#高尔基 #
Russian critical realist literature has always been unique, and the number of genres, the number of writers, and the variety of works are unprecedented in the history of Russian literature. Larger and more influential are Symbolism, Akmeism and Futurism, as well as small schools such as Nihilism, Cosmicism, Surrealism, and Imagism.
In short, Russian critical realist literature has had a profound influence on the world, producing many well-known writers, including Pushkin, Who was both Romantic and Realist, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Lev Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, Lie Andreev and so on. This is mainly related to the drastic social transformation in Russia from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, the huge changes in lifestyle, urbanization, and industrialization.
Gorky lost his father at the age of 4 and his mother at the age of 10, and then became a representative of Russian critical realism by studying his own. His representative works include "Little Citizen", "At the Bottom", "Childhood", "In the World", and "My University".
He was a man with a story, who had only attended primary school for two years, who had entered the "human world" at the age of 11, and at the bottom of society, he had worked as an apprentice, a rag, a running hall, a janitor, a porter and a baker, a worker in a railway repair factory, and then embarked on the road of literary creation.
Gorky has experienced the hardships of life, seen the meanness and evil of society, is familiar with the lower classes of society, and has a deep understanding of the desire of the lower classes to change their unfortunate fate.
Therefore, his works are either the urban small citizen class, or the "marginalized people" such as tramps, unemployed people, porters, bankrupt peasants, beggars, prostitutes, thieves, frustrated people, and fallen people. It reflects the greed, selfishness, vulgarity, emptiness, and mutual inversion of the urban small citizen class, and the bitterness, struggle and despair of the "marginalized people".
Childhood is actually Gorky's autobiographical novel. The protagonist of the novel is named Alyosha, who lost his father at the age of four. At this age, it was the time when the child needed the love of his father, but Alyosha had to endure so much pain that he was forced to live with his mother in his grandfather's house.
Alyosha, who was in her grandfather's house, did not receive the happiness that a normal child deserves, and misfortune always fell on Alyosha, who died when Alyosha was ten years old. Shortly after her mother's death, Alyosha was banished from the house by her maternal grandfather.
In this society without relatives and without love, Alyosha had to rely on her own hands to support herself. Young Alyosha was not afraid of the difficulties of life, and after being kicked out of the house by her grandfather, he used to apprentice, show people the door, and work as a dishwasher. This life lasted a long time, until Alyosha was twenty years old, when he got rid of the life of working for others and began a wandering life. Alyosha wrote three autobiographies of her own during her wanderings.
"At the Bottom" is not actually a novel, it is dramatic literature. The story is mainly about a group of homeless people who have fallen to the bottom of society.
They lived in cave-like basements, where the walls had been blackened by smoke, where the mud had fallen off, and the furniture was dilapidated, and everywhere it looked cold and poor. In this dilapidated inn, there are all the lower strata of society, including craftsmen such as locksmiths, porters on the docks, broken nobles, mentally depressed prostitutes, thieves, and monks who travel the world.
They are depressed, desolate, enduring all kinds of humiliations brought to them by this society, extremely disappointed in life, and constantly denigrated and quarreled with each other. Some even hang themselves to free themselves from the heavy shackles of life.
Ye Meiliang is a typical "social marginal person", he is a 47-year-old bachelor, unemployed and can not find a job everywhere. He stole things, ran underworlds, eaten lawsuits, and served hard labor. He fantasized about who would "entertain him for a big meal", or that heaven would send him an ill-gotten fortune, or that the sea would wash him a thousand roubles, and then he would go and open a tavern.
But all this was just a dream of his yellow sorghum. For more than 20 years, he was wandering, homeless, hungry, unclothed, and his life was not as good as that of animals. He was full of hatred for this society, but he was not willing, and his heart was higher than the sky.
Once, with a vengeful desire to kill a rich merchant who had harmed him, he waited alone at the head of the bridge, but he waited for a young girl who was also forced by life to throw herself into the river and commit suicide. Her grief aroused Ye Meiliang's sympathy, and he did everything he could to motivate her to live and restore her confidence in the future.
"People don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. People wait for anything that can happen at any time. The criteria for judging things disappeared, and even the air was a mess. People jumped out of their saddles, panicked, completely unaware of what was allowed, what was not allowed, what should be, and what should not be. ”
In 1861, Russia promulgated the law on the abolition of serfs, established the capitalist system, followed by rapid industrialization and urbanization, and a large number of rural populations were concentrated in the cities, from peasants and serfs to workers, and agricultural cultivation became industrial production. A large number of new wealthy classes were born, but they were constructed with the old aristocracy, which intensified the exploitation and oppression of the middle and lower classes, making the gap between the rich and the poor in Russia at that time huge.
At the end of the 19th century, there was another catastrophe in the Russian countryside, and the peasants were displaced. The world industrial crisis also spread to Russia, causing unemployment and bankruptcy to an unprecedented level, a large number of workers unable to find work, falling to the bottom, and the cities full of homeless people.
At the same time, the wave of industrialization and urbanization, a large number of people flocked to the city, becoming a class of urban citizens, and in Gorky's eyes, they were small urban citizens. The small citizens of Russia at that time were a very large group.
There are aristocrats and bourgeoisie at the top, and there is a social bottom below, but they are also living in precariousness. Their wealth may be deprived by the nobility at any time, and may be annexed and squeezed by the bourgeoisie. In this case, the characteristics, values, customs, and aesthetic tastes of the Russian citizen class were created, that is, the city servants. They are a bunch of egoists.
The Russian burgher class of the time was typically egoistic, and their greatest characteristic was the bourgeoisie.
Because the citizens are vested interests in change and are satisfied with their current lives, they strive for stability, strive for "small luck", pursue small but definite happiness, and have a strong yearning for inner and environmental tranquility. They are afraid of change and change, and they do everything they can to pursue the "peace" of life. For the sake of "tranquility", they prefer to be meticulous and steal, and try to maintain the ignorance of the whole society.
"Why discuss the meaning of life? If there is wine in this day and drunk in this day, and when you are happy and happy, then life will be easy and happy. ”
They focus on the joy of heaven, the enjoyment of life, and the purpose of life is only life itself, not what is metaphysical.
They are vulgar and empty, and they are lowly fun. Short-sighted and without ambitious life goals. Insensitive, cold and selfish, rhetorical and achieving nothing. Indulge in lust, like to play meat strips, pornographic literature, flirt with women.
They are hypocritical and fraudulent. Troubled, lamented, complained, indulged in the abyss of bitterness all day long and could not extricate themselves.
They are greedy and selfish. In their eyes, in addition to money, what personality, dignity, love, friendship, are insignificant things.
In short, the citizens strive for stability and tranquility for fear of losing the interests of "me", vulgarity and emptiness are to preserve the interests of "me", hypocrisy and fraud are to expand the interests of "me", and greed and selfishness are to realize the interests of "me".