The main line of Red Sorghum is Yu Zhanao's armed resistance against the Japanese army, and the auxiliary line is the love story of Yu Zhanao and Dai Fenglian. The novel not only shows the strong unity of Gaomi people against the Japanese army, but also depicts the love between Yu Zhanao and Dai Fenglian in the sorghum field. The rebel figures in the novel are all bandits, including the bandit leader headed by Yu Zhanao. They are chaotic and undisciplined, but in the face of national struggle, they unite and fight against their enemy, the Japanese. They didn't have any patriotic consciousness, but they were hated by Japanese oppression and killing, thus starting their national struggle. Red Sorghum is a classic, showing a bloody picture of corpses everywhere. At the intersection of these flesh and blood, Mo Yan described a piece of red sorghum as red as blood, and the whole world was red. It is with this carnival language and unconstrained brushwork that Mo Yan created a red sorghum world on the edge of ethics, a bandit hero who did all the bad things but also served the country.
Yu Zhanao and Dai Fenglian are the most distinctive figures in Red Sorghum. Yu Zhanao is a bandit hero. He is overbearing but bloody, but the leader has a just side. Dai Fenglian is a representative of resisting feudal ethics. As a woman, during War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression's time, she could still make her own contribution. Yu Zhanao's first job was as a sedan chair bearer. He meant flirting with Dai Fenglian when carrying the bride together. In order to get Dai Fenglian, he robbed her on the way back to the door and had sex in the sorghum field. Therefore, he did not hesitate to create a murder case, killing a single father and son, but at the same time liberated Dai Fenglian from having to face a husband with leprosy. Thus, Yu Zhanao was cruel and hateful, but he later organized bandits and villagers to resist Japan, and was a hero of justice. Dai Fenglian unveiled the veil on the sedan chair on the wedding day, and had no scruples about the constraints of feudal ethics. After her husband's death, she played an ambiguous role with Yu Zhanao. This is simply a living modern woman, which shows that she dares to love and hate the female image.
Red sorghum is rooted in black soil and has tenacious vitality, symbolizing the brave, bloody, patriotic, United and sacrificed Chinese nation headed by Yu Zhanao and Dai Fenglian. In Gaomi, people like to eat sorghum and plant it in large quantities every year. Everyone knows the taste of sorghum and its great significance to them. Gaomi people can shuttle through sorghum fields every day and have feelings for sorghum. Even when I asked to destroy sorghum fields to build roads, they refused to die. When Luohan Ge was skinned, he still bravely confronted the Japanese army, and explained the blood-red will of sorghum with his last breath.