The protagonists of the story are all underage children, which shows the influence of adults' crazy behavior on teenagers' body and mind during the war. Japanese society in wartime was a suffocating world created by adults; In this world, adults become cruel and crazy. In Feeding, the little hero's feelings tell people that if there is no enemy plane flying to the mountain village by chance, if there is no fierce struggle between adults, if there is no villagers' pursuit and cruel punishment of the fleeing soldiers, the children think that war is a distant thing. Because the adults are all in the war, the life that should be happy has become suffocating. Adults who make wars also create a terrible world for children. The writer wrote in the novel "Feeding": "My brother and I are small green seeds, tightly wrapped by hard skin and thick flesh, and stuck together with delicate skin. This kind of seed is soft and delicate, so long as it comes into contact with outdoor light, it will tremble and peel with pain. Beyond the hard skin, in the distant narrow and dazzling seaside where the roof can be seen, opposite the mountainous city, a protracted, legendary, grand but clumsy war is spitting out stuffy air. However, for us, the war is nothing more than the expedition of the young people in the village and the death notice sent by the postman. The war did not penetrate into hard skin and thick flesh. The' enemy' plane that recently started flying over the village is just a strange bird for us. "
As a child, I don't understand why adults want to create such a cruel world, but this cruel world is a true portrayal of Japan's authoritarian society during the war of aggression launched by militarism. Japanese fascist rulers formulated a series of harsh laws and strict management systems to strengthen their control over Japanese society. 1937, The Original Meaning of the State promulgated by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, and Sports of Japan stipulates that all Japanese citizens must be infinitely loyal to the autocratic government headed by the Emperor. The autocratic government militarized the whole country through fascist education, and severely suppressed people's dissatisfaction and resistance to ideological behavior through a series of harsh laws such as the Public Security Police Law. In Japan at that time, "national unity" and "unity with one heart" became the slogan of the people, so activities against and criticizing national policies were not allowed. In case someone does something similar and says something similar, they will be regarded as "people to pay attention to" by their neighbors, punished and excluded by the whole village, and there is also a great danger of being tipped off to the police and becoming "non-nationals". The informer didn't want to do anything bad at all, but pretended to be a "patriot" who successfully fulfilled his "national obligations". At that time, there were many such "patriots", so people had no choice but to remain silent. "
The characters in Feeding are symbols of autocratic rule. With the cronies of the fascist autocratic government, such as the document and the village head, the whole Japanese society operates in full accordance with the needs of the war of aggression and mobilizes all the people to support the war. The villagers described in Feeding are armed with shotguns and concentrate immediately when they hear the order. The villagers in "Hello" heard that the pilot of the enemy plane parachuted, so they went to search the mountain together like "wild boar hunting".
In an era when the whole people are crazy about the war of aggression and ruled by fascist militarism, Japanese adults let their children participate in supporting the war and endure this suffocating nightmare world together. In terms of feeding, adults keep captured black American soldiers as livestock. In the eyes of children, what adults do is extremely cruel. "It's like hunting wild boar in winter. Adults are solemnly holding the' prey' with their lips and rushing forward, seemingly sad. The "prey" did not wear a beige silk flight suit, but a grass-green uniform with heavy boots. He cocked his big black face and looked up at the sky left by the sunset, limping and dragging his legs. The two ankles of the' prey' were entangled in the lasso of the wild boar, and the lasso made a noisy sound. " The adults not only captured the prisoners by catching wild boar, but also treated the black soldiers by holding animals: "The adults surrounded the black soldiers again and began to walk slowly back. We pulled away from the silent team and the team stopped at the loading port on the side of the warehouse. There is an underground warehouse to store chestnuts in winter. People pick out the best chestnuts produced in autumn, kill the larvae in the hard shell with carbon disulfide and store them. The underground warehouse has a dark entrance, which looks like a wild animal's nest. As if a ceremony had begun, the adults came down solemnly surrounded by black soldiers and covered them with thick covers from the inside. " From then on, black soldiers were shackled and locked in this dungeon like wild animals.
