Gao's novel "Chen Huan Sheng Goes to Town" won the 1980 National Outstanding Short Story Award. "The "Chen Huan Sheng Series of Novels" includes The Lord of the Funnel Household, Chen Huan Sheng Goes to the City, Chen Huan Sheng Changes His Profession, and Chen Huan Sheng Contracts Production. The novels are mainly about a farmer Chen Huan Sheng's great changes before and after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), so as to glorify the Party's policies. Therefore, if we want to more accurately grasp the character of Chen Huan Sheng and the theme of this article and Gao Xiaosheng's creative style, we can read these four works and analyze them comparatively.
2. Related comments:
Chen Huan Sheng's going to the city is an interesting subject. The work links the peasants, who have a very narrow vision, with the urban civilization, and puts Chen Huan Sheng, who has just taken off the hat of "the head of a leaky household", in a high-class room of the county guesthouse, that is to say, in a high-class material civilization, so as to look at Chen Huan Sheng. In this way, the situation of the peasants has been manifested in a discursive way: the problem of food and clothing has been solved initially, but the standard of living is still very low after all; and the souls of the peasants have been dissected y: the quality of the peasants has both good and bad sides. Such a discerning representation of the peasants at the beginning of the new period helps us to enhance our understanding that it will take a long, long historical stage for China to gradually get rid of underdevelopment, build socialist material and spiritual civilization, and basically realize socialist modernization. We have already taken the first step, which is marvelous, but there is still a long, long road ahead.
3. Ingenious plot design
"A strange": the head of the funnel household actually lived in a high-class room.
"Five coincidences": the sale of oil rope can be seen in the grain and oil surplus is a coincidence; to buy a hat not only shows a slight improvement in life but also seems to have become delicate, "afraid of the wind behind the head" and implies that you will get a cold is a coincidence; the desire for a spiritual life to reflect the changes of the peasants is a coincidence; the choice of the station to sell oil rope and the location of the station to sell oil rope is a coincidence; the choice of the station to sell oil rope and the location of the station to sell oil rope is a coincidence. It is a coincidence that he chose the station to sell oil rope and slept there without going home in time, thus meeting with Secretary Wu; it is a coincidence that he stayed in a high-class room because of a cold, thus showing Chen Huan-sheng's psychology and thoughts.
4. Focus on several issues:
(1) Chen Huan Sheng, the "head of the funnel household," came to the city today, which is the first paragraph of the opening of this article, what is the role?
Hint: Content-wise, this paragraph explains the main events of the story. That is: Chen Huan Sheng went to the city. For the later development of the article laid the foundation; from the structural point of view, this paragraph is both for the deduction of the title, but also for the later development of the article to set up suspense. In the past, the farmers were always in debt, why did they come up to the city today?
(2) In the second paragraph, what is the function of the sentence "A cold wave has just passed, the weather has improved, the light wind is blowing slightly, the sun is warm"?
Hints: First, it can reveal the background: "A cold wave has just passed, and the weather has already improved" can refer to both the weather and the season, i.e., the natural environment, when Chen Huan Sheng went to the city; it can also imply that Chinese society had just been attacked by a political "cold wave", and the political environment was gradually becoming more and more favorable. It can also imply that Chinese society had just been attacked by a political "cold wave" and that the political environment was gradually improving, revealing the changes in the whole society, i.e., the social environment, at that time after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee had been held for a short period of time.
Secondly, the mood of the characters can be emphasized: the sentence "the light wind blows slightly, the sun is warm" is not only a description of the weather, but also a description of the economic situation of Chen Huan-sheng, the head of the funnel household, which is improved by the policy, and the mood of happiness and comfort.
(3) How do you understand Chen Huan Sheng's plot that he "had to buy a hat" after the hat of the head of the funnel household disappeared and that he "intended to buy a new, scratchy hat"?
Hint: The fact that the hat of the head of the household has disappeared shows that Chen Huan Sheng's life has been improved due to the change of the political environment, and that he has finally got rid of poverty, and that he wants to buy a new, scratch-and-sniff hat is also a concrete reflection of this improvement. The need to buy a "scratch and sniff" hat was also a concrete portrayal of this improvement. At the same time with the "fear of the wind behind the head" linked, cleverly for the latter Chen Huan Sheng did not buy a hat and got a cold made the necessary padding.
(4) The ending of the novel is rich in meaning and profound, which makes people applaud, how should we understand the meaning of its ending?
