Modern Chinese Literature Volume - Appreciation of Literary Masterpieces

Author: Fang Chang'an
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: "The Little Moon" was first published in the April 1935 issue of Guowen Weekly. In 1931, Lao She wrote a long novel titled The Great Ming Lake. In 1932, Japanese bombing of Shanghai's Zhabei destroyed the manuscript of The Great Ming Lake that was being printed by the Commercial Press. The author never kept drafts and was unwilling to rewrite it, so he extracted the most compelling parts to write The Little Moon. As a soul that rose from the ashes of The Great Ming Lake, The Little Moon sings a tragic ballad of those who have been cast into the darkest depths of life in urban society, suffering damage and humiliation. The lyrical protagonist, appearing in the first person, is a helpless and vulnerable woman. The author pours deep sympathy into her, and the entire story is imbued with an inescapable sense of profound life sorrow. The author's gaze is fixed on the bottom of urban society, on the crushed fate of women at the grassroots, and on their shattered hearts. With a tone of grief and indignation and a sharp critical edge, he reveals how a pure soul is cast into dirty mire, how it struggles for survival at the cost of humiliation, and how this soul, twisted by filth and humiliation, is ultimately offered as a sacrifice on a hypocritical moral altar. Through the tragic destruction of a woman of pure heart yet still striving for self-improvement in a hell on earth, the novel portrays a rare, flesh-and-blood, soulful image of a prostitute in the realm of modern fiction. This lower-class woman, humiliated and damaged, is entirely a victim of the corrupt institution of prostitution. And this inhumane and ugly phenomenon is precisely the product of the naked monetary interests between people in old China. Lao She expresses deep sympathy for these suffering sisters, directing his strong moral indignation at the semi-feudal, semi-colonial social system of old China. With his own blood and tears, he pleads with readers to understand how a money-dominated society extinguishes the value and beauty of life, how it blocks the path of the innocent and good, how it turns people into inhuman beings, and how it repeatedly creates life and social tragedies. "Mom" is a person whose soul has been consumed by money. She was originally kind, gentle, hardworking, and loved her daughter as all mothers do. Later, under the pressure of life and poverty, she changed. On the surface, she transformed from youthful beauty to looking like a ghost, leaving only white hair and wrinkles. P50