The feeding children undertook the task of feeding and caring for black prisoners. With the passage of time, adults began to pay attention to their own affairs, and seemed to forget the black prisoners. Children began to treat the black prisoners according to their own wishes. "We children are totally addicted to black soldiers, who occupy all our living spaces. He spread among children like a plague. However, adults have work to do. They won't catch the plague of children, and they can't wait for the instructions from the town hall. Even my father, who was in charge of spying on black soldiers, went out hunting. As a result, black soldiers began to live in underground warehouses completely unconditionally, just to meet the daily life of children. "
First, the children opened the lasso on the black feet and often took the black soldiers for a walk on the slate road in the village. Later, they took the black prisoners to the spring pool of the public pumping station to play together, and the children got endless joy from the black prisoners. When the town documents brought instructions to hand over the black prisoners to the county, "we fell into the abyss of amazement and disappointment." What is left in the village after handing over the black soldiers? Summer will become an empty shell. "
Therefore, the children tried their best to keep the black prisoners in the village. The black prisoners hijacked "I" in order not to leave the village and were killed in the conflict. Faced with the death of black prisoners, "I can't stand all adults, including my father." These grinning adults waving wood knives at me are strange. I can't understand them. They make me sick. "
Kenzaburo Oe's understanding of the war launched by militarism is a contradictory criticism. On the one hand, it reveals the oppression of the people by the imperial autocratic state system during the war, on the other hand, it shows the resistance of national pride to the post-war American occupation system. The work "Feeding" is to express dissatisfaction with the post-war society. Society is like a closed entity, surrounded by a "wall", and the top-down power rule and American occupation constitute the connotation of the "wall".
With the help of children's perspective, Kenzaburo Oe criticized the hidden tendency of violence in people's hearts, and at the same time alluded to the root of "national violence" shown by war. Natural world and humanistic world in children's vision
In Feeding, DJI tells the story with the help of "I", which makes the presentation process of the story have distinct characteristics of children's thinking. At the beginning of Feeding, my brother and I went to the temporary crematorium at the bottom of the canyon in the evening to look for the bones used as badges. As night fell, "I" suddenly thought of a woman in the village who was cremated here a few days ago, and felt that "the smell of the dead body spread in my nostrils like the colloidal secretion overflowed by some beetle under the weight of its fingers."
On the way back from the crematorium, "we" met an enemy plane and ran into a mountain. We were "like moths to a fire, unable to move." "We" imagined the situation of enemy pilots, thinking that foreign soldiers were hiding on tall fir branches covered with grass-like flowers, and their bloated flight suits were covered with fir flowers, "dressing him up as a fat squirrel before hibernation". However, the first feeling that the arrested black soldiers gave us was fear. I even felt that the small cellar window where the men in black were held "opened a dark mouth like a wound", and I seemed to be pulled in by the men in black. Taking the opportunity of black soldiers delivering meals, "I" came into close contact with the black people, saw his rubber-thick lips, white teeth "arranged neatly like machine parts" and drank milk "like turbulent water mixed with bubbles", which was full of vitality.
The children's fear of death, the surprise of seeing enemy planes, the imagination of foreign soldiers' concealment, the fear of black soldiers and the description of their appetite are all vividly compared with the natural things around me. Such descriptions abound in novels, reflecting the poetic color of children's thinking.
Children have the primitive experience of life, which is not or rarely influenced by culture and ideology, making their thinking irrational, and then making them perceive the world with keen feelings and rich imagination. The marginal position of children and their eyes that are not blinded by the world have become a good observation point to reflect reality emotionally. "Looking at the world from the perspective of children, the world in which human beings exist will break away from the way of understanding under the' habitual shackles' and present different meanings."
The original ecological social view presented by "I" is different from the world in the eyes of adults. It is vivid and tangible. We have never personally experienced the fear of death. At the beginning of the novel, "we" collect the bones of the dead as decorations on the chest, which fully embodies the ignorant nature of children. For the war, for the life and death brought by the war, "we" don't care, and live carefree in our own world. These novel metaphors in Feeding represent the world in children's eyes, break the natural boundary between people and things, and fully show the original thinking characteristics of children's understanding of the world and nature. In fact, in this novel, metaphor has gone beyond the scope of rhetoric and become a literal presentation of children's perspectives and feelings. Through these metaphors, we can see the closeness between children and natural instinct and the naivety of children's thinking. In a sense, the process of children's growth is also a process of gradual loss of childlike innocence.
Feeding is a story about the narrator who lost his innocence in childhood and gained life experience. This new mental state of the young narrator and the concept of man as a thing can be displayed through the use of animal images of the river. Animal images are very important because they promote narrative and are closely related to the theme of the work.