Hints: First, Chen Huan Sheng's thoughts and practices are the same as those of his predecessor "Q". But Q's "spiritual victory" is just "self-deception", while Chen Huan-sheng not only "self-deception", but also "deception". "The saddest thing is that the people being bullied actually buy his account!
Secondly, the respectable thing is not to invent and manufacture cars, design and build houses, but to sit in a car and live in high-class housing. That's just duh.
Thirdly, it reveals the feudal hierarchical concepts deep in the peasants' consciousness and the backwardness of rural society.
Fourth, like the end of "The Necklace", it is both unexpected and reasonable, in line with the logic of the plot.
5, accurately grasp the characters, appreciate the novel's discursive theme.
(1) Analyze the character image of Chen Huan-sheng in terms of his speech, behavior, material pursuits and spiritual pursuits.
Hints: narrow-minded, suffering from loss and gain; industrious, easily satisfied; honest and simple, practical. Typical image of a kind, upright, unsharp, no expertise, plain and obscure Chinese peasant.
(2) Chen Huan Sheng, after improving his material life, also pursues a spiritual life, which bears the imprint of the small peasant economy, where is it manifested?
Chen Huan Sheng's pursuit of a spiritual life is nothing more than talking about the East and the West, and saying amazing things, in order to improve his status in the eyes of others. This obviously has a strong small peasant color.
(3) Chen Huan-sheng spent five dollars on a guest house, and his inner feelings were very complicated, which shows the nature of the peasant's thrift, but also his narrow-mindedness, his personal life and feudal hierarchical concepts. Where do these manifest themselves respectively?
Prompt: the high price of five dollars, equal to "seven days of work, but also subsidize 10 cents", "sleep a night to pay two hats", Chen Huan-sheng "think about it and flesh pain", showing his thrifty nature. The fact that Chen Huan-sheng "thought about it and felt bad about it" illustrates the nature of his thrifty peasantry.
Because of the high price, the items in the guesthouse changed from being very precious to being trampled on arbitrarily, wiping his face with a jacquard pillowcase, and not taking off his clothes and getting into the quilt, which showed the selfishness and narrow-mindedness of the peasants.
Because of the county party secretary's car, stayed in the county party secretary introduced five yuan a night of high-level guest house, you feel the spirit of fulfillment, complacency extraordinary. This shows the peasants' feudal hierarchical concepts and backward and ignorant mentality.
(4) What is the relationship between the enterprising and backward side of Chen Huan Sheng and the social environment in which he lives?
Hint: Chen Huan Sheng's enterprising spirit is inseparable from the brand-new social environment created by the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee. The rural reforms liberated the productive forces, and Chen Huan Sheng, the former head of the "leaky bucket", turned over a new leaf. He was full of joy, but also developed a sense of enterprise, and began to pursue a spiritual life.
On the other hand, Chen Huan-sheng's feudal hierarchical concepts and backward and ignorant mentality also existed in the rural cadres and farmers around him. Because Chen Huan-sheng had sat in the county party secretary's car and stayed in a room with five yuan of pancreatic fluid, people were immediately friendly, envious and respectful of him. It can be seen that such a social environment is the soil for the survival of Chen Huan-sheng's backward side.
6, the study of the novel's outstanding psychological description
(1) Overview: multi-directional and multi-angle three-dimensional portrayal. In this article, the author uses direct psychological description such as psychological monologue, author's description, character's language, and at the same time, he also uses indirect psychological description such as scene description baking, detail description, action description, etc., which comprehensively, meticulously, and realistically reveals the character's thoughts. Moreover, the author pays attention to combining the psychological description of the characters with the development of the plot to show the inner changes of the characters at any time and any place.
For example, Chen Huan Sheng's "performance" in the guest room before and after he paid the money and the change of his psychology is a typical example, which can be analyzed by focusing on and combining them.
(2) Compare and analyze the first and second paragraphs of Chen Huan Sheng Goes to the City and the third and fourth paragraphs of The Necklace, and see how the techniques of revealing the characters' hearts are different.
Hint: The psychological description of The Necklace is written in a delicate and profound way, using the usual psychological analysis method of western novels.
The psychological description of "Chen Huan Sheng Goes to the City" uses a "combination of soil and foreign" approach. Like Western novels, it focuses on psychological description, but this psychological description is used to reveal the psychology of the characters through the description of their actions and portraits, and the description of the scenery and weather. This is the traditional novel writing style in China