I How Steel is Made
Nikolai Ostrovsky (1904-1936) was a famous Soviet Bolshevik writer. Nikolai Ostrovsky (1904_1936), a famous Bolshevik writer in the USSR, has become one of the most famous writers in the world, along with Paul Kochakin, since his novel "How Steel is Made" came out. Together with Paul Kochakin, he has become a friend and role model for millions of aspiring young people around the world.
In 1904, Ostrovsky was born in Ukraine into a working family. His father was a seasonal worker at a brewery, and his mother worked as a cook for a large family. As a result, he only had three years of schooling and began working for a living when he was about ten years old. Ostrovsky worked in various occupations, such as herding horses for others, working as a boy in the station canteen, working as an assistant stoker in a power plant, etc. His poor and humiliating life cultivated his hatred for the old world and his character of resistance; at the age of thirteen he began to take part in the revolutionary activities; in 1918, when his hometown was occupied by the German army for a time, he risked his own life to complete the tasks assigned to him by the organization. Collecting enemy information and posting revolutionary bulletins on the sentry huts of the German commanders showed his resourcefulness, bravery and fear of sacrifice, and was praised by his comrades.
In July 1919, Ostrovsky's hometown established the **** Youth League, he became the first generation of **** Youth League, and participated in the Red Army ran to the front to fight with the White bandits. The following year, during a fierce battle, he was wounded in several places in the head and abdomen, and lost 80% of his vision in his right eye as a result of his injuries. The severity of his injuries forced Ostrov to leave the ranks. However, as soon as the injury improved, he turned to labor construction with a high degree of revolutionary consciousness, first as an assistant electrician in a railroad factory, and then voluntarily enrolled in a commando unit and put into the hard labor of railroad construction. On the construction site, he contracted typhoid fever and rheumatism, often in a coma. Before he recovered from this serious illness, he actively participated in the intense labor of salvaging firewood on the Dibnye River. Because of the long time soaking in waist-deep ice water, resulting in rheumatism is more serious, and soon broke out multiple arthritis, pneumonia. Since then lost the minimum health, and worsening, to 1929, his whole body paralyzed, blind, completely lost the ability to move, but he was not pessimistic and depressed, "as long as the heart has not stopped beating, we must make ourselves a useful person to the party." Learning to create literature, is lying on the sickbed Ostrovsky found "into the life of the ticket".
Toward the end of 1927, while struggling with his illness, Ostrovsky wrote a novel about the growth and development of the Kotov Cavalry Brigade and its heroic campaigns. Two months later the novel was finished, he sealed the novel and let his wife send it to his comrades in the Kotov Cavalry Brigade in Odessa for their comments, who enthusiastically evaluated the novel, but never thought that the manuscript was lost by the post office on the way back to the mail. This unexpected blow was too cruel for him, but it did not dampen his strong will, and while attending the Sverdlov****ist Correspondence University, he began to conceptualize a much larger novel, How Iron is Made.The novel was published in 1934, with great success, and he was absorbed into the Writers' Association of the USSR. Ostrovsky then began work on another set of three-step novels, Born in the Storm, in recognition of his creative labors and outstanding contributions to literature. in December 1936, due to a recurrence of a serious illness, Ostrovsky passed away in Moscow.
Two Story Synopsis
Paul. Paul Kochagin, born into a poor railroad worker's family, lost his father at an early age and relied on his mother to do the laundry and cooking to make ends meet. 12 years old, his mother sent him to work as a servant in the station canteen, where he suffered a lot of abuse. He hated the shopkeepers and the rich people who drank and drank.
After the outbreak of the October Revolution, imperialists and reactionaries tried to strangle the new Soviet regime. Paul's home town of Shebetova, Ukraine, also endured years of armed foreign intervention and civil war. The Red Army liberated the town of Shebetovka, but soon withdrew, leaving only the old Bushwick Jukhrai to work underground in the town. He stayed at Paul's house for a few days and taught Paul many things about the revolution, the working class and the class struggle; Jukhrai was Paul's initial leader on the road to revolution.
On a fishing trip, Paul befriended Tonya, the daughter of a forestry officer.
