Author: Da Li
These two days took the time to read a novel, french novelist Balzac's "The Tall Old Man". The overall feeling after reading it is: tragedy. The protagonist of the novel, Old Man Gao, is a completely tragic character, and if you have to find a little lucky element in him, it should be that you finally woke up before dying and finally admitted your failure.
The novel is mainly about the protagonist, Old Man Gao, who used to be a flour merchant who loved his wife and daughter, and when his wife died, he poured all his love into his two daughters, obeyed them obediently and responded to their needs, and later successfully married them into high society, and gave each daughter eight hundred thousand francs to marry, leaving himself with more than ten thousand francs of living expenses and annuities. As the two daughters are blinded by material things and fall into the debauched life of high society, the belief in the supremacy of money makes them unrecognizable, and the tall old man not only loses his wealth, but also loses his daughter's love.
The life of the tall old man is a tragedy, which Balzac told the reader bluntly on the first page of the first chapter of the novel, so that when I turned the first page and read something like "The Hidden Pain History of the Tall Old Man", I could not help but feel a heavy heart, which is an emotion that has not been felt in many novels.
Not to mention the tragedy of the tall old man, just from balzac's words that remind the reader that this is not a comedy story, you can feel the emotions that are brewing and running through the novel all the time, Balzac's rendering, let me immerse myself in this work at the same time, always worried, afraid that the next second will happen irreparable plot.
For example: "In this famous basin, the lime on the walls is always peeling off, and the yang ditch is full of dark mud; everywhere there is real suffering, empty joy." "
"This famous basin" may refer to the voguet apartment rented by the tall old man, or to the whole of Paris. The voguet apartment is part of the epitome of Paris, the epitome of poverty, and when you are poor, money is particularly important. As for how important it is, in Balzac's works, the already poor people are very concerned about him, and the upper class, which has never been poor, is even more covetous of him.
For example, Mrs. Vogai, the hostess of the Apartment. When the tall old man first moved into the apartment, he behaved very generously, "Gao Leo (tall old man), a good man who earns eight thousand to ten thousand a year", made Mrs. Cover think about it.
"So the day Gaullio moved into Mrs. Voguet's house, she slept at night contemplating how to leave Voguet's grave and regenerate him; she put this idea on the fire of desire and grilled it like roasting a greased bamboo chicken."
The tall old man, as the richest and most wealthy single old man who seemed to be the richest and most wealthy in the apartment so far, lived in the best room of the apartment, and Mrs. Vogay only saw his delicate makeup and did not see his old face; when the tall old man was squeezed out of his value by his two daughters, sold his property, became an old man with nothing, and moved to the worst room in the apartment, Mrs. Voguet saw only his downfall and ugliness, not his nobility.
Balzac's pen is full of capitalist self-interest and selfishness, which is not only reflected in Mrs. Voguet, a small person on the fringes of society, but also in the upper class people to express these qualities more vividly. The most obvious of these is the attitude of the two daughters and son-in-law to the tall old man.
After he had just married his two daughters, the daughters were close to him, and the son-in-law was polite and kind to him, and both sides regarded him as a god for the sake of money; when he divided almost all his property among his two daughters, eight hundred thousand francs each, he began to be disliked by his daughter and son-in-law, who was dissatisfied with his living in his own home and wanted to drive him out to live alone, and the daughters were reluctant to admit that they were their fathers in front of the upper class, so he lived in the Fugai apartment.
The extreme contrast between before and after this is only money and profit. "Rich is virtue", this is a sentence in the novel, summing up the evil face of the daughter and son-in-law and the tragedy of the tall old man very well, everything depends on the money, anything can be endured, if it is poor, it is not worthy of being a man.
Big people and small people can sell their souls for money, and the tall old man is undoubtedly a victim of this interest field.
Balzac's satire of contemporary society can be seen everywhere in "The Tall Old Man", for example: "Civilization is like a big car, like the sacred car of India, it encounters a heart that is not easy to crush, and after a slight delay, it is immediately crushed, and it continues to move forward in a mighty way." "
Among them, the "sacred car of India" refers to: every time the vichnou god is commemorated in India, the statue of the god is placed on the car and paraded, and the good men and women are crazy, and even climb the god car or put themselves under the wheel, thinking that in this life they can be born into a higher class.
These satirical and harsh language make Balzac's real and hateful characters feel less hateful, even pitiful.
It seems that in the social environment where money is supreme at that time, it is not normal for talents without distortions.
