Three things about Yan Jiansheng are mainly written in his works: one is to eliminate the lawsuit for his evil brother Yan Gong Sheng and spend money; The second is to help my concubine to be righteous and mourn her dead wife; The third is to extend "two fingers" when dying.

Yan Jiansheng's name is Yan Dayu, and the word He Zhi. He is a timid and rich man. Timid as he is, he is not a kind person. His wife is ill in bed and dying. In the side room, Zhao pretended to be diligent and tricked his wife Wang into agreeing to help her be the first wife. As soon as Wang got it off his chest, Yan Jiansheng "couldn't listen any longer, and even said,' In that case, I'll ask my uncle to make a decision early tomorrow so that I can have evidence.' "This one thing alone reveals the essence of Yan Jiansheng's character, soft outside and hard inside. From the whole time, Yan Jiansheng paid back the money for his brother, bribed Wang Ren, married Zhao, held a funeral for Wang and so on. For a year, he did spend a lot of money, and a single funeral cost four or five thousand two hundred pieces of silver, but this does not show his generosity. On the contrary, Yan Jiansheng is a typical miser, and the money he spends is really out of necessity. There are two details that can make readers realize the harsh greed in Yan Jiansheng's character: First, when Wang died, Zhao mentioned that he would send two uncles to catch the exam. Yan Jiansheng listened without saying anything, "A cat was squatting on his leg under the table, and Yan Jiansheng's boots kicked off." This sudden act of secretly making a determined effort is precisely the psychological expression of his pity for silver and hatred for his two uncles at the moment. Secondly, Yan Jiansheng stretched out two fingers on his deathbed and refused to give up his life. The eldest nephew, the second nephew, the wet nurse and others all came forward to guess and persuade him, but they all missed the point. Finally, Zhao stepped forward and said, "Sir, only I can know your heart. You ordered two corduroies for that lamp. Don't worry, you may have wasted oil. " It was not until Scott picked a rush that he nodded and swallowed. This detail became a very famous example in the history of China literature. It exposes the stingy squire with sharp irony, and at the same time adds a vivid stroke to Yan Jiansheng's characterization. Of course, we should also realize the complexity of Yan Jiansheng's personality. His character has a stingy side, a humble and pitiful side and a human side. He used money as a talisman to eliminate disasters and make peace. After his wife Wang was ill, he asked a famous doctor to fry ginseng, which was unambiguous. After Wang died, he was heartbroken. "I cried in bed again." This is not the tears of acting, just like the old man's comment in Xian Zhai: "This is also the true feelings of husband and wife." His human side is written here. Because he had no family advantage, he was afraid of his eldest brother Yan until his death. He lived a humble life and died a coward. As for the accumulation of property, there are two main ways: first, through exploitation and possession; The second is to reduce expenses by poor management, careful calculation and even self-abuse in lifestyle. He loves and accumulates wealth, but sometimes he is generous. This is inseparable from his situation that he has no family advantage, fame and status. However, he is unwilling to give in to others. This kind of mentality was revealed in his sad last words that left his brother-in-law alone before he died. He said, "After I die, my two old uncles will take care of your nephew, teach him to read and earn a place in school, so as not to be angry with the big house all day, just like me." In his mind, besides money, he must have fame and power. Only in this way can he live a dignified life. His last words are a summary of his life experience. In a word, he is a character who has been teased by the ruling class. He is stingy and fickle, and there is no lack of human feelings. Exploring Yan Jiansheng's deformed soul from many aspects is helpful to fully understand the author's profound intention and wit.

(2) Strict

Yan is a typical person who oppresses the people, disowns his parents and is violent and greedy. When describing his own character, the author mainly exposes his dirty, despicable and shameless soul through his words and deeds. He obviously detained someone else's pig, not only did he not return it, but people came to beg for it, and he also "bolted the door with a bolt and the staff scratched his face" and broke his leg; Obviously, he didn't lend money to others, but he insisted on paying interest. The middleman refused to plead, but he just called the family "donkey rice bag is short"; Obviously, he didn't want to give others money to buy a boat, but he deliberately set a trap with a few pieces of cloud cakes, pretending that the boatman had eaten his precious medicine, worth "several hundred taels of silver", and in a rage, he sent the boatman to Master Tang's office to plead guilty, only to leave because of the money for buying a boat. He clearly wanted to embezzle the property of his compatriots and brothers, but stubbornly refused to admit the fact that Zhao had made a clear impression, and rushed Zhao to the wing to live, and treated him as a concubine, saying, "Our squire family, these gifts are all wrong." Through the description of the above typical facts, the despicable nature of Yan's fraud, insolence and greed is exposed, which makes the ugly face of this evil gentry appear to readers, expresses the author's strong satirical intention and exposes the social roots of evil.

