"Family Ethical Conflict"
"King Lear" tells the story of an old King Lear, who gradually becomes self-righteous and ambitious. Thus, he drove away his youngest daughter, who was kind-hearted, and was abandoned by his two eldest daughters. The third daughter, who became the Queen of France, led an army to save her father, but was killed, and King Lear died beside her in grief. ①And "Five Daughters Worship Life" is about Yang Jikang's birthday, five daughters and sons-in-law came to wish him a happy birthday, because of the adopted daughter Sanchun and son-in-law Zou Yinglong gift is thin, Mrs. Yang is very unhappy. After Yang was convicted of a crime, all of his daughters were rejected, but only Sanchun and his wife took him in. After Zou in the examination, Yang was also wronged, because of the former feelings do not recognize all the women and only kiss the story of the three women. ②
Under different socio-historical conditions, the two dramas show a denial of the "dislike of the poor and the love of the rich," an exposure of hypocrisy, a distrust of the power of weak words, and an affirmation of real behavior. The "ethical conflict in the family" is its ****same mother-theme. The social nature of human existence and the structure of blood-family relationship tell us that ethical conflict in the family is a problem encountered in every country and every history, not only China is concerned about the father's benevolence and filial piety, brotherhood and brotherhood, as King Lear teases with the following words "The old father has a hundred knots of clothes, the children do not know each other, the old father has a full bag of gold, the children do filial piety. Isn't the strong satire on the destruction of morality and ethics in "Fate is like a whore, poor and abandoned" (3) the counterpart of the ethical conflict in "Five Daughters Bidding for a Happy Birthday"? Behind the ethical conflict in the family is actually an imbalance in the group relationship caused by the change of power: after Lear loses his power, his capriciousness is no longer tolerated; Yang Jikang and his wife are relegated to the status of commoners, and the original family relationship is immediately difficult to maintain; and once they are restored to their original positions, they will regain their power of speech again. The two works, one through the destruction of losing power, the other through the contrast between having power and not having power, reveal the essence of life that "power" seems to be evil, but has become the support of a person's foothold in a civilized society.
Linear narrative and net narrative
In Chinese drama, what is important is not the presentation of a three-dimensional character image, but the expressive power of the cultural and moral impression carried by the character, so it will constantly highlight a certain part of the character, either good, or evil, or loyal, or treacherous, so that the audience can understand the plot the fastest, and form a correct vision of expectations. Expectation vision, but such distinctive character traits are more often applied to the main characters, such as the integrity of Yang Jikang, the hypocrisy of the eldest son-in-law, the snobbishness of the second daughter and second son-in-law, the goodness of the Sanchun couple ...... These characters maintain relative consistency and prominence in characterization. And the secondary characters often reflect a flavor of life, "Five Daughters Worship Life" in the eldest daughter has the intention to protect her parents but was her husband's cruelty to stop the kind of pain and helplessness, the two youngest daughters of the mother-in-law's vivacity and understanding, making the play more real and moving. Therefore, when you watch "Five Daughters' Birthday", you will have a very clear plot line, although there will be some branches, but it will never overpower the main one, and it is a very clear linear structure.
And the Western theater is very good at showing complex storylines, three-dimensional characters, King Lear set up two parallel plot lines, one dominated by the king, the other to the minister Grost as the dominant, the two lines intertwined with each other, interacting with each other, the characters are intricately related to each other, between the king and the ministers, between the families, between the countries, the roots of the intertwined, to form a huge social network, showing a completely different from the Chinese theater, and the Chinese theater. It is a huge social network, showing a completely different way of presenting the plot from the Chinese drama.
Traditional Chinese drama favors a happy ending, and "Five Daughters' Birthday Tribute" is a typical example of a happy ending, from which we can even see its elaborate artistic structure: it begins with a happy birthday tribute, and then ends with a happy birthday tribute, the whole drama forming a circle. This has a lot to do with the state of Chinese society and the collective social psychology. The exhaustion of the common people's life and the collective consciousness for a long time have made these dramas developed from folklore pay more attention to a kind of outward exploration of the society, and it has a strong dependence on the audience's expectation of the horizons, which is not the independent creation of a certain literati, but an adaptation or re-composition based on a kind of entertainment demand. Since the general public comes to have fun, what they need is to have their grievances avenged, to have evil prevail over good, and for lovers to be reunited, so traditional dramas show the ideal reality of the society everywhere. However, the struggle between the helplessness of life and the power of human nature expressed in the drama is often dissolved in this kind of mundane success.
