whether the 'new' would necessarily be fine after it was raised." After the October Revolution, I learned that the creator of the 'new' society was the proletariat, but because of the counter-propaganda of the capitalist countries, there was still some indifference and suspicion of the October Revolution. It is precisely because Lu Xun did not have a clear understanding of this "new" when he wrote "Diary of a Madman" and could not grasp it accurately, that the image of "madman" he created seemed to be crazy, ambiguous, unpredictable, and difficult to understand.
Some articles have explored the method of creation; too much argument is made about whether the work is realism or romanticism. But the answer is not satisfactory. In addition, some confuse creative methods with expression methods, which are even more entangled. It can be said that this "public case" has continued since the 1920s.
In fact, the two are not the same thing: the method of creation refers to the problem of principle; the means of expression is the specific means. The former refers to the writer's observation, refinement, synthesis, and generalization of the ever-changing social life, and then uses image thinking to shape the artistic image, which is the basic principle that should be followed to reflect life; the latter refers to the specific methods used in the process of shaping the artistic image. For example, "Dream of the Red Chamber" follows the creative principle of realism, and in terms of expression, it often contrasts praise and criticism, affirmation and denial, and reflects each other. "The author's attitude and depiction of praising the positive from the critical negative, or affirming the anti-secular from the denial of the secular, is consistent throughout the book." (Wu Zujian's "On the Typical Image of Jia Baoyu") The above is easy to be understood and basically uncontroversial.
This is not the case with Diary of a Madman, which we have to avoid since this issue falls outside the scope of this article. In order to break through the mysterious fog and glimpse the "true face of Lushan" of the "madman", we still start from the expression method. The "madman" is a symbolic image, which is acceptable to everyone; the use of symbolism in this article is self-evident. In this way, we can say that the environment, characters, and language all have symbolic significance, please see the moonlight in the eyes of the "madman", the dog of the Zhao family, the woman who beat her son on the street, the big brother, the old man who looks at the pulse, a bowl of steamed fish with an open mouth... This mysterious world is a symbolic environment. The living environment and social environment seen in the eyes of the "madman" are not so much the actual existence in real life as the symbol of feudal society. The "cannibalism" mentioned in the text is only a figurative metaphor, which is a profound understanding of the history of feudal society for thousands of years, the society at that time, and the nature of all reactionary rulers and exploiters, and a high summary of the nature of feudal society.
After completing this work, Lu Xun wrote to Xu Shousheng: "Later, after occasionally reading the Tongjian, it was enlightened that Chinese was still a cannibal nation, so it was written. Therefore, China's thousands of years of history is the history of "cannibalism". This "cannibalism" refers to the exploitation and oppression of people by naked people in feudal families and feudal rituals. It can also be seen in this way that the image of the "madman" is the most idealized figure imagined, but also a symbol, an anti-feudal and anti-ritual spiritual warrior, "an anti-feudal warrior of the Lu Xun style of the May Fourth era", and "it is the image of a new person who is constantly exploring and moving forward." (Zhang Shuocheng: "Realism or Romanticism")
In short, Lu Xun is in the form of "madman" madness to pierce the face of feudal patriarchy and etiquette, revealing the essence of "cannibalism". "Although it is very symbolic and impressive, it still does not lose its realism." (Lu Xun: "In the Bleak Smoke" Translator's Notes) Therefore, "to write real characters, we use realism, we use allegory, and we use symbolism." "Realism constitutes the skeleton and flesh of the novel, and the symbolic method constitutes the soul of the novel." (Yan Jiayan: "On the Creation Method of < Diary of a Madman >") it can be said that "madman is an illusion, and a warrior is a substance." Madmen and warriors mainly combine symbolism and reality, and symbolism and reality each have their own existential value, interdependence and independence.
Lu Xun's symbolism is very similar to Brecht's focus on excavating the philosophy of life, making symbolism and reality inseparable; but it is different from Chekov's realist symbolism and Metlingk's mystical symbolism. Chekov is often hidden in the natural narrative and real life depiction of the story, and it is not easy to find that the symbol of Metlink is completely separated from reality, and life itself is meaningless. In fact, "symbolism is essentially pun or ambiguous." (Hegel: Aesthetics, vol. 2) The "madman" symbolizes both the persecutor and the anti-feudal warrior and anti-feudal thought, which uses "madness" to connect the two.
"The madman is a ready-made external thing that is directly presented in perceptual care", and we generally do not look at the meaning of the "external thing" itself, "but in terms of a broader and more universal meaning it implies." And this "universal meaning itself dominates, over illustrative images." (Ibid.) In this way, the "madman" acts only as a symbol. Based on this understanding, the general meaning of the hypothetical specific figure, the "madman", is naturally anti-feudal and anti-ritual. From this point of view, the "madman" and Jia Baoyu are completely consistent.
Some people say, "Literary reading is very much like a Rubik's cube, and each perspective only allows you to see one or more of its faces", which is correct and reasonable. Although we see the return of human nature, the liberation of human nature, and the freedom of individuality from the "crazy" performance of the two protagonists, and read some new thoughts on ethics, love, and human relations, they are still one or more faces in the three-dimensional image, not all.
Facts show that it is impossible to see all at once, otherwise the argument of "poetry without interpretation" will cease to exist.