Silent Tang examines revolution and war from the perspective of "humanity", and puts people under the millstone of revolution and war for squeezing and testing. Through the description of the novel, the author cursed the war, expressed doubts about the revolution and questioned the Soviet regime. Because of the war, because of the war triggered by the revolution, the beautiful and rich Tang Plain was deserted, and the rich, happy and free life disappeared. Cossacks went to the front to fight, and most of them died in battle. Their hometown left only orphans, widows and the elderly, showing a scene of decline everywhere, as the inscription at the beginning of the book wrote:
Our glorious land is not plowed. ......
Our land has been plowed by horseshoes,
Cossack's head was inserted in the glorious land,
The quiet Don River is decorated with young widows.
Our father, the quiet Don River is full of orphans,
The quiet waves of the Don River are the tears of parents.
Oh, the quiet Don, our father!
Oh, quiet Don River, why is your flowing water so muddy?
Oh, how can the quiet water on my Don River not be turbid!
Cold spring flows outward from the bottom of my quiet Don River,
This silvery white fish fouled my calm Don River.
-Cossack ancient songs
This ancient song is a highly portrayal of the tragic life of the Don River region and Cossack caused by revolution and war, and specifically explains the life of every family and individual.
The war divided the Cossacks who had the same roots into two camps and killed each other, turning people who were good friends and relatives into enemies. Six relatives denied it: Koshevoi shot Gregory's brother Petro, Petro's wife Dalia shot Ivan, and Koshevoi married Gregory's sister, but she couldn't let go of her uncle Lang. The murderer and the murdered were childhood friends, but later they became relatives. However, the war made them lose their humanity and affection and turned them into murderers. As Koshevoi said, "We are all murderers", it is this sentence that contains the greatest tragedy of the Russian civil war, reveals the destructive side of the war, reveals and condemns the war and the people who started it, and sends out "We are born of the same root, so why are we in such a hurry?" Torture.
2. The second theme of Silent Don: peace, land and labor.
Loving the land, praising labor, calling for humanity and calling for peace are the thoughts expressed by the author in this work. It's not just the human body that is destroyed by war. War made the land barren, families separated and the country declined. But also corrodes people's hearts, alienates human nature and turns people into "animals". The Quiet Don River reflects the life and thoughts of Cossacks during the October Revolution.
The author describes the history of Cossack journey through events, especially the influence of events on the four social lifelines of Cossack clan: war, family and social relations, love and gender, ecology and farming, and describes Gregory's tortuous course of pursuing the truth of clan society in line with the historical trend.
Sholokhov is not only a socialist, but also a loyal son of the Don Cossack. He believes in monism, but he is essentially a pluralist. Standing on the point of combining pluralistic thoughts with fearless spirit, he sought the "greatest common denominator" of truth and the social truth of Cossack clan-the world social model. Sticking to the Cossack Spirit and pursuing the Cossack Truth, a model of a harmonious society in the world, may be Gregory's fate, which is also the reason why he never went ashore.
Gregory began to explore in the context of Cossack's second war and revolution. Everything comes from meeting unexpectedly. It can bring both good luck and bad luck. If war and change are the means for Cossacks to make contributions, then Gregory is the means to end suffering and the fate of Roman gladiators for thousands of years. First, an objective description of life and spirituality.
The typical objective environment is the carrier of typical characters, giving them life and spirituality. A successful description of the objective environment can show the features of the times, show local conditions and customs, exaggerate the atmosphere, infect readers and even reveal the character.
In sholokhov's works, there are not only the broad, churning, dense and lush Don River on both sides, but also the quiet pastoral scenery, farmhouses, beautiful houses of wealthy businessmen and endless grasslands in the Don River basin. There are not only Don River town and town square, but also ordinary manor houses and natural hunting grounds. There are not only agricultural festivals, but also joyful labor scenes on the grassland. In the writer's pen, everything is astronomy, geography, humanities, customs, war and peace. These scenery descriptions not only make the characters more vivid and personalized, but also greatly stimulate readers' aesthetic interest in reading.
Sholokhov's exquisite brushwork is not only a simple list of many features of the scenery described, but also a deep color in the subtle depths. Although he is not a writer of stream of consciousness, he uses close-ups and slow-motion movies to enlarge, dig and explore subtle depths. For example, at the beginning of the novel, sholokhov describes the Mailehoff family:
The yard covered with spring grass shines with silver morning dew everywhere. He put animals in the street. Dahlia ran to milk the cows with only one shirt on. Her bare snow-white legs were covered with dew like fresh milk. A string of smoking footprints was left on the grass in the yard.
