Midnight

Midnight

Midnight, formerly known as sunset, is a modern Chinese novel with about 300000 words. Mao Dun began to write in October 1931 and finished on December 5, 1932, with a total of 19 chapters. Some chapters have been published in fiction monthly and Literature Monthly respectively. For more than half a century, midnight not only has a wide readership in China, but also has been translated into more than ten languages, such as English, German, Russian, Japanese and so on, which has produced extensive international influence.

The novel takes the semi feudal and semi colonial old Shanghai in May and June 1930 as the background, and the national capitalist Wu Sunfu as the center. It describes all kinds of contradictions and struggles in Chinese society at that time.

content validity

In the 1930s, although China's people were in a state of depression and war, it was a different scene in urbanized Shanghai. Here, there is a life of drunkenness, a calculation of open and secret strife, and a variety of people who tend to be popular. Wu Sunfu, who opened a silk factory, took his father from the countryside to Shanghai to avoid the war. The complicated urban landscape made the old man who stayed at home die suddenly. Wu's funeral, Shanghai beach dignified people come to condole. They gathered in the living room to inquire about the war, talk business and socialize. Zhao Botao, a comprador capitalist who was good at speculation, found Wu Sunfu and his brother-in-law Du Zhuzhai, and coaxed them to form a large "bull" of public debt with joint funds. He wanted to buy cheap and sell expensive stocks in stock trading to make huge profits. Du Zhuzhai hesitated, so Zhao Botao revealed to him his plan to manipulate the war situation with money. Wu and Du decided to work with Zhao Botao once. This time, the cooperation was successful with small waves. Because the chaos and speculation in financial bonds hindered the development of the industry, sun Jiren and Wang Hefu, colleagues in the industry, recommended Wu Sunfu to set up a bank to be his own financial circulation organ, and hoped to use most of his capital to run transportation, mining and other enterprises in the future. This is exactly what Wu Sun Fu wanted. He was ambitious and adventurous. He likes to work with people who are as far sighted as he is, but he has no mercy on the half dead capitalists. Soon, Yizhong trust company was established. At this time, an accident happened in Shuangqiao Town, Wu Sun Fu's hometown, and the peasants revolted, causing losses to some of his industries in the countryside. The rising tide of workers in the factory also made him restless. In order to deal with the strike, Wu Sun Fu employed Tu Wei Yue, a brave and resourceful young employee. First, he secretly bribed Yao Jinfeng, the leading female worker, to break up the organization of the labor tide. After the incident, Yao Jinfeng was regarded as a running dog of the capitalist by the workers. When the labor tide came back, he made Wu Sunfu dismiss Yao under the pretext of promoting the female worker who had made the matter known. In this way, Yao's prestige was restored, but the workers refused to accept her treatment. Then, as a concession, Wu took back his life, refused to fire Yao, and appeased the female workers to give them a day off. Wu Sun Fu acted according to his plan and, as expected, put down the strike. the struggle on the exchange is also increasingly fierce. The former union between Wu Sunfu and Zhao Botao turned into a situation of confrontation and rivalry. Yizhong trust company, as a power to compete with Zhao, formed a fight between Zhao Botao as a "bull" and Yizhong company as a "bear". Chao Po Tao had an eye on Wu Sun Fu and wanted to take advantage of Wu's lack of funds to swallow his property. After several rounds of competition, Yizhong lost 80000 yuan and stopped. At this time, Wu Sun Fu's capital was increasingly tight, and he began to exploit the labor of the workers and embezzle their wages. With the arrival of a new round of strike, Tu Weiyue's tactics of disintegrating the workers' organization were discovered, and Wu Sunfu fell into a dilemma of internal and external coercion. Chao Po Tao wanted to invest in Wu Sun Fu's Bank. Wu was determined to fight for it. He even mortgaged his own silk factory and residence as government bonds to fight against it. He finally knew how difficult it was to develop national industry in China. His personal concerns made him involuntarily involved in the speculative market of short selling. Zhao Botao manipulated the management of the stock exchange to make it difficult for Wu Sunfu, the short seller. Wu Sun Fu, who was almost desperate, put his only hope on Du Zhuzhai. At the critical moment, Du Zhuzhai turned to Zhao Botao. Wu Sun Fu was completely bankrupt.