One day, Juhlai was captured by the White bandits. Paul inquired everywhere about his whereabouts, and when the bandit soldiers were on their way to escort Juhlai, Paul pounced on them, knocked them down in a trench, and escaped with Juhlai. Due to the informing of Viktor, the son of the Polish aristocrat Liszczynski, Paul was taken to prison. In prison, Paul withstood the torture, strong and unyielding, in order to meet the head of the White Philadelphia Petliura to visit the small town, a second-class officer mistakenly released Paul as a common prisoner. Afraid to go home for fear of falling back into the clutches of the devil, he came involuntarily to the door of Tonya's garden and leaped into it. Since Paul had rescued Tonya from the last fishing trip, and since she liked his "passionate and stubborn" character, she was delighted by his arrival. Paul also feels that Tonya is different from other rich girls, and they both feel a misty love for each other. In order to take refuge, he agrees to Tonya's request and stays. A few days later, Tonya found Paul's brother Altyn, who sent his brother to join the Red Army in Khachadin.
Paul joined the army as a scout and later as a cavalryman. He was a brave and capable man on the battlefield and an excellent political propagandist. He especially liked to read "The Gadfly", "Spartacus" and other works, often read aloud or tell stories to his comrades. During a fierce battle, he was seriously wounded in the head, but he overcame death with tenacity. His physical condition prevented him from returning to the front, so he immediately devoted himself to restoring and building the country. He did regimental work, purges, and unselfishly devoted himself to hard physical labor. The work of building railroads was especially hard; autumn rains, mud, snow, frozen soil, lack of food and clothing for everyone, open-air lodging, and there were also attacks by armed bandits and the threat of disease.
During this time, he and Tonya had a crisis of love, and Tonya's vulgar individualism turned him off. By the time he saw her again while building the railroad, she was married to a wealthy engineer. Paul in the railroad factory as secretary of the Communist Youth League, and the Communist Youth League member Lida in the work of frequent contact, the two gradually developed feelings. However, he mistook Lida's brother for her lover and lost the chance to fall in love with her.
At the end of the road construction work, Paul got typhoid fever and pneumonia, and the organization had to send Paul back to his hometown to recuperate. Halfway there it was mistakenly rumored that Paul had died, but for the fourth time Paul beat death and returned to earth. After recovering from his illness, he returned to work and joined the party. Because of all kinds of injuries and illnesses and forgetfulness of work and labor, Paul's physique is getting worse and worse, lost the ability to work, the party organization had to release him from work, let him long-term hospitalization. While convalescing at the seaside, he met Daya and fell in love. Paul continued to help Daya progress, while beginning to study tenaciously to enhance the ability to write. 1927, Paul has been paralyzed, and then blind, the ravages of the disease finally this full of passion for the fight of the warrior bound to the bed. Paul also once had the idea of suicide, but he soon came out from the trough. This paralyzed, blind and without the slightest writing experience, began his heroic career - literary creation. Enduring great physical and mental pain, Paul first wrote in a frame made of cardboard, then dictated himself and asked others to record on his behalf. With the help of his mother and wife, the novel How Steel is Made, which he wrote with his life, was finally published in 1934! Paul picked up a new weapon and began a new life.
Three Characters
The greatest achievement of the novel "How Iron is Made" is the successful portrayal of Paul Kochakin, a man who was born in a Bolshevik village. Kochagin this in the Bolshevik party under the cultivation, in the revolutionary fire and hard environment tempered out of the typical image of the new ****productivist. His love and hatred of the class position, noble moral style, high revolutionary passion, miraculous vitality and strong will of steel, composing the magnificent poem of dedicating everything to the party and the people.
Paul is a self-conscious, selfless revolutionary warrior, he always put the interests of the party and the motherland in the first place. In the blood and fire of the war years, Paul and his brothers and fathers rode together on the frontiers, in defense of the Soviet regime, with foreign armed interferers and the white bandits fought in blood, showing a willingness to sacrifice for the cause of the revolution, the spirit of sacrifice. During the difficult years of healing the wounds of war and restoring the national economy, he devoted himself to peaceful labor with all his enthusiasm. Although he was once a jingoist and a bloodstained soldier, he was not proud of his accomplishments, nor did he consider his personal fame and fortune, but only wanted to do more for the Party and the people. The party told him to repair the railroad, he went; the party transferred him to be a cadre of the regiment, he went, and all of them harmed his life to do. For the sake of the revolution, he could even sacrifice love. He loved Lida, but under the influence of "Gadfly", he wanted to "devote himself completely to the revolutionary cause", so he said goodbye without saying goodbye according to the way of "Gadfly". After being paralyzed and blind, his only need in life was to be able to continue to work for the Party. As he said, "My whole life and all my energy have been dedicated to the most magnificent cause in the world -- the struggle for the liberation of mankind."
Paul is a tough and strong revolutionary warrior, he has withstood severe tests in all aspects of life. In front of the enemy's torture, he was steadfast; in the battlefield, he was brave; in the fight with the devouring life of the disease, he has repeatedly made the gods of death, creating a miracle of "back from the dead". In particular, the process of climbing up to the temple of art while he was still on his deathbed demonstrated the highest level of iron will that a revolutionary warrior can achieve.