In sholokhov's eyes, morning dew is silver, dew on bare legs is like fresh milk, and footprints are like a string of cigarettes. Rich association and imagination, detailed and enlarged description, present readers with an exquisite picture of the early morning courtyard of Malehov's house.
The objective scenery described by sholokhov is concave and convex. This kind of carving is characterized by soft voice, bright colors, rich fragrance and rhythmic movements. For example, the moonlight paved a road that no one could walk on the rolling Don River. The river is foggy in the morning, but the sky is starry. The horse followed carefully. The slope leading to the water is not easy to walk. There are ducks on the other side. A catfish that preys on small fish is churning on the muddy beach on the shore.
Gregory stood by the water for a long time. The river bank gives off a faint smell of dampness and decay. Water drops kept dripping from the horse's lips. Gregory's heart is sweet and empty, carefree and relaxed. He walked forward and watched the sunrise, where the darkness before dawn had disappeared. It seems that there is not much pen and ink, but it has successfully drawn a picture of the Don River with sound, movement, taste and bright colors.
The objective scenery described by sholokhov is full of three-dimensional sense and often presents a multi-dimensional space. For example, when the writer wrote the scene of a thunderstorm hitting the village, he not only wrote the sound of villagers closing the windows in a hurry, but also the old lady "hurried home, and the strong wind rolled up gray dust and moved like a giant column on a tinker", and there were eagles and crows in the sky. He also wrote about the Don River, which "set off layers of waves beating against the river bank", and the lightning in the green forest outside the village and the grassland, which was "silent as if waiting for something", giving readers a three-dimensional aesthetic feeling.
In order to create three-dimensional beautiful pictures, sholokhov often adopts the method of observing visual transformation, that is, the visual transformation between the characters and the author in the book. For example, when the young Bolshevik Bunchuk returned to his hometown of New Cerca from the front line, the writer looked down at the city from his own observation angle, and a dark cloud was "facing the glittering church dome". Then, he carefully looked at the window of the general's office in the city, "but it shone with dazzling light", and then he wrote "A row of Cossack soldiers on foot" and "The bump of the carriage broke the transparent silence in the morning" in the city streets. At this time, Bunker appeared, and the writer gave him an observation perspective. When he got off the train, Bunciuc saw "a gendarme on the platform" and two "smiling young girls" pacing back and forth, then went to the city and walked to the "suburban street", and saw his "small house that had not been repaired for a long time" and everything in the house. This top-down, from far to near, from the outside to the inside, through the transformation of the perspective of writers and characters in the book, presents a comprehensive, thick, bold and magnificent picture for readers.
The objective scenery described by sholokhov is highly generalized, and the scenery of the four seasons and the beautiful scenery day and night are often written clearly and clearly in a few words and in a short space. For example, the grassland in the Don River basin in summer and autumn: at night, the dome is black and the stars are shining, and there is no moon. The Milky Way and the Milky Way know each other. "The night wind is bitter and dry, and the absinthe is very strong." "There is hay everywhere, and there is endless silver-white quail fighting and loud grasshopper calls everywhere." During the day, it is "hot, stuffy and foggy", and the sky-blue harrier is poisonous to the sun. And rats. And "the endless feather thatch rises and falls like waves, and even Liancheng Castle shines blue in a mythical way on the endless horizon, just like in a dream."
Second, describe the combination of different time and exotic clips.
Setting off the scenery described is the background of the character, that is, exaggerating the atmosphere for the appearance of the character, setting off the image or artistic conception of the character or deepening the theme, with special emphasis on selectivity, which is very similar to the montage technique of the film, requiring the screenwriter to carefully edit and combine the scenery to express the character and achieve the effect of contrast and association. In a sense, foil description needs more skill and innovation than objective description.
Sholokhov frequently uses comparative descriptions in The Quiet Don. There are two scene descriptions that literary critics often mention. Chapter 16 of the fourth part describes the scene of noon storm in Guadi area outside Tatar village, which sets off the process of the protagonist Natalya's inner pain and despair, tumbling over the river and gradually returning to calm.