In the text, animal images are almost reflected in all the characters who appear. Animal images reflect the affinity between children and nature, and the characters in the novel are vividly presented by analogy with natural animals under the observation of children's thinking. My father was very alert when he learned that the enemy plane crashed. He is "like a beast lurking in a dark forest, ready to pounce on its prey", ready to round up the enemy at any time. Contrary to the anxiety of adults, children are extremely happy. When rabbits play in spring, they "smile like birds". My brother "looks like a happy beast" when he eats potatoes; Children in the village are playing sledge, "flying on the grass like small animals".
Animal images are mostly used for black soldiers. In dad's eyes, black people smell like cattle, "just like livestock." In the eyes of the child "I", the man in black who was caught was just kept in the cellar, "like an animal whipped by a wild whip". After close contact with him, I found that the man in black was like a heavy black beast and a gentle and docile animal. His beautiful curly hair aroused a dark brown flame above his "wolf-like ears". When playing with the black soldiers at the water's edge, "I" felt that his wet and solid body was plump and handsome, "like a dark horse" and "wild posture was like a goat in heat". Children all think that "black people are an excellent livestock and a gifted animal." These descriptions show the exuberant vitality of black soldiers. However, black people with strong vitality like livestock have not got rid of the fate of being killed.
Violence and Death in Children's Vision
In the novel Feeding, Kenzaburo Oe chooses children as the perspective of observing the world and enters the narrative discourse system of the novel with the help of children's perceptual thinking. But his ultimate goal is not to describe and construct the innocent children's world, but to excavate and present the violence and blind obedience that children feel in the adult world, so as to vent their thoughts on war and peace. In this sense, children's perspective is essentially a metaphor or carrier for Kenzaburo Oe to observe and reflect on the world himself.
Children in the valley village instinctively feel the existence of the opposition between the center of the mountain village and the edge of the town, thus putting the villagers and the people in the town in opposite positions. As soon as I entered the town, "I" put my shoulder on my father and ignored the provocative eyes cast by the children in the street. I know that if my father is not around, these children will greet me with saliva and stones. "I" is always like a boring caterpillar, and I have a feeling of disgust and contempt for the children in the town. This group of kids with treacherous eyes in the sun, if they hadn't been hiding in the dim shop to spy on our adults, "I" believe that no matter who they are, "I" will knock him down. Even among the children in the valley village, "we" can see the difference between up and down.
Although the children's perspective in Feeding expresses children's feelings, it only borrows children's poetic thinking and new soul, providing a new perspective for the complex and harsh current reality. Its focus is still on people's closed living conditions in the war, and social novels are still constructed by war reflection. A violent performance after feeding pushed the protagonist to the brink of death, and the innocence and happiness of the protagonist "I" as a child vanished in an instant, just like the violence of war left the whole country in trouble and scarred. From the sentimental narration of "I", it is easy to think of the pain that the government and those in power have brought to people by sacrificing countless lives in order to launch the biggest violence in human history-the war of aggression.
"Discrimination" perspective
Looking at breeding from the perspective of discrimination, we can capture the author's multiple efforts to subvert Japan's established "discrimination" logic, such as ignoring the traditional hierarchical system and rebuilding the standard of respect and inferiority, and the most direct means is to subvert animal logic. Consistent with the title of "feeding", the description of animals in this paper can be seen everywhere. 1, "We curled our lips and ran back to the warehouse, crouching in the dark like wild animals." 2. "A foreign soldier's bloated flight suit may be covered with fir flowers and dressed as a fat squirrel before hibernation." 3. "His wet body sparkled in the strong sunlight, like a dark horse, plump and handsome." 4. "I was like a weasel caught in a trap by mistake." 5. "That fierce posture was like a goat in heat." 6. "The black man came at me like an agile beast." 7. "My brother is like a happy beast with potatoes in his hands."
By examining the sentences in the works, we can see that animals are not fully integrated into the human dignity system. In my opinion, the animal world itself has not been discriminated against as inferior to human beings. The classification of animals includes body shape (behemoth, fat), color (black), habit (agility), physiology (before hibernation, estrus), life state (by mistake) and other standards, and most of them describe the natural attributes or physiological characteristics of animals, while "I" is like a similar animal, looking at my close friend. Some subjective expressions in the novel are full of sighs, and animals are often praised by "I", such as describing my favorite brother's example: "My brother is like a happy beast with potatoes in his hand." Show the "I" view of animals.