Paul is another heroic figure who sees greatness in the ordinary. In his resume, there is no earth-shattering great performance, he always started from the most ordinary small things. Faced with the heavy blow of disease, he also had the idea of suicide, and it is in his heroic passion to fight with the disease, he contains the danger of "leftist" infantile disease. Paul later also finally realized that he did not love the body can not be called heroic behavior, but a kind of capricious and irresponsible. Therefore, Paul is great, but also ordinary, he is in the fire of the revolution gradually refined mature steel warrior, day a flesh and blood, let a person feel close to the role model.
Paul is a typical image with autobiographical nature shaped by the author himself as a prototype, and the writer is based on his own life experience and true feelings to depict Paul. Therefore, Paul's moving deeds are not artistic fiction, but basically a true story, but its real, so more touching. However, the author opposes to regard this novel as a writer's autobiography, because "this is a novel, not a biography". In Paul, he concentrated on his contemporaries, many similar characters of thought and character traits, using the typicalization of the technique. He said: "In this book, I am not writing about Paul Kochagin. In this book, I am not writing about Paul Kochagin alone, but about millions of Kochagins, millions of men and women who fought for their own happiness and put their lives on the line!" Paul's image is both autobiographical, more terse, is the brightest and most typical representative of the young generation of socialism.
Four Theme Ideas
How Iron Is Made is an excellent novel that describes the growth process of a newcomer and reveals the newcomer's excellent qualities. When a British journalist asked the author why he took "How Steel is Made" as the title of his book, Ostrovsky replied, "Steel is forged in fire and sudden cold. Only then does it become hard and fear nothing, and it is in such struggles, in hard trials, that our generation has been tempered and has learned not to be decadent in the face of life."
The title of the book graphically summarizes the content of the ideas he is trying to express; the path of growth and ideological character of his own generation.
Through Paul. Kochakin's path of growth, the novel tells people that only when a person defeats the enemy as well as himself in the hardships of the revolution, and only when he links his own pursuits with the interests of the motherland and the people, will he create miracles and grow up to be a warrior of steel. It is an important theme of the novel that revolutionaries are refined into steel in the struggle.
By revealing Paul's stalwart character that dares to overcome any hardship for the cause of the Party and the people, the novel graphically tells the young generation what the ideal of ****productivism is, and how to strive for ****productivist understanding. What kind of life should a revolutionary soldier have, this is another theme of the novel. Paul's words at the gravesite of his female comrade-in-arms, Wa Lian, are a confession of his ****anist outlook on life and an elaboration of this theme of the novel:
"The most precious thing in a man's life is life, and life belongs to a man only once. A man's life should be spent in such a way that, when he looks back, he will not regret his wasted years, nor will he be ashamed of his inactivity; so that, on his deathbed, he will be able to say, 'My whole life and all my energies have been devoted to the most magnificent cause in the world - the The struggle for the liberation of mankind.'"
The thematic idea of the novel can be summarized in this way: a person's life should be spent like Paul. Kochakin.
Five Artistic Features
How Iron is Made is an autobiographical novel, and many of the stories in the novel come from the author's personal experience, which makes it more real and believable. However, the author does not stick to the facts of life, and has made a lot of typicalization of characters and plots.
How Steel is Made and Gorky's Autobiographical Trilogy have made an important contribution to the innovation of autobiographical novels.
All the descriptions in the novel are centered on the growth of the main character, and the structure is compact and natural. When portraying the character of the main character, different aspects of the character are used to show his excellent qualities. Through the description of Paul how to deal with prison, war, work, friendship, love, disease, frustration, that is, how to deal with the revolution and personal, public and private, life and death and other major issues of attitude, the image of Paul as a steel warrior shaped extraordinarily full of vivid, brilliant.
Six wonderful chapter appreciation
How Steel Is Made is divided into two parts, the first part of the description of the domestic war, the second part of the description of economic recovery and socialist construction. The second part of the book is the theme of the full development of the part of the performance of the melting of "steel" and "steel" refining, of which the most important chapters are the second section and the ninth section.
Seven wonderful quotes
The most precious thing is life, and life belongs to man only once. A man's life should be spent in such a way that when he looks back, he will not regret his wasted years, nor will he be ashamed of his inactivity; so that, at the time of his death, he will be able to say, "My whole life and all my energies have been devoted to the most magnificent cause in the world --- the struggle for the liberation of mankind. -Struggle for the liberation of mankind."