Creative background

The writing intention of midnight is related to the debate about the nature of Chinese society at that time. At that time, there were roughly three arguments: first, that Chinese society was still semi feudal and semi colonial in nature, that workers and peasants were the main forces of the revolution, and that the revolutionary leadership must be in the hands of the Communist Party; second, that China had embarked on the capitalist road, and that the task of anti imperialism and anti feudalism should be undertaken by the Chinese bourgeoisie; third, that China's national bourgeoisie could play a leading role in the revolution It is not only against the national and democratic revolutionary movement led by the Communist Party, but also against the bureaucrat comprador bourgeoisie to survive and develop, so as to establish the European and American style bourgeois regime. Under such historical conditions, in the field of literature which is still regarded as people's enlightenment, there is no doubt that there is an urgent need for an epoch-making work to correctly analyze the current situation and the way out of China. As far as the author is concerned, Mao Dun always adheres to the creative idea of "literary expression of life", and the creation of this theme coincides with this. Driven by such factors as social reality, political needs and the author's position, the theme of midnight is the final failure of the "enterprise kingdom" of the national bourgeoisie represented by Wu Sunfu, which tells us that China has not embarked on the capitalist road, and the Chinese national bourgeoisie can not lead the road of Chinese revolution. The ultimate way out for China is through the leadership of the proletariat It was realized by the revolution of the masses of workers and peasants.

Characters

Midnight also describes the life details of the characters with vivid writing, and often contains profound thoughts in the description of ordinary life details. The characteristics of these details are both real and symbolic. The author repeatedly describes the details of Wu's so-called "supreme induction", which is sincere and sincere. This detail is real, but it also symbolizes his old, stubborn landlord class's ideological character. It is also true that Lei presented Lin Peiyao's "the trouble of Young Werther" and a withered white rose, but it also symbolizes their secret love and ending.

Wu Sun Fu

Wu Sunfu is the protagonist of the novel midnight and a typical Chinese national capitalist in the 1930s. The author uses a lot of pen and ink to put him in the complicated class struggle and social relations in China in the 1930s, and in the typical environment to create a typical example of this national capitalist. Because the Chinese national bourgeoisie is the bourgeoisie of a semi colonial and semi feudal country, on the one hand, they are oppressed by imperialism and fettered by feudalism, so they are in contradiction with imperialism and feudalism; on the other hand, they are weak economically and politically, so they do not have the courage to fight against imperialism and feudalism thoroughly. This duality of the national bourgeoisie determines that when they are facing the enemy, they should unite with the workers and peasants against the enemy, which is revolutionary to a certain extent; when the workers and peasants wake up, they should unite with the enemy against the workers and peasants, which is reactionary as counter revolutionary assistants. Wu Sunfu is such a complex character with duality, which has the side of squeezing the sweat and blood of the workers and hating the peasant movement, and the side of resisting imperialism, comprador class and developing national industry.

The duality of Wu Sun Fu's character has both his progressive side and his reactionary side.

In terms of his progress: < ol > < li > first of all, he dared to resist the control of imperialism and to confront Zhao Botao, the representative of the comprador bourgeoisie and the agent of imperialism. With the support of Tang Yunshan, he joined hands with sun Jiren, manager of the Pacific Company, and Wang Hefu, manager of Daxing coal mine company, to organize "Yizhong trust company" to run bank trust business, determined to compete with Zhao Botao. In the struggle with Zhao Botao, he launched attacks, met challenges, suffered setbacks, struggled, and finally lost his family and property. Wu Sun Fu's actions show that he is in direct contradiction with imperialism and the financial comprador bourgeoisie. He is rebellious against imperialism's ambition to control China's economic lifeline. He not only "hates" imperialism and the comprador bourgeoisie, but also contradicts the rule between Wu Sun Fu and the reactionary government. He said: "as long as the country is like a country The government is like a government. There must be hope for Chinese industry. " This reveals his dissatisfaction with the years of warlord scuffle and the dark government at that time. < / Li > < li > Wu Sunfu tried his best to develop and revitalize China's national industry. He not only set up enterprises in rural areas, but also set up Yuhua silk factory and Yizhong trust company in Shanghai. With the increase of capital and the expansion of business scope, besides silk weaving industry, he also has light bulbs, hot water bottles, parasols, soap, rubber shoes, etc. Although his ideal of revitalizing China's national industry could not be realized in the semi colonial and semi feudal society of China, it showed his national pride and patriotism to a certain extent from the special national conditions and historical environment of China at that time. < / Li > < li > Wu Sunfu had little contact with feudal forces and hoped to build a wonderful bourgeois kingdom. He is an industrial capitalist who has traveled to Europe and America and has knowledge of capitalist enterprise management. In order to develop national industry, he set up power plants, rice factories, oil mills, banks and pawnshops in the rural areas of Shuangqiao Town, his hometown. Objectively speaking, this move was an effort to carry out capitalist transformation of rural feudalism at that time

Chinese PinYin : Zi Ye