The West has a deep tradition of tragedy, as early as the ancient Greek period produced a very mature tragedy works and tragic images, such as revenge for her husband and son of Medea, can not escape the fate of the final murder of his father to marry his mother, Oedipus the king of ...... they have y affected the development of Western theater, whether it is on the creation of the tragedy or the acceptance of the tragedy. Western society since the Renaissance individualist ideas for the writer's independent creation undoubtedly has a propulsive effect, although the tradition of tragedy makes the acceptance of tragedy will be relatively easy, however, the Western audience is not without the expectation of a happy ending vision, "King Lear" was initially also a comedy ending, and Shakespeare with his own literary creation of ideas will be reasonable adaptation, so that the work can be a personal The tragedy of reality illuminates the tragedy of the times, and gives people a deep thought, in which I have to admit that the Western drama has a higher height in the power of thought.
Elegant and sublime
Whether it is the complex and varied characterization, or the extremely logical net-like plot, or the weakness of human nature and fate of the tragedy of the courage to create, we have to say that the Western tragedy has a profound connotation beyond the times, appreciate it as in the sea to feel a storm, which can be between heaven and earth to give you a cosmic life enlightenment, so that even if you suffer, you also have a deeper meaning, to appreciate it as in the ocean to feel a storm, which can give you between heaven and earth, to give you the universe of life inspiration. It makes you face the tragedy of reality and the unfreedom of life even if you are in pain, and it is in this kind of "delicate and ever-changing human passion" that one can feel the pain brought by the sublime. The words "A madman walking with a blind man is a kind of morbidity of this age" (5) and "Even if a man has no eyes, he can still see the ugliness of the world" (6) convey what kind of an indictment of the times, which is precisely due to the fact that the work has gone out of the personal family and into the broader world. It is precisely because the work goes beyond the individual family to a broader social life that makes it so great.
Unlike the sublime beauty of power in Western tragedy, traditional Chinese drama is more in the form, and what it achieves is a relatively gentle grace. History is indeed a marvelous journey, and the trinity of poetry, music, and dance, which arose in primitive society, manifested itself in another form in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. Traditional Chinese drama once again combines poetry, music and dance together, and adds rap and performance, forming an artistic beauty full of classical flavor are not, "thousands of refined singing design, a hand, a throw feet of the dance program movements, sculptural appearance, symbolic, schematic layout of the environment, unusually concise and clear explanation of the plot, a high degree of choice of dramatic conflict, so that the content and form of the blend seamlessly, and especially the content and form of the drama, and so on. form are intertwined, especially emphasizing the beauty of the form that has accumulated the requirements of the content. This is no longer simply a balanced, symmetrical, varied and unified external beauty of form, but is intertwined with the meaning of the content. (7) Such a "meaningful form" is an art in itself, and each person in the Vietnamese opera "Five Daughters Pay Respect to Their Longevity" is full of animation between their hands and their feet, and their singing is particularly moving, and their performances are genuinely moving, so this work, "despite the content of the reproduced literary script, through music, dance, singing, and performance, puts as an example the beauty of the content. Such a work, "though based on a reproduced literary script, develops through music, dance, singing and performance, the lyrical character and the art of line, which is the soul of Chinese literature and art, into another unprecedented and unique comprehensive realm. It is not actually literary content but to win in the form of art, that is to say, to win by beauty" ⑧
Chinese theater and Western theater has its own unique charm, the deep tradition of theater so that Westerners for the theater has been to maintain a good interest in the traditional Chinese opera because of the arrival of the fast-paced life and difficult to attract modern people's eyes, gradually faded from view. Gradually faded from people's view, but I think it will not die out, because China is a country that values inheritance, however, these operas are also difficult to have further development, because innovation requires a large number of new life force injection, the need for genius to take up the big task, talented people are not in a door a household, but in the world. No development means further disconnection, such a vicious circle will make these plays lose the folk soil, and ultimately can only become a collection in the screen. In fact, before this, I had only seen the local flower drum opera with my grandfather when I was a child, familiar with a few lines of the classic lyrics of "A Sister Lin Falling from the Sky", for the Chinese theater has no understanding, and no intention to understand the first time I heard Yueju Opera, "Five Daughters Bow to the Birthday of a Child" was a little anxious at first, however, once you get into the mood of the drama to quietly go! However, once I entered the context of the play and quietly listened to the ethereal voice and experienced the sincere performance, I really felt the power of traditional theater, which is embedded in the structure. What surprised me even more was that the characters were not all face-painted as I thought, but presented many vivid characters for me to mourn and rejoice with, which made me feel that even though traditional opera has become the favorite art of a few people, it is still making efforts to develop, and I hope that it will have more chances to stand in front of more people, and to touch more people.
References:
Baidu search for Introduction to King Lear
Baidu search for Introduction to Five Daughters Worshiping Life
Selected from Shakespeare's Four Great Tragedies, 258 pages, Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House, January 2017, second edition
Selected from Shakespeare's Four Great Tragedies, 298 pages, Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House, January 2017 Second Edition
Selected from Shakespeare's Four Great Tragedies, 288 pages, Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House, Second Edition, January 2017
Selected from Li Zehou's Three Books of Aesthetics, 188 pages, Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House, First Edition, January 1999
Selected from Li Zehou's Three Books of Aesthetics, 188 pages, Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House, First Edition, January 1999