"Casting the Sword" is a short story adapted by Mr. Lu Xun from "The Tomb of the Three Kings" in Ganbao's "Sou Shen Ji", which tells a story about revenge, which does not sound new, and even a little old-fashioned. But the essence of ** is not in the process of revenge, but in what happens after revenge. Mr. Lu Xun used an almost absurd and absurd way of writing, on the basis of the original work, to carry out a highly imaginative adaptation, worthy of a classic.
*Originally published in 1927 in the magazine "Fuyuan", it was later included in the anthology of Mr. Lu Xun's "New Stories" in 1936. "New Story" is a collection of short stories adapted by Lu Xun based on ancient myths and historical legends. Mr. Lu Xun's own evaluation is".My "New Story" is nothing more than the interpretation of ancient myths and legends, some historical facts."
"Casting the Sword" is Lu Xun's adaptation of historical legends, and as he said, it is also a story that has been interpreted. The so-called romance, that is, to be fictional and imaginary, ** did add a lot of Lu Xun's imagination, there are two plots that are particularly classic, one is the ruler between the eyebrows, the black man and the king of Chu, the three heads fight in Dingzhong, and the other is the plot of how to salvage and bury the king of Chu at the palace meeting. The theme of the first paragraph is tragedy in the absurd, and the theme of the second paragraph is very ironic, humorous, and slightly comic. This contrasting performance of the past and the back reflects Lu Xun's understanding of China in the twenties and thirties of the 20th century.
The so-called new edition is, to a certain extent, a dialogue between the ancients and the present, a rewriting. If ancient myths or historical legends are ancient people's understanding of the external world itself, then the new compilation naturally reveals today's understanding of the current world. The same is true of Forged Sword.
The synopsis of "Forged Sword" is like this:The cadre Mo Xie cast a sword for the king of Chu, and the king of Chu cast a sword for others in order to prevent the cadre, and after the sword was cast, he killed the cadre. But he didn't want to be a general, and he was not a vegetarian, he had already prepared, and a piece of iron forged two swords, one male and one female. He dedicated the female sword to the king of Chu, leaving the male sword to avenge himself, it turned out that he had already expected that the king of Chu would kill him. Therefore, before going to offer the sword, he confessed to his pregnant wife, and in the future, he could let his son use another sword to avenge himself. However, the general's son has a cowardly personality, and the king of Chu has been wary of him, so he cannot realize his desire for revenge.
At this time, a mysterious black man appeared, and he said that he could avenge the ruler between the eyebrows, but he needed two things, one was a sword and the other was his head. The ruler between the eyebrows believed the black man, and gave him both things. With these two things, the black man finally fulfilled his promise to the ruler between his eyebrows, killed the king of Chu, and avenged him.
But the result is a bit ironic, the heads of the three people were boiled in the golden tripod and could not be distinguished, and they were finally buried in one place.
The plot of "Forged Sword" is not much different from the first half of "Tomb of the Three Kings"., but the ruler between the eyebrows of the son of the cadre in "Casting the Sword", the character image is portrayed by Lu Xun more full, rich and profound, reflecting the cowardly side of his character, such as the game between him and the mouse at the beginning, and his mother Mo Ye's evaluation of him. As follows:
Alas! His mother sighed and said, "When you had a child, you were sixteen years old, and your temperament was still the same, lukewarm, not the same at all." It seems that there is no one to avenge your father's vengeance. ”
In the middle of the revenge fragment, "Casting the Sword" has made a lot of absurd and bizarre adaptations of the process of luring the King of Chu to Jinding and being killed, and there is a lot of ink, especially depicts the revenge middleman - the sacrificial spirit of the black man. When the black man saw that the ruler between the eyebrows was in danger of being eaten by the king of Chu, he did not hesitate to cut off his head and join it. In "Tomb of the Three Kings", the sacrifice of the knight is a passing pass.
The whole revenge process of "The Tomb of the Three Kings" is relatively straightforward, and the focus is on describing the fact that the revenge was successful, after the king of Chu was killed, the three were buried in one tomb, and the story ended. And "Forged Sword" is different, what happens after revenge is the part that really embodies the theme of this **. After the revenge, in Lu Xun's almost absurd and bizarre description, he explained why the three of them were buried together. The Avengers are buried with the Avengers, and such an ending is a great irony in itself.
