Mr. Chen's "White Deer Plain" is a magnificent epic of fifty years' changes in Weihe Plain, and a colorful and impressive scroll in rural China. The plot structure of the article involves a wide range of ups and downs, and the description of every detail is very delicate, meticulous and full, which is completely epic in scale and brushwork. The whole book describes one origin, two families, three generations, four forces, five struggles and six major events, and integrates historical events, the love between men and women and the rise and fall of culture in one furnace. It shows the bloody historical process of nearly 50 years after the founding of New China in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, and shows the living conditions and cultural changes of the Chinese nation. It became the pinnacle of China's family novels in the 20th century with its breadth, profundity, atmosphere and poetry.
Bailuyuan has a profound historical and cultural background. The original "Village Agreement" was written by Lu Dahuan, the local champion of the Song Dynasty, and it was divided into three parts: moral and professional advice, negligence and etiquette, which almost concentrated all the essence of Confucian culture. The novel The Covenant of Hometown was written by Mr. Zhu, and Bailuyuan became a popular book because of it. Since then, the relationship between people has undergone fundamental changes: farming, tutoring, ancestor worship, full moon wine, wedding, begging for rain, mourning, moving graves, recognizing relatives and worshiping relatives. Everything is based on morality rather than religion, etiquette rather than law. The primitive world in "White Deer Plain" is peaceful and prosperous, and there is no struggle and struggle, which places the Confucian ideal of saving the country by culture and rejuvenating the country by etiquette.
Bailuyuan, as a witness of China's history on the eve of liberation in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, can be regarded as a microcosm of the development of national history. From the political and cultural point of view, its social structure includes the reactionary forces of the Kuomintang represented by Tian Fuxian and Yue Weishan, the revolutionary forces of the * * * production party represented by Lu and Bai Ling, and the peasant armed bandits represented by Lu (Heiwa) and Thumb. From the perspective of folk culture, there are clan groups represented by Bai Jiaxuan and Lu Zilin, and spiritual leaders of Bailuyuan represented by Mr. Zhu. Class contradiction, family dispute, interest struggle and lust entanglement constitute the "secret history of the state" of Bailuyuan for more than half a century.
The novel wrote a cruel struggle with the aim of criticizing it. The initial prosperity of Confucianism was quickly replaced by political struggle and violent revolution. Bai Jiaxuan was not only interrupted by bandits, but also quickly pulled down from the position of leader by the revolutionary regime. The ten brothers of Heiwa engaged in the peasant movement on the White Deer Plain, and the landlords and township heads paraded the streets wearing high hats. After the Kuomintang came back, Tian Fuxian, the head of each township, held a counter-offensive meeting in Bailu Village, brutally criticizing and executing the peasant association cadres. The novel borrows Mr. Zhu's words, saying that Bailuyuan is simply a "scorpion" and the people have become pancakes tossed and turned on scorpions. In order to oppose the meaningless struggle, the corruption of Renyi Bailuyuan village in Bailuyuan shows that the consequences of violent struggle are extremely terrible.
In the creative techniques of White Deer Plain, it can be said that he is mainly realistic, describes people with epic brushwork, and combines subconscious, magical realism and other creative techniques.
As a "national secret history", it always focuses on the cultural status and cultural conflicts in the yellow land in the northwest of Bailuyuan, highlighting the human conflicts caused by cultural conflicts (conflicts between ethics and humanity, justice and human desire, and soul and flesh). ), as well as the distortion, poisoning and withering of many lives under the suppression of traditional ethics, show the cultural scene of Bailuyuan's tragedy: the death of Tian Xiaoe and the death of Bai Xiaowen. Whether describing the clan relationship and conflict between Bai and Lu, or describing the life and death, love, parting and return of two younger generations, the author focuses on revealing the cultural factors hidden behind the historical life form, focusing on the family and exploring the cultural secrets of national survival and development through the rise and fall of Bai and Lu families. This makes the theme of "White Deer Plain" go beyond the general political, class, social and historical levels. Through the description of parting and return, reproduction and destruction, decay and regeneration, necessity and accident, opportunity and fate, the theme is raised to the height of philosophy of life and culture.
Western modernism was introduced into China in the early 1980s, and the history of western modernism of more than 100 years was completely staged in 100 years. "White Deer Plain" is selective absorption. Modernist techniques such as subconscious and magical realism are boldly introduced into the works. Such as: Bailu Yuanxian, an anecdote about Bailu passed down from generation to generation. After Tian Xiaoe's death, Lu San's possessed soul, Bai Ling's dream of his grandmother, father and mother when he died, and Zhu Xian's death turned into a white deer all added romantic and magical colors to the novel.
From the perspective of cultural personality, Bailuyuan created a number of characters with unique experiences, distinctive personalities and thrilling thoughts and behaviors, and built a network of cultural relations changes in Bailuyuan. What impressed me most was Bai Jiaxuan, the rural leader of Confucian culture, who longed for public interests and justice and was the patriarch of feudal families.
