Chapter 2 Appreciation of works

It is the late masterpiece of Tolstoy.At this time, the writer's world view had undergone drastic changes. He abandoned the traditional views of the upper-class landlords and aristocrats, re-examined various social phenomena from the perspective of patriarchal peasants, and vividly depicted the true picture of Tsarist Russian society through the encounters of the hero and heroine: disregarding human life. The courts and prisons where innocent people are imprisoned; resplendent churches and shabby prisoners; desolate and bankrupt countryside and luxurious and luxurious Kyoto; vast Siberia and political prisoners in handcuffs and feet.With the most sober realism, Tolstoy launched a fierce attack on the whole state apparatus of the time.

First of all, the writer judged the "judge" in the name of the people, tore off the masks of the tsarist bureaucrats, official priests, and representatives of the noble brigade who sat high on the trial seat, and analyzed their dirty souls.And the more profound judgment is going on in Nekhludolph's mind.He is the first sinner who caused Katyusha's misfortune.After recognizing Katyusha in court, "in the depths of his soul he had to feel the cruelty, the cowardice, the baseness of that act, and the whole of his idle, depraved, cruel, indolent life. From then on, he began to change his thinking and life. He tried to transform from "animal person" to "spiritual person", and tried his best to re-examine everything around him from the perspective of victims and ordinary people.He gradually became the judge of his class.Through his protagonist, the author circles the top of the ruling class and discovers that the real culprit is the one who holds the power of life and death and makes laws. It started in committees and government offices."Nekhludolf traveled to the lowest level of the poor people and saw the peasants struggling with hunger. He realized that "the main reason for the peasants' poverty is as obvious as the day, that is, the only land that can feed them is taken from them by the landlords. snatched from hand."

Nekhludorf is a Tolstoyian hero who expresses the main idea of ​​the work.However, without the image of Katyusha, the life of the people cannot be fully displayed, and there will be no such profound and touching power.When the writer wrote about Katyusha, he showed such sincere sympathy and love.When she was a girl, she was the adopted daughter and maid of the landlord's family, but she was not at all servile.She is innocent, but childish and ignorant. With a pure heart, she imagines a beautiful world and immerses herself in a happy life.After being raped, Katyusha still had fantasies, until the stormy autumn night, Nekhludolf sat in the comfortable and bright first-class car, playing cards and talking and laughing, while Katyusha ran and shouted beside the train, but Did not hear back.Only then did she begin to realize that there was an unbridgeable gap between them, that they belonged to two worlds.She really wanted to jump under the wheel and die for the rest of her life.The squirming of the fetus aroused her maternal feelings, but since then, she lost light and hope in front of her eyes, groped and struggled in the dark, "she no longer believed in God and goodness", and realized that "everything about God and goodness Those words are all lies."

Katyusha Maslova's plump and real image is unique in the women's gallery in the history of Russian literature.Its typical significance is also profound.It is through Katyusha and her misfortune that the work reflects "the great ocean of the people that is turbulent all the way to the deepest bottom" (Lenin).In the image system, she and Nekhliudov complement each other, embodying the theme of the work.If anything, there is no regularity in Tolstoy's conception.Matter is simply the result of "duration" stagnation or weakening.It can be concluded that Nekhludorf's lust on Easter night was the beginning of his fall, so Katyusha's doubt and denial of goodness and God in the miserable station scene is the internal cause of her fall.The turning points of their lives depend on their attitude to the eternal law—God's truth.Their subsequent spiritual resurrection, therefore, is first of all a conversion to God and a renewed faith in goodness and love.Nekh left Dov through repentance and redemption, and Katyusha restored love through forgiving each other.At the same time, Tolstoy, the master of realism, also wrote about the social factors and class antagonism in the relationship between the hero and heroine, so that the theme of society and the theme of ethics and morality are closely integrated and integrated.

As an aristocrat, under the impact of capitalist forces, Tolstoy saw only the state apparatus—the strengthening of violence, the degradation of social morality, and the bankruptcy of the countryside.In order to contend with the capitalist world, he naturally turned to the peasants.Lunacharsky pointed out that this is not only the result of Tolstoy's personal exploration, but also the road from Herzen to the Narodnik, and "Tolstoy is particularly typical in this respect." , because he objectively reflects the characteristics of the Russian peasant bourgeois revolution.This also determines the typical meaning of Nekhliudov's image.

In my country, six translations have been published since the beginning of this century. In the 1930s and 1940s, plays of the same name adapted by dramatists Tian Han and Xia Yan were published and staged. The work and its protagonists have become very familiar and loved by Chinese readers and audiences. character image. (Written by Ni Ruiqin)