How did the tragedy of the tall old man come about? Maybe it's a product of the times, maybe it's the trickery of fate, maybe it's his own doing.
He loved her two daughters so much, so much that he lost himself.
For example, after he was squeezed dry by his two daughters, the eldest daughter, Nazi, still did not let him go, and in order to pay off the debt of her lover, she extended a sinful hand to her father. She asked the old man for twelve thousand francs, but the old man could not get it, and began to blame himself.
"She came to me, she had an urgent use!" And I, the damn thing, didn't even have anything. yes! You saved money for a lifetime annuity, you old bastard, have you forgotten your daughter? Don't you love them anymore? Die, die like a wild dog! Yes, I'm worse than a dog, and a dog can't do such a thing. "
The old man's self-reproach left me speechless. I cannot accept or understand such a fatherly love. Although I don't have children, I also have fathers, and if my father did this to me, I am afraid that I would worry more about his life.
The old man's lifelong pension is equal to our pension insurance, which is a guarantee for the life of the elderly, at least so that he can have bread to eat and live even if he is poor. And because he could not help the lover of his vampire-like daughter to pay off his debts, he actually blamed himself to such an extent, calling himself a dog, such a love is great at the same time, perhaps only vampire-like daughters can be consumed, but they do not cherish, no blessings.
There are many more words like this, which often make me look at it and think that such a daughter is not worthy of such a father, and perhaps God just likes to joke and give a father who loves his daughter wholeheartedly with two beastly daughters.
There is also a plot that impressed me.
The eldest daughter, Nazi, made a dress of a thousand francs for the prom, but all her money was spent on her lover, so she found the tall old man again. At that time the old man was very ill, but he felt deeply guilty about the last twelve thousand francs, and vowed to help her conjure up the cost of this thousand francs, he sold the silver tower buckle and tableware and made up six hundred francs, withheld four hundred francs of life annuity, put a thousand francs under the pillow, waiting for his daughter to come and get it, he was full of joy, thinking that when her daughter withdrew the money, he could see her again, but she did not expect that she only sent the servants of the family to withdraw money.
The terminally ill old man was still calculating in his heart, where to go to do business again, to help his daughters through the difficulties, he thought about his daughters wholeheartedly, but when he was sick, none of them came to see him once.
The old man said a sentence that was also the most true sentence he had inadvertently said in his life: "How, I can't see you until you are in trouble?" You show me only tears. "
Perhaps in the old man's heart, he had long understood that the two daughters only used him, but they were unwilling to admit it.
"You give them life, they let you die. You bring them into the world, and they throw you out of the world. They won't come! I've known this for ten years. Sometimes I think so, but I can't believe it. This is the old man's cry before he dies. He finally woke up before he died, and saw clearly the selfishness and coolness of his two daughters. Maybe it was the only luck he had in his life.
Before his death, both daughters were preparing for the upcoming banquet, "their heads were combed, their shoes were dressed, and they were just waiting to put on their dancing clothes", which was what the daughters did, and the life and death of their father had nothing to do with them, and no ornate banquet was important.
And the old man said, "If I have money, if I keep my furniture and don't give them my property, they will come and kiss me in the face... Money can buy everything, money can buy daughters. "
"Fathers should always have money, and should tighten the reins of their daughters like a cunning horse." But I knelt down to them. "
The old man's love for his daughters is kneeling love, giving everything and having nothing.
"I obviously saw that it was hypocrisy, but I couldn't do anything about it." He may have seen the truth clearly ten years ago, but he has been indulging in self-created illusions and is unwilling to puncture it.
This is the source of the tragedy of the tall old man.
The tall old man's tragedy was too thorough, but how did he get to this point?
"I was a fool, I was punished, and my daughter's life was caused by me, and I spoiled them."
It seems to me that the old man's final step to this point may have something to do with his doting on his two daughters. From an early age, what his daughters wanted, what he gave, "the little girl's desire to get into the wrong, give them satisfaction." At the age of fifteen, they have a car, what do they want", so they developed a selfish personality and a three-way view of being filled with material desires.
So, they are fascinated by money, or they have no mind to speak of. Fathers have always been a tool for them to squeeze money.
The old man who was a father did not teach them what is moderation, what is called controlling desires, and what is called resisting temptation, but gradually led them to the devil's cave of money and desire. But it gave them the courage to jump in, but it didn't give them the courage to break away.
If the tragedy of the tall old man is self-inflicted, I think it makes sense.
Author: Da Li, write quality articles and say funny nonsense.
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