In The Silent Don, sholokhov boldly expanded and innovated the description of setting off, and adopted the editing and combination methods at different times and places, which achieved the contrast effect.
The hero, Georgia, was in a particularly bad mood when he learned that his lover Gregory was getting married and abandoning him. The author described the scenes of wheat fields at different times and places. There, the wheat has been heading and the wheat grains are full of flesh. Just then, suddenly, "a group of cattle rushed in and trampled on the wheat field for a while: poor heavy ears of wheat were all trampled on the ridge." The tragic scene described by the foil reflects their ruined "mature love", which is heartbreaking. Many years later, when Cuocenia met Gregory who had been baptized by the war again on the Don River, she saw the hope of rekindling the old love, and the feelings that were sleeping in her heart were suddenly awakened. The writer described the strange scenes of snowdrift, sunshine and strong wind on the steep bank of the Don River at different times and places, in order to compare her "feelings accumulated over the years are as explosive as this snowdrift." Later, the war finally took the life of Cusinia, and Gregory suddenly felt that he had lost all the value of his life. The writer painted a picture of grassland burned by wildfire, in contrast to the "dark" life in front of him:
"In spring, when the snow has melted, the rotten grass lying under the snow for a winter has dried up, and a spring wildfire burns on the grassland. The spring breeze chases the wildfire, greedily devours the dry ladder grass, crosses the high stem of the donkey thistle, sweeps the brown top of the wormwood, and burns along the lowlands. After the wildfire burned, the grassland smelled of burnt and cracked land for a long time. The grass around is green and thriving. In the blue sky above the grass, flocks of larks are flying. The geese coming back in spring are foraging on the fertile grassland, and the bustards coming in summer are nesting. Where wildfires have burned, charred and dead land shines with unknown black light. Birds don't nest on it, and wild animals hide far away, bypassing it. Only the high wind swept the scorched earth in a hurry, rolled up gray embers and pungent, black smoke and dust, and took them away. " This combination of scene selection at different times and places greatly expanded the scene selection space of the foil method and provided more and better reference for future writers.
Third, the emotional color photos are in harmony with the scenery.
The so-called melting feelings into the scenery means that the writer takes the feelings of himself or the characters in the book to view and write the scenery, so that the object of description is permeated with strong subjective feelings. This feeling is the writer's graceful lyric. This scene is a perceptual color photo. By reading the scenery, readers can figure out the happy or sad mood of the author or the characters in the book, as well as their position or attitude towards something.
Sholokhov loves this, Handy. Whether it is the prairie along the Don River, the forest swamp in wartime, or the Cossack village in the wartime rear, it can accurately convey the feelings and attitudes of the writer himself or the characters in the book. One day, Gregory, the hero, stepped down from the battlefield of the civil war and hurried back to his hometown, more happy than sad. When passing Chiyangling Village, he saw the dazzling sunshine and snowy mountain top, and under the cloudless blue sky in Wan Li, the sugar-like Venus was shining. Chiyangling village is like a big quilt made of flowers, spreading at the foot of the mountain. On the left is a blue Vinuha River, and on the right are faint villages and German settlements. Beyond the bend of the river is the town of Gil Noske, which glows blue. In the east of the town, there is a gully winding upstream. A pillar stands on the hill, which leads to Ka Sha Xue like a fence.
On a rare sunny and cold day, the sun shines around like a hazy rainbow. The north wind blows bitterly. The wind on the grassland rustled the snow. However, the vast grassland bordering the horizon is very quiet, only in the east. On the grassland at the end of the horizon, there is smoke everywhere, shrouded in miasma of Xia Zi color.
Through the description of "sugar-like", "flowered quilt", "rainbow-like", "bright and quiet" and "summer purple", the scenery around Chiyangling village described by the writer is so beautiful. Imagine that without the hero's good mood, the hero can't see the beautiful scenery around Chiyangling Village, and neither can the readers. It is through the description of the beautiful scenery around Chiyangling village that the author silently expresses his true feelings of hating war and yearning for a better peaceful life and even rural life. The deep structure is "meaning mode and non-action mode". The deep structure of art is the order given to it by the author, which can only be given through philosophical and aesthetic meditation. The deep structure is closely related to the interpretation of the generation of philosophical time and space. In the classics of the early 20th century, sholokhov has begun to pursue the contemporary concept of 2 1 century. It can be said that sholokhov's exploration has influenced Russia's view of social model, marking the beginning of the pursuit of a new model of human society in Russian and even world literature history in the 20th century.