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1. As a miser, Yan Jiansheng's personality is more unique than Grandet and Abagong in the world literature masterpieces. First of all, his meanness is no longer a fable feature of * * *, but a distinctive personality formed by the specific life experiences and social relations of the characters. In short, he kept his ancestral business, settled accounts until midnight every night, carefully exploited farmers, embezzled households, and dug up one by one, and actually dug up more than 100 thousand yuan. This extremely backward feudal exploitation method has developed a timid meanness. He doesn't want to spend money to make friends with the government. In a small county, the wealth of100000 makes him a sucker with hair to catch. His brother Yan is eyeing his property, and his nephews are "like wolves". It happened that only Aunt Zhao gave birth to a son, and he was too young to force him to straighten Aunt Zhao so that his son could inherit the property. To this end, I have to give my wife Wang's brother a lot of money, but both uncles are experts in extortion. As a result, the miser was caught between Scylla and Charybdis, and his meanness became more and more worrying. However, Yan Jiansheng is not the embodiment of the concept of "meanness". He is different from Abagong in Miser ... naked money relationship, so direct and pure, not interfered by the love of father and son. Yan Jiansheng's "base" is different. It is mixed with other feelings. Although stingy and greedy, he has "courtesy" and "restraint" without losing humanity. He should protect his interests everywhere and always protect his face. Therefore, when his brother Yan Gong Sheng was reported, he could take out a dozen taels of silver to settle the lawsuit; When his wife Wang died, he spent 5,200 yuan on fasting, seven days of training, funerals, funerals, etc. He often missed Wang and burst into tears. Poor, spendthrift, insatiable, worldly-wise and other characteristics and richness of the characters are contradictory and unified.

(Excerpted from Chyi Yu and Chen Huiqin's History of China's Satire Novels)

2. Although the object of Wu's satire always falls directly on a certain person, the evil embodied in people is, in the final analysis, the product of society. Lu Xun put it well: "I don't tend to satirize society, that is, I fall into the traditional' telling jokes' and' seeking cheap'." For example, when Yan Jian was alive and dead, he held out his finger and refused to close his eyes because he ordered an extra lamp grass. This is not only Yan Jiansheng's special character, but also reflects the extremely stingy nature of the landlord class, which is universal.

Another artistic feature of The Scholars is that it is good at choosing typical plots to express its character in complex life phenomena, and these plots are daily and ubiquitous. For example, Yan boasted that he was "straightforward and never knew how to use the people in the village." Just then, a "barefoot boy" came in and said to him,' The pig that was shut up this morning was asked by that man, and the house was noisy.' Yan Gong Sheng said:' He wants pigs, bring money!' The page says, "He said the pig was his." It is common for pigs, sheep, chickens and ducks to enter people's homes. Strictly closing other people's pigs and extorting money from others typically shows the greedy and tyrannical character of the landlord class. Yan's description of the dependence on ship money is also an equally wonderful example. It can be seen that Wu is good at describing satire in a realistic way. Although exaggeration is also used in The Scholars, it is mostly line drawing. What the author describes is always "ordinary, and no one feels strange at ordinary times", but once it is pointed out, it feels "ridiculous, contemptible and even hateful"

(Excerpted from The History of China Literature by the Institute of Literature of China Academy of Social Sciences)

3. The language of The Scholars is accurate, refined and vivid. The author can often say a few words to make the characters "poor and ugly". ..... Sometimes because a word is used properly, the character is "exposed". For example, Zhao, Yan Jiansheng's concubine, served soup and medicine in the main room during Wang's illness, which was very attentive. When Wang was seriously ill, she even prayed that Bodhisattva would rather die for her. However, when Wang Lin died, he said to Zhao, "Why don't you explain to your master that if I die, I will straighten you up and fill the room?" Then the author wrote: "Zhao quickly called me in and told grandma what she said." The word "busy" exposed Zhao's hypocrisy. (same as above)

4. Literature is the art of language. The author of The Scholars expresses the thoughts, feelings, mental outlook and personality characteristics of the characters with accurate, distinctive and personalized language, and has made outstanding achievements in this respect. For example, Yan's speech was sharp and fierce: "Yan said angrily: ... got on the bridge after scolding, followed by luggage and pages, and left in a hurry." Here, Yan stubbornly described the cloud cake as a rare medicinal material worth several hundred taels of silver, followed by "Zhang Laoye" in the province, "Zhou Laoye" in Sichuan and "Tang Laoye" in the county, with one "official" in each bite and one "beating" in each sound. Hu laizhong followed closely, mainly threatening, because this lie is too bizarre to be so wrong. The image of a cunning, vicious, despicable and shameless villain is vividly on the paper. What several porters who appealed to board the ship said was also very interesting. On the surface, he blamed the boatman, but in his bones, he exposed Yan's rogue behavior, like a sharp steel knife, which stabbed his despicable heart, so that Yan had to "turn around" and slip away. Here, the discerning eyes of the oppressed, just actions, witty art of struggle, hostility and contempt for Yan and the government are all displayed in spoken English.