According to the idea of redefining the value system, the author with anti-discrimination consciousness carefully designed another plot with metaphorical color: proudly showing the technology of "father" skinning weasels. "I always look forward to black people coming to see how we work. Back in the warehouse, the weasel skin has been nailed to a board, with a fatty skin and tiny blood vessels shining in the sun. The men in black let out a bird-like cry, which made the men in black give a burst of admiration. At this time, my brother and I are both proud of my father's skillful technology. Even my father cast a kind eye on black people at work. A piece of animal skin connects black people with us like family. "
In the traditional Japanese symbol system, "skin" is often regarded as a symbol of filth because it is associated with blood and internal organs, which gives people an invisible but discriminatory impression and has a strong symbol evocation effect. In Japanese, the Chinese characters "Piduo" and "Yuduo" have the same pronunciation.
The work of handling animal skins in breeding is not only described as a proud technology, but also "connects blacks with us like family members", which shows the author's positive and subversive attitude towards Japanese traditional discrimination. The third setting in the novel that subverts the traditional standards of respect and inferiority is obscure and is realized through the impermanence of "secretary". "The female teacher said that the children in your village are dirty and smelly, which is annoying." If the evaluation of female teachers is still secretive, then the residents in the town hate us like dirty animals more clearly reveals the obvious discriminatory structure of "village" and "town" As a medium connecting the two parties, "secretary" is a meaningful existence. "I like to watch the secretary jump on the mountain road with a prosthetic leg and a pine cane." The "secretary" here is undoubtedly a member of the "village", and the cheerful "jumping posture" is not deformed; "However, the artificial leg of the secretary sitting in the chair is as insidious as the children in the town." Although he lost the vitality of "jumping", he was symbolized as an evil body, body double, with the ability to express "sinister". Therefore, the nature of the "prosthetic leg" depends on its position, and the power struggle between the two worlds determines its final destination.
From this point of view, the plot of the unexpected death of the "secretary" at the end of the novel seems abrupt, but in a sense it is also the finishing touch of the work. Different from the black soldiers who lost their lives after being suppressed, the death of the smiling "secretary" is impermanent, but it follows the logic of "village" and belongs to the accidental death in the process of natural life. Just like the protagonist at the beginning of the work "looking for the remains of the dead" and "making a badge to wear on his chest", in the world of "village", death and life are accompanied, and even regarded as a gorgeous badge to decorate life. "People will turn the secretary into a cloud of smoke with firewood collected for black people." The inference sentence at the end implies an ideal world with eternal images. In this "village" space where discrimination disappears, the only difference between people lies in "the expression of the deceased, sometimes full of sadness, sometimes smiling."
"For the people in the village, everything in the small village on the hillside overlooking the canyon is so full. If it weren't for these treacherous children hiding in the dark shop looking at us adults, I believe that no matter who they are, I can knock them to the ground. " The "I" here is confident and arrogant, but a tiny detail in the novel gives me a brave and positive suspicious color: "At the end of the meal, a girl as beautiful as a bird came up on the bridge. I quickly checked my clothes and appearance, confident that I was more handsome than any child in town. I put my foot in shoes out and waited for the girl to pass in front of me. My blood collided with my eardrum. The girl gave me a quick look and then came running with a frown. My appetite suddenly disappeared. I feel extremely ugly and shabby. " From "Shuai Shuai" to "Ugly and Poor", my seemingly indestructible self-confidence actually collapsed completely at a glance of "Girl" and "Fast". My self-identity was originally based on the evaluation of the girl-such a fragile psychological mechanism was completely broken from the last article, and my courage, arrogance and independence collapsed in the girl's sight. Because that glance itself is "a feature of power", the insurmountable distance between the discriminated groups represented by "I" and the powerful groups represented by "girls" is condensed in this symbolic glance. This typical discriminatory look and the vulnerability of those who are discriminated against are easily defeated by this look, which not only highlights the deep-rooted inequality, but also makes readers feel sorry for the previous ones. "
In fact, the problem has already arisen from the moment when the "girl" appeared in my field of vision. When "girl" looks "beautiful" and moving in "eyes", "I" has obviously forgotten the distance between us, showing a gesture of admiration and acceptance. Therefore, the seemingly contradictory setting of suddenly becoming confident shows that once I try to integrate into the world of "girls", it is difficult to avoid the fate of being discriminated against. The encounter between "I" and "girl" vividly depicts the fear of the marginalized people losing their identity, and at the same time, it is intertwined with the author's sympathetic, mocking and critical eyes.
No matter how high the level of economic development is and how hard the clothes are, it will not change the deep-rooted discrimination against girls. In the modern consumer society dominated by power and capital logic, I will only lose my sense of existence completely in the end.