Scholars who study Lu Xun's literature have found that "later" is a proposition that Lu Xun likes very much。For example, in "Running to the Moon", after Hou Yi completed the great feat of shooting the sun, what will be his fate? He shot all the exotic animals to death, and ended up in an embarrassing situation without food. In order to find food for his beautiful and fussy wife, Chang'e, he ran away from home to hunt. As a result, a series of things happened, when he said his name, no one knew him, even his students wanted to kill him, and when he returned home, Chang'e also ran away. What a heroic man Hou Yi was in the past, but in the end he fell to such a point, it is really sad and lamentable.
In fact, this reflects the question of the fate of a revolutionary pioneer. A hero who once made great achievements in the world, after the passage of time, was forgotten by the world. This situation is not only a problem for Hou Yi, but also for all the pioneers, and to a certain extent, Lu Xun also put his own life experience into it.
Similarly, in "Forged Sword", the theme of the fate of the pioneers is also a metaphor. The ruler between the eyebrows and the black man are both avengers in **, so to speak, the two of them worked together to avenge the general, and both are indispensable. Normally, from the point of view of the black man and the ruler between the eyebrows, their heads are buried together with the heads of the enemies, which is incomparably comical and incomparable. From the perspective of the King of Chu, what a noble person he is, his head is put together with the traitor, which is also unacceptable to the King of Chu. What kind of theme does Lu Xun mean to express by arranging such an ending?
Let's continue to look down the plot after the revenge, the king of Chu is dead, and he is going to be buried. But the three heads were boiled in the ding, and I couldn't tell who belonged to whom, what should I do?So immediately a meeting of princes and ministers was held, and from the evening discussion to the next day, the rooster crowed, and finally came up with a plan, that is, the three heads were buried together. This is the main plot of the fourth verse.
In the fourth stanza, special attention is paid to the tone used by Lu Xun, compared with the tragic scene created by the battle of the three heads in the third stanza, the fourth stanza is full of Lu Xun-style mockery. The fourth stanza is almost a subversion of the third, like a serious drama, which turns out to be a farce.
Such an ending is absurd and absurd, which makes the avenger and the avenged fall into embarrassment at the same time, so the value of the act of revenge itself is questioned. But the story is not over here, and it is also written that the people and spectators came from all directions, nominally to pay respects, but in essence to see the excitement. In the end, the tragedy of this revenge was pushed to a climax in the careless crowding of the people.
**Finally written:
After that was the car of the queen and many princesses. The people looked at them, and they looked at the people, but they wept. After that, ministers, eunuchs, dwarfs and other generations, all dressed in the color of mourning. It's just that the people no longer look at them, and even the ranks are crowded in a mess, and they don't look like anything else.In the process of watching and being watched, everyone is like acting in a play, and the avenger, the avenged and the revenge, the three have become history in the eyes of people and are quickly forgotten. All the sacredness and solemnity accumulated by revenge were finally dissipated by the spectators. Another example is that Hou Yi in "Running to the Moon" used to be a sun-shooting hero, but after shooting the sun, he was constantly forgotten by the world, until no one recognized him, no one gave him face, no one bought his account, and even the former students hated him at this time and wanted to kill him. At this moment, we can't help but feel a kind of coldness that penetrates through the bones, and this coldness can extinguish the fire of almost all heroes.
The tragedy of the first half of "Forged Sword" is dissolved in the ridicule of the second half, with two tones, one high and one low, making the reader doubt the revenge itself from the perspective of a third party, is it appreciating or belittling?
Lu Xun's skeptical spirit is well known, and in "New Stories", whether it is "Running to the Moon", "Mending the Sky", "Lishui" or "Non-Attack", we can see that he looks at the fate of all pioneers with a skeptical eye. But in "Forged Sword", he applies this suspicion to himself. He blended some of his personal experiences, the pain and desolation he felt in his life, into **.
Lu Xun advocated revenge, but how meaningful was revenge in the reality of the twenties and thirties of the 20th century? This made him question his beliefs and pursuits. From the current point of view, Lu Xun's skeptical spirit in that era is worthy of affirmation. Even in the present, we often doubt our lives, occasionally deny ourselves, reflect in doubt, and seek change in self-reflection. Elevate yourself in change before moving on to the next round of doubt.
In this kind of doubt, some people realize their self-worth, and some people sink in doubt, but in any case, the spirit of doubt has brought you new inspiration and tried to lead you to find a new self. This is also worthy of affirmation and has a positive modern significance.