(Excerpted from Wang Junnian's Wu and the Scholars)

5. The other two ugly typical images of feudal literati are Yan Jiansheng's two uncles-Wang De and Wang Ren. These two people are different from Yan's evil and Yan Jiansheng's meanness, but they both have a pair of "greedy" faces.

The exposure of these two ugly people in their works is quietly unfolding. The two of them, Wang De, a student, and Wang Ren, a student of Xuewei County, receive meals in the government every month, and "they are both running extremely exciting restaurants and are famous for their beating". As usual, this is very promising, but we can't see its "moral article" at all. What we can see is "a scholar does nothing."

Yan Jiansheng escaped the lawsuit because his brother was strict, so he had to settle the lawsuit and consult with Wang Dehe and his two uncles. After the incident, Yan Jiansheng hosted a banquet for the two men. First, they "attend classes to make a difference" and refuse to come. When they come here, they will make a "champion list" after drinking wine. Once the champion had a glass of wine, they won the championship several times, but they ate dozens of cups. When Yan Jiansheng didn't win once, they clapped their hands and laughed. Finally, they ate four more drums, stumbled and helped them back. The whole ugly face of gluttony is not gentle at all.

Except for some details, the nasty, greedy and nasty features of these two scholars are more concentrated on "righting" my concubine for my brother-in-law.

Yan Jiansheng's wife Wang is dying, and his concubine Zhao pretends to be diligent. In fact, she forced the king to promise to "straighten her body" and take her place as a wife after his death. Yan Jiansheng was anxious to let two uncles discuss it together. The Wang brothers listened and said, "If you lose face, don't let me know.". When Sheng told the page to take money and give everyone 120 yuan, he immediately changed his face, moved his ass to the other side and left his sisters completely to think about Sheng. Wang dedao: "You don't know, you are a wife who has relations with your family for three generations." It seems that he knows better than Yan Jiansheng the importance of helping my concubine clear her name. Wang Ren patted the table and shouted, "We students are all writing an outline, that is, writing an article to speak for Confucius. That's just the reason. " In his view, it is the supreme "principle" of Confucian scholars to ignore his sister's critical illness and help concubines make up for her brother-in-law, so is Confucius. Later, Wang Ren added, "If you don't comply, we won't come!" The effect of this little silver is really unparalleled, which has greatly changed the position of the two uncles and personally managed the gifts for the brother-in-law concubines to fill the house.

On the day of Zhao's "righting" and Wang's "death". This is definitely a farce. The Wang brothers were supposed to take care of their sister, but they didn't. But supported Yan Jiansheng, claiming that they were there. "Who dares to fart again!" This whole thing is an accomplice! Sure enough, at that time, each of them got fifty taels of silver and traded in cash. That Wang Ren personally "wrote an article about his ancestors for Yan Jiansheng, which was very sincere". It's really crude. When Wang died, Zhao wanted to slap him, but he was flatly rejected by the second uncle, saying that "the name is not correct and the words are not smooth." Under the influence of silver, these two "famous" scholars shamelessly asked for money instead of kissing their sisters. They are obviously inferior Philistines. How can they see the shadow of "elegance"

Stunning two scholars "sow" will have "harvest". First, "Uncle Zhao Xie enters the bone marrow and harvests new rice, and each family has two stones; Pickled winter vegetables, each family is also two stones; Ham, four for each family; Chicken and duck dishes count. " After that, each person will be given two hundred and twenty pieces of silver as the cost of the exam.

This time, the portrayal of characters is the most successful, and the plot is also very concentrated. These four shameless literati have both vulgarity and vulgarity, each with its own unique personality, evil, meanness, greed and inferiority, and each with its own modality. These images are very typical among all scholars. In addition, the author's brushwork here is also very detailed, and even the names of the characters are designed with ingenuity. For example, the Yan brothers, whose eldest brother is called "David" and their second is called "Dayu" and "He Zhi", together are the words "Zhonghe Yu Wei" on the plaque of Dacheng Hall of Confucius Temple in Qufu, which is the core slogan of Confucianism. Neutrality is the purpose, justice and moderate harmony. "positional education" is a means, each in its place and guided by the situation. As far as these four words are concerned, they have deep philosophical connotations, far from being clear in one or two sentences, but they are serious Confucian slogans, which are good. But let's take a look at the profound and sharp satire of two Confucian scholars-novelists in this name. Isn't it here? For another example, the name of the Wang brothers is also taken from the sentence of "benevolence and righteousness according to virtue" in The Analects of Confucius. One is called "Yide" and the other is called "Yiren". Can we look at their faces and see if they deserve these words?