Author l Stars
Source l Unknowing Academy (id:wujiexuetang)
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The literal origin of the name "The Painted Bird" is An Eastern European folklore, a cruel pastime enjoyed by local farmers: catch a bird, color the feathers, and then release it back into the flock, and the painted bird will be attacked to death by its kind as a threatening heretic. The source of such cruelty is the evil hands of human beings. Similarly, the little boy in the author's pen is considered heretical by "people", and he pursues freedom that is different from others.
If "The Painted Bird" is an inflammatory documentary work, such an evaluation is not exaggerated in the context of World War II.
But I prefer to understand it as a book that criticizes human nature, the story of a little boy from Eastern Europe who survived and survived.
The author, Jezy Kosinski, based on part of his own experience, went through many twists and turns as a Jew in order to save his life. It is precisely because the author of this book has been imprisoned for 23 years, is this a statement that denigrates the motherland, or a work that reflects on human nature?
The story begins with a young boy from a large city in Eastern Europe who is sent by his parents to a distant village to escape the war, but unfortunately, the old woman who adopted him soon dies, so he begins to face the baptism of war and the evil of human nature.
Because dark eyes and dark skin were considered gypsies and would invite ominousness, the ignorant and rough people continued to mutilate the little boy's mind, and he began to flee to survive, but every time he fled to a village, he fell into a new layer of hell.
The author does not describe the big war scenes, but some people on the edge of the war have been far more hurt than the war itself.
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The experience of the little boy escaping death is also an exposé of these brutal marginal people. Because of the war, humanity has been lost, ethics and morality have been lost, and in order to survive, at any cost. Living ignorantly and crudely, even though they don't want to.
"A man wants to live because he is alive, because the whole world is alive."
"Destroying a young man's life is certainly more valuable than ruining the life of an old man who doesn't have a few days to live."
A little boy who should have lived happily, because of the war, but also because of the ignorance and cruelty of those people, was thrown into a sack and thrown to the floor, and was whipped like a squirrel jumping around the house, what decency and glory, as long as he lived, is the greatest luck.
Every time he was caught, beaten, and fled, the result was always the same, and he was exiled to one hell after another. Different villages meet different people, but the tribulations encountered are the same.
Those cruel farmers, the lively women, perhaps for them to beat an innocent person, their evil can be released.
So the little boy continued to flee, even if each escape fell into another abyss, but his heart still longed for the light. The "comet" brought him warmth and made him long for redemption.
He had been buried in the soil, with only his head exposed, the crows had been pecking at his head, and after he was freed, he continued to search for the "comet" and the hope it gave him.
Every time after his escape, he will re-emerge from the expectation of the unknown world. Perhaps in this way, we will have the courage to continue to live.
Man is engaged in a private war with himself, and whether he succeeds or fails, this kind of battle has to be waged, and only this kind of war will bring some so-called meaning of life.
On the way to escape, the little boy slowly learned to compromise in different ways to gain the possibility of life, and when a group of bastard boys found him, he no longer just fled, but lay on the ground, pretended to be obedient, and was beaten by them until they were exhausted and let him go.
It is like the loss of voice after being thrown into the dung pit, but also just accepting, the humiliation suffered has been innumerable, then silently fight, must not have the idea of giving up life, as long as you live, just want to live.
Find your own way of survival, even if you are humiliated, even if it is not as free as animals, you must find your own faith and live.
The little boy's abuse and misfortune cannot be said to have made his will stronger, for suffering is suffering, and if he could, who would want to grow up in suffering? What the little boy gets, perhaps, is simply mentally prepared to suffer.
"Believing that you are as strong as the enemy can double your reward to the enemy and that one person can survive."
The little boy also had enough wisdom and courage in the face of true death, but his experience changed his vengeful mind, and he sometimes became brutal, like those around him.
So when the carpenter was going to execute him with a private will, he had the idea of revenge, fear increased his strength, and the moment the carpenter fell into the rat hole and became a skeleton, he did not feel pleasure, but deeper fear.
But if he does not resist, he who will meet death is the small one.
After so many tribulations, the final ushered in a bright ending, but the shadow of the war on the little boy will not stop.
All the suffering he suffered was imprinted in his heart, and those feelings of depravity and powerlessness would accompany him from time to time.
Lying on the tracks, as the train whizzed past him, he produced a thrill that brought him pleasure, perhaps the joy of surviving.
When his parents found him, he did not show great joy, but became unfree as if he were controlled.
"I didn't have enough thoughts to be the true son of someone — to be loved, to be cared for, to have to submit to others, not because they were stronger and could hurt me, but because they were my parents and had rights that no one else could take away."
They couldn't understand each other, and I couldn't be as calm as their intimate child as when I was a child.
"People look at each other, like the peaks that surround us, separated from each other by valleys, too high to be ignored, too low to reach heaven."
About the Author: Star, a girl who loves words.