In The Silent Don, sholokhov shows four lines of Cossack clan society: war and revolution, family and social relations, love and gender, ecology and farming. This work coincides with the four interdependent lifelines in the structural system of human destiny of Stavri and Anoos, and has the same effect. It considers the general situation of human beings and touches on such a grand narrative as "Cossacks and Humans in the 20th Century".
The relationship between zero-sum and non-zero-sum world is a century-long problem. It is a new reflection on the worldwide social model put forward by people in troubled times at the end of the 20th century. It has the universal influence of "a stone stirs up a thousand waves". The so-called "zero-sum relationship" means that what one party loses is equal to what the other party gets. Therefore, the previous society was a society in which one party benefited and the other suffered. This historicity of human society should not be inherited.
World War I broke the days when every Cossack family was "half-peasant and half-army". Gregory was recruited to the front line and dimly broke into civilized society. On the one hand, he stubbornly avoided the progress of civilized society, on the other hand, he had a clear understanding of all kinds of ugliness brought by civilized society. When Gregory told Jia Lansha's theory to his comrades-in-arms, the other party replied, "We need our own regime, not others'". "Gregory frowned." You always think of only one side. "Obviously, the establishment of the Cossack regime is not enough. What he considered was how the Cossack society would last forever and how to get along with the new regime.
He explored in a complex background, including the theory of "uneven distribution of cakes" drawn from Russian life in the early 20th century, Bonchok's theory of "the Soviet regime elected by the people, and the fanatical Cossack autonomous Izwanlin", but Gregory drifted away from all this. When Izwanlin mentioned the prospect of establishing a Cossack regime without Russians in the Don region, Gregory expressed great doubts: "How can we live without Russia?" We only have wheat, nothing else, and no coal, minerals, wood and metallurgical industrial products. So what's good for us to leave Russia? " .
Obviously, Gregory explored the mode of harmonious coexistence between the Cossack clan life mode and the new regime in civilized society, rather than the "Cossack resistance road" as some critics said. If the previous exploration is related to war weariness and Bolshevik revolutionary propaganda, and war is still his means of making contributions (four volumes and four chapters are a watershed), then in the second stage, he gradually drifted away from all this.
In Gregory's view, war is the means to end all sufferings, so when many Cossacks rushed back to their familiar lives, he resolutely turned to the first cavalry in the autumn of 19 17 and insisted on exploring in unfamiliar environments. He has the concept of clan equality and nature. With the wrong policy of the Soviet regime and the spread of "some principles hostile to Cossack life", Gregory's ideological exploration left the previous track, and he angrily thought: "There is no truth that makes everyone warm and comfortable." The former model of harmony between Cossack society and the new regime has disappeared.
In Gregory's view, there is no truth that warms both sides, and his pursuit seems to be coming to an end. His recognition of the trust relationship between Cossack society and Soviet regime collapsed. The mutual recognition he pursues is still far away. On the one hand, he seems to be deviating from his pursuit, on the other hand, he is determined to defend the natural material wealth (land, bread, right to life) provided by nature to clan society, and seems to be returning to the road of pursuing "non-zero-sum model". This paragraph is a watershed in the pursuit of the second and third stages. The pursuit of the third stage will follow the new narrative mode.
Starting from six volumes and twenty-eight chapters, the Cossacks lost their way and couldn't come back. Starting from six volumes and thirty chapters, the author seems to have turned the novel into an event novel, especially the seventh and eighth volumes. Events followed one after another, leaving the family and its emptiness. Those life events that can be the highlight in volume 16 have no weight in volume 78, and they are all in the background and become fleeting clouds. Being in the foreground is a "chorus perspective", that is to say, the novel provides a realistic atmosphere, while the narrator pays attention to the foreground, the repressed things, and this prospect is concerned by readers. "The illusionist knows it", while the illusory one is real. "The body is different, but there is nothing." This is a new narrative mode at the beginning of the third stage. Cossack farmers in sholokhov's works, though not well educated, have rich inner world, great power to feel love, friendship, joy and pain, and various ways to express their feelings. However, due to the simplicity of thought, the psychology of Cossack farmers is more intuitive than that of people with high cultural literacy. Therefore, when sholokhov describes the characters' psychology, he does not directly analyze the psychological activities of the characters to express their psychology, but through the external activities of the characters and the changes of their language, movements and facial expressions, so that the inner world of the characters in the novel becomes an externalized image that can be perceived by people.
