In May 1943, Zhang Ailing published her debut work " agarwood crumbs ·the first incense".
"The First Incense" depicts the story of Ge Weilong, a Shanghai girl who was lost to Hong Kong due to the war. Under the guidance of her aunt, Mrs. Liang and her lover, Qiao Qi, she went from an inexperienced middle school student to degeneration step by step. After Ge Weilong became a socialite in the social field, he fell in love with the bohemian dude Qiao Qiqiao. Knowing that love is hopeless, he betrayed his youth and himself, chose a self-deception marriage, and sank in a stagnant life. The literary themes such as the dark decay of the traditional feudal family system and the departure of women from the patriarchal family are a direction for the creation of the "May 4th" New Literature School and the common theme of literature throughout the Republic of China. The success of
" First Furnace Incense " is mainly due to Zhang Ailing's treatment of the subject matter and the use of narrative methods. "First Luxiang" adopts a mixed mode of omniscience narrative and limited knowledge narrative. The narrator looks at the overall situation and makes a panoramic description of the people and things in the story; on the other hand, it frequently uses the perspective of the characters in the story to describe it. Enriched the theme ideas.
The narrative perspective of "The First Incense"
The beginning of "The First Incense" follows the narrative pattern of traditional Chinese vernacular novels, with a role similar to a storyteller in traditional novels, using the perspective of the narrator "I" , Laid the foundation for the omniscience narrative model.
" Please find the mouldy green copper incense burner handed down in your family, light a furnace of agarwood crumbs, and listen to me tell a story about Hong Kong before the war. After you finish lighting this furnace of agarwood crumbs, my story should be over."
Here, the narrator appears as an insider and observer, which improves the credibility and authority of the work, and creates a narrative field for direct communication with readers.
In "The First Incense", we can always feel this narrator freely narrate and describe characters and events, and master and control the development of the novel and the destiny of the characters. However, in some places, the third-person perspective is cleverly adopted in the narration, and the perspective of the characters in the story is used to narrate. At this time, the narrator no longer replaces the characters in the work, but allows the characters to act on their own, allowing readers to realize the characters' most secret psychological changes. This change of perspective of
effectively shortens the psychological distance between readers and characters. The cross-use of the two perspectives has caused a wonderful change in the narrative effect. It not only maintains the calm and objectiveness of the omniscient perspective, but also narrows the distance between the author, readers and the characters, so that readers can deeply feel the emotions and inner world of the characters in the story. Unknowingly walking into the heroine's heart, it enhances the artistic appeal of the novel.
In this episode of Qiao Qi messing with a maid late at night, Zhang Ailing deliberately transforms the narrative perspective into a limited-perspective narrative at certain stages of the narrative, using internal focus to show the character's mood.
"The girl on the island is as volatile as the haze and toxic climate", this is a narrative from the perspective of omniscience; the next point of view is changed to Qiao Qi: "The person's back is clearly visible in the moonlight Wearing a white summer cloth shirt and black fragrant gauze pantyhose, who is not Suier? "Then, the angle of view turned to Weilong again," Weilong nodded without saying a word, and figured out the truth. ".
In terms of narrative time, "First Burning Incense" organically integrates story time and narrative time, creating a special narrative form. Zhang Ailing borrowed the time image of "the mildew green copper incense burner" to compress Weilong's story into the time period of "a furnace of agarwood crumbs is finished", and as a narrator, she creates a gap between reading the past and telling reality. Harmony constructs a time strategy of opposing nature. This change in narrative time makes this work show a strong sense of rhythm.
Use metaphors to express the mood of the characters
The metaphors in Zhang Ailing’s novels are unique, creative and expressive. In "The First Incense", Zhang Ailing uses various metaphors to create an atmosphere of gloomy horror, sadness, disappointment, and even destruction of death. , Portraying the sad psychology of the characters, suggesting the tragic direction of fate, and expressing the sad theme.
Weilong stayed in Liang's house with both desire and fear. Zhang AilingThe subtle language describes the details of the ice cubes slowly melting in the mint wine: "The color, shape, and change process are very similar to the shaking of the light in the green glass window." This metaphor creates a gloomy and terrifying atmosphere. It implies that she is about to step into a situation where superficial luxury is actually dangerous.