Bai Jiaxuan is determined. His life is full of disasters. He not only suffered from military disasters, bandits, hunger and plague like the whole people in Bailuyuan, but also suffered serious setbacks in his marriage when he was young. The first sentence at the beginning of Bailuyuan is: "The most heroic thing of Bai Jiaxuan's life is to marry a woman with seven rooms." After middle age, he experienced the depravity of his eldest son Bai Xiaowen, the betrayal of his daughter Bai Ling, the sudden death of his wife Wu, and the heavy blow of being discounted by bandits. Although his waist is bent, his head is still held high. Showed his resolute and tenacious spirit. He has a cautious and independent personality. Cautious independence is an important thought of Confucianism, that is, when a person is alone, he should be strict with himself. Although Bai Jiaxuan has not received a systematic Confucian education, he can understand and practice the essence of "self-cultivation-oriented" in Confucian culture and insist on farming and reading. He has the spirit of benevolence and righteousness. Such as the old deer three. However, there are also cruel habits. Within the clan, once someone violates Confucian etiquette and family rules, he will be mean, ungrateful and heartless. Even for his own son, he never relented and tortured him, which shows his cruelty. Especially cruel to Tian Xiaoe. Visible, the most upright elder, is also the most ruthless cannibal, once again proved that although every page of China's history is written with benevolence and morality, the word "cannibalism" has been filled in the cracks.
In this paper, Heiwa and Bai Xiaowen can be said to be a rootless duckweed and a caged beast. There is a big difference between two men who have fallen because of the same woman. Heiwa and Tian Xiaoe are lovers in free love, and the revolutionary storm made Heiwa become an outlaw. Being called up after the civil strife, he decided to turn over a new leaf and start from scratch. Forced to give up smoking, study for Mr. Zhu, return to the ancestral temple and live a quiet life. However, in the end, he was killed, so he could not really integrate into the traditional culture, and he abandoned the revolutionary culture. No matter the old times or the new times, he has no real position. He is like a rootless duckweed, and his lonely soul has nowhere to rely on and no home. Bai Xiaowen and Tian Xiaoe were trapped by Lu Zilin. He became an innocent victim. He is like a cultural chameleon, changing roles again and again, and finally becoming a great schemer who knows the art of political concealment. He became a caged animal, ruthless.
Bai Ling and Zhao Hai fell in love at first sight. Both of them are enthusiastic patriotic teenagers, eager to serve the motherland, so they flipped a coin and joined the two parties respectively. But things are unpredictable, and their understanding of the party is different. Party politics interferes with their emotional life, even if their emotions are hindered by political thoughts. Just as two sides of a coin always exist, so does the opposition between them, and their feelings cannot bear fruit. Bai Ling and Lu are the true spirit of White Deer Plain, and they are a kind of transcendence over Heiwa and Bai Xiaowen. They are strikingly similar. They also receive advanced education, have independent thoughts and are representatives of new culture. They don't want to obey their parents' orders, Lu doesn't want to get married, and white-collar workers don't want to get married. They all choose to run away from home. They are full of youthful enthusiasm and rebellious blood. They have indomitable courage to open up new paths for future generations. It's a pity that all the white-collar workers died by the sword of the revolution, and Lu left his hometown after the victory of the revolution, and he didn't know where to go. This may be the secret history of the nation that the author wants to reveal, and the formation of a brand-new concept will pay a price. The two of them, flying together like butterflies, are heading for the light and the future!
The lives of the characters in White Deer Plain are different. Mr. Zhu is an idealized figure in the author's mind. He was poor, upright, respectable and elegant all his life. Mr. Leng's medical skill is superb, his medical ethics is noble, he helps the world and is cold all his life. Lu San is a conscientious farmer. He worked hard all his life, but his son rebelled and finally killed his daughter-in-law. He was crazy. He is a tragic figure. Tian Xiaoe, a woman from easy virtue, was a rebel and victim of the feudal system. There are many endings of characters' death in the novel, such as the death of Cao Xian, which is so calm. Like her family, Lu's daughter-in-law died in such a pitiful and terrible way. Just like the death of Lu Zilin in the end, it was so timid, and everything seemed to be causal fate. People can't help but sigh: a pot of turbid wine is happy to meet, and how many things have been laughed at in ancient and modern times.
At the beginning of the book, there is a sentence from Balzac: novels are considered as the secret history of a nation. Author Chen took Balzac's famous words as the inscription of the novel, expressing his ambition and artistic pursuit in writing this novel. Indeed, many secrets of a country are hidden in this novel. They are too small, but they are too important. Just like books, secrets are everywhere. He hides in every corner, on the back of mules, in the box of a white house that only collects money, in the water and rice of shepherd's purse, in the figure of Zhao, Lu Xixi or busy people, in the mutton bread in the soup on the wooden table, in the calluses of long-term workers, in the wheat waves at harvest, and even more in the white deer jumping in the same place.