1. is a narrative technique commonly used by sholokhov, which describes the psychology of characters through their voices, smiles and eyes.
From the change of Narcissa's eyes, readers can clearly feel the rich emotional world of characters in the novel. When Gregory showed her love, Narnia threw herself into Gregory's arms and fell madly in love with him. However, when her husband Skipan came back, she was frightened by her husband's strength. She "walked on tiptoe and talked, but her eyes were still burning with a spark covered with horrible ashes, which was left by the fire in Gehrig."
But when she learned that Gregory was getting engaged, her burning and terrible star went out completely. Every night, she blinked her dry eyes in the dark and came up with a bunch of ideas, determined to take Gregory back from Natalie who had never experienced pain and love. After Gregory got married, when they met, Gregory saw Narcissa's "spoiled and disappointed eyes".
When Narnia learned that Gregory was going to elope with her and that they would never be apart, "her eyes sparkled with youth." After a long separation from Gregory, Narcissa returned to Gregory's side. At this time, she "has a pale face, two fierce eyes wide open and shining with very warm light" and "stares at him firmly with her charming eyes forever". But at the same time, Gregory saw "a pitiful and cruel expression in her eyes, like a hunted beast." The change of Narcissa's eyes is a reflection of her inner feelings. It not only shows the excitement and happiness of meeting Narnia and her lover after a long separation, but also mingles with the pain endured after such a long separation and the complicated mood of stopping.
In the second half of the fourth part, when Gregory decided to take her away from the Don River to the south or beyond, we saw NaGi Niya's eyes "shining with happiness" and "shining with joy", and NaGi Niya's love for Gregory's life and sincere and persistent pursuit of love were truly displayed in her eyes.
It is another means of sholokhov's psychological description to express the characters' psychology with their language, and it is also the most common one among many writers' psychological descriptions. In the seventh chapter of the second volume of Silent Tang, readers can appreciate her concern for Gregory from the dialogue between Narnia and her fellow villager Ye Maiyan.
"Maybe our house has collapsed?" She asked. "No, why did it collapse? Not bad! It will not fall out. " Ye Mailiyang painfully long voice, answered.
"What about our neighbors, Merlehofers?" "It's okay." "Pietro hasn't asked for leave to go home yet?" "It seems not."
"But Gregory? What about their Gehrig Plus? "
"Gregory came back after Christmas, and this year his wife gave birth to twins. As for Gregory, of course-because he brought flowers back. "
In order to inquire about her beloved Gregory, Naxea took great pains. During the conversation, she walked from her house to her brother Petro, and then to her lover Gregory. Those words revealed that Narnia worried, missed and loved Gregory all the time, but she was still shy in front of outsiders and dared not show her inner feelings.
Sholokhov is also good at expressing the inner world of characters through their movements and expressions.
A person's behavior is dominated by thoughts and feelings, and behavior is the appearance of psychology and the undercurrent of psychology. On the contrary, we can see the psychological undercurrent in the depths of the ocean from the waves. In The Silent Don, Gregory decides to follow his parents' arrangement and get engaged to Natalia, the daughter of the rich farmer. However, every time he meets Nancy, he loses his temper for no reason. He often picked up the sabre and ran to the backyard to cut down the thick stumps planted in the ground, making him sweat like rain, and the small warts on his jawbone trembled. Gregory is determined to break up with Narcissa, but every time he sees her, he feels his uncontrollable and unquenchable love for Narcissa. He was upset and upset, so he had to cut down trees to vent his anger and divert his pain.
Singing to express the psychology of the characters is another important means of sholokhov's psychological description.
At the beginning of the war, shortly after Cossack left home, every evening, in the milky dim light of June, he sang by the bonfire in the field:
Cossack rode a livid steed.
Set out for a distant foreign country.
Left my hometown forever. ...
Never go back to my hometown again.
His young wife's room
My dear mother, do you know?
Not all people will die on the battlefield.
Through singing, we deeply feel that Cossack soldiers are right.
Memories of pre-war life, nostalgia for relatives in my hometown, and
Hatred of war, fatigue, fear and longing for a better and peaceful life.
2. sholokhov is good at describing characters with nature as the background, so that man and nature can form a harmonious whole.