After Weilong moved into Liang's house, Zhang Ailing compared the balcony to a deck, and compared the dense fog outside the window to a sea, expressing Weilong's sad mood of being confused and unable to see the foreground accurately and implicitly.
When Mrs. Liang appeared on stage, she wore fashionable black clothes and a green face net inlaid with emeralds, which looked mysterious and sexy. The emerald represents her wealth; the face net is a metaphor for her shameful and dirty life; the black spider represents the sinister and viciousness of this woman, and if there is a green mole on her face, it represents Mrs. Liang’s status as a lady. The real "Buddha" identity.
When Weilong first arrived at Mrs. Liang's house, the potted plants in Mrs. Liang's house had already hinted at Weilong's fate. The cactus is "looking around", the leaves are like twisted green snakes, and the budding flowers are like red letters spit out by the green snake. These descriptions make the reader feel that Weilong is in a terrifying and gloomy atmosphere, and it brings out Weilong's dangerous fate in this environment.
"I've finished a pot of agarwood shavings, and my story should be over" is the main metaphor in "The First Incense". It seems to say: a person's life is like the process of burning a stick of incense, short and empty. So at the end of the novel, the fire from Qiao Qi's lighter in the dark seemed like an orange-red light, but it disappeared in a flash, and it was still endless cold and darkness. This indicates that Weilong's love, happiness and joy disappeared in a flash like this spark, waiting for her "still endless cold and darkness".
The language art of "The First Incense"
"The spring in the wall is nothing but a scene, who knows that a single spark can start a prairie fire. The spring in the wall burns to the outside, and the mountains are full of wild rhododendrons driving vigorously , The scorching red, all the way down the hillside."
Zhang Ailing is good at using specific contexts to distort and mutate the normal meaning of words in the speech stream, deviating from the standard meaning, and gaining defamiliarization. Artistic effect.
In the sentence above, the word "burn" describes the luxuriant growth of wild rhododendrons. With feminine delicacy, Zhang Ailing depicts the burning red of the wild cuckoo when it opens, as if it is burning like a fire. This is not only a depiction of the luxuriant flowers, but also the background surrounding the house, suggesting that the owner of the house is also as unscrupulous as a wild cuckoo, burning from the wall to the outside. "Vigorous" in this sentence of
, originally meant to describe majestic or mighty, but here it is used as an adverbial verb "open" to compare the enthusiastic scene of wild cuckoos in full bloom with the mighty human activities, not only to write It shows the open mood of the wild rhododendron, and shows its vigorous vitality, the picture is very strong, and it gives people a strong visual experience.
" On the second day, Qiao Qi called Weilong one after another, sending flowers endlessly, with text messages hidden in the flowers. "The endless stream" is generally described as a continuous stream of water, but here it is an exaggerated description of Joe Qi's frequent sending of flowers to Weilong satirized the playboy's excessive diligence and comicality. In a specific context, the use of words that describe fluidity to describe people's diligence not only adds novelty to the language, but also conveys the charm that is difficult to reflect in conventional semantics.
" In the yellow plum rain, the drunken trees all over the mountain gave off the smell of moist green leaves; plantains, gardenias, magnolia flowers, banana trees, camphor trees, calamus, pistils, ivory red, palm, Phragmites australis, tambal rice, grows and reproduces too fast, they are a bit murderous, and the wind blowing in is also a bit fishy. "
" "drunk" originally refers to people who have lost their normal appearance when they are drunk. Weilong is in the mood. Bad, the surrounding trees become "drunk" and "murderous". This not only describes in detail Weilong’s complex mood and feelings in a specific situation, but also strengthens the perception effect of the information receiver, allowing Weilong’s inner heart to surpass the outside.
Zhang Ailing's strategy of crossing the omniscience narrative with the third-party narrative in "First Burning Incense", using a lot of sad metaphors,Dynamically describes the tragic fate of the characters, reveals the coldness of the real society, makes the characters more full and vivid, and gives this work a powerful artistic charm.
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