When Gregory died in Naxania, he saw the black sky and the black sun overhead. Gregory's loyal lover, proud Nancy, has a dazzling appearance and a fiery personality. Narcissa's love for Gregory is as passionate as fire, and she has become the whole world in Gregory's heart at this moment. Black Sky and a Dazzling Black Sun shows Gregory's painful and desperate mentality and the extreme state of artistic sadness and beauty.
Another example is when Gregory retired from budyonny's cavalry and walked across the autumn grassland in an ox cart. At this moment, his mood is reflected in the grassland scenery he saw. He wants to work in the Red Army until he atones. However, due to past problems, the Red Army did not trust him and had to go home by car. There is not the slightest joy in my heart, but the grassland in my eyes is as quiet as death, as if it were enchanted grassland. There is no sound around, no birds flying, and a sad silence hangs over everything. "It seems that this road is endless. The road winds down into the valley and reaches the top of Gaogang Mountain. Looking around, there are such quiet and large grasslands everywhere. "
The story of Silent Don River quoted many folk songs from beginning to end, and described the ever-changing natural scenery in a large space. The description of these folk songs and natural scenery is not only an artistic means for the author to reflect his feelings and carve the characters' psychology, but also his deep sympathy and heartfelt feelings for the fate of the society and people at that time.
Our glorious land is not plowed. ......
Our land has been plowed by horseshoes,
Cossack's head was inserted in the glorious land,
The quiet Don River is decorated with young widows.
Our father, the quiet Don River is full of orphans,
The quiet waves of the Don River are the tears of parents.
Another example is the end of the novel, volume 8, chapter 18, beginning:
"In early spring, when the snow has melted and the grass that was overwhelmed in winter began to dry up, spring wildfires began to occur on the grassland. The flame chased by the wind is like running water, desperately swallowing hay, crossing the high stem of donkey thistle, sliding down the head of brown mugwort and rolling down. After the wildfire was put out, the grassland smelled of burnt and cracked land for a long time. Grass crushed by snow and winter blows gray ash and black dust that stings the nose into the distance. " This passage is full of objective natural scenery, but each sentence is full of the author's subjective feelings about the Cossack life on the Don River after the war and revolution and the tragic ending of the protagonist Gregory Malekhov. At this time, "the snow has melted", "the tender grass is blue" and "larks" flying up and down in the blue sky are showing the beginning of the whole Cossack's new life. The "broken grass", "charred dead soil" and "pungent smell" in "wild fire burning the ground" set off the ultimate complete degeneration and destruction of the hero deeply and touching.
Although the novel The Silent Don is written about a social situation full of political meaning, and there are smoke and fire of ruthless class opposition and class struggle everywhere between the lines, it makes people read poetic and full of gloomy lyrical atmosphere. He is good at expressing colorful life through love, portraying vivid paragraphs and revealing the mystery of psychological changes of characters, which embodies one of the artistic characteristics of the works of The Silent Don.
3. sholokhov's description of characters' psychological contradictions is subtle and profound. The "dialectical thinking" of the characters described by sholokhov is related to the times and social environment in which the characters live.
Eugene, the son of the landlord, lived with his lover Narnia after the war. From the perspective of a decent man, he thought it was shameful and immoral, but later he thought he risked his life at the front. If the bullet goes a little further to the right, it will go through his head, which reflects the serious influence of war on people's behavior and morality. War makes people feel that life is short and illusory, and at the same time, war can easily breed a wrong idea that life is short and eat, drink, and be merry.
Gregory Malhof, the hero of Silent Tang, was shaken by pain all his life.
Gregory fought bravely after joining the war, but when he hacked an Austrian soldier to death for the first time, I don't know why. Afterwards, "his footsteps were chaotic and heavy, as if he were carrying a burden of incompetence on his shoulders, and his soul was crushed by hatred and suspicion." As he said to his brother Pietro, "My heart is killing me. Now I am like a half-dead person, and my conscience makes me very sad. " The deep pain made him thin. Yes, in that era when the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, revolution and counter-revolution fought to the death, he hated the rule of landlords and capitalists and the White Party, but he was incompatible with the new proletarian regime. Confusion and depression, remorse and hesitation in seeking the right path and thinking about history, and stinging sadness after losing loved ones are intertwined, reflecting the great pain of an era full of tragedies.