On her way to get married, the bride is attracted to Yu Zhanao, a palanquin bearer who chases off robbers. Three days later, the bride returns home and falls passionately in love with Yu Zhanyao in a red sorghum field. When her new husband is killed, the bride bravely presides over the brewery. After driving away the other bandits, Yu Zhanyao sprinkles urine in the wine vat, which turns out to be fragrant and good wine. 9 years later, the Japanese army forces the village people to cut down sorghum to build a highway and flay Master Luo Han for public display. Yu Zhanao led the townspeople to retaliate against the Japanese army, and the townspeople all died. The demented Yu Zhanao, standing next to the body of the shopkeeper, sings a song
The narrative of Red Sorghum unfolds along two threads: the main thread is the armed ambush of a Japanese caravan led by bandit leader "My Grandpa" Yu Zhanao, and the secondary thread is the story of the relationship between Yu Zhanao and his grandmother Dai Fenlian that took place prior to the war. The love story between Yu Zhanao and "my grandmother" Dai Fenglian before the war.
The novel's treatment of the subject matter reflects a rebellion against the traditional novel narrative, a story told in a memetic gesture. In Mo Yan's artistic world lies the Chinese peasant's view of life, history, and even time and space.
The narrative strategy and linguistic approach of Red Sorghum pursues a strong effect of strangeness, and the unfolding of the novel is guided by feelings and driven by emotions.
The novel is in narrative persona, with first and third person superimposed. In the use of language, "Red Sorghum" pursues an expression rich in intensity, where everything is subordinated to the free creation of themes and aesthetic pleasure. Emphasis is placed on feeling, the bold use of rich metaphors, hyperbole, flux, as well as the choice of language color and the creation of momentum.
"Red Sorghum" recounts mainly the story of a civilian anti-Japanese army ambushing a Japanese caravan, showing a certain degree of national consciousness and national awareness. But this is not the main thing. As the main body of the spirit of this novel is a strong sense of life: the praise of the primitive wild, simple and strong vitality, the desire for a free and unrestrained form of life. It is this sense of life that makes the old and old anti-Japanese story regain its shocking power. Red Sorghum is the overall symbol of this sense of life. It can be called the "life totem" of Red Sorghum. The novel uses such passionate language to describe red sorghum, giving life to red sorghum: "In the late fall of August, the boundless sorghum red into a sea of blood. Sorghum high density splendor, sorghum poignant and lovely, sorghum love stirring. Autumn wind is cool, the sun is very prosperous, the blue sky wanders a plump white cloud, sorghum slides on a plump white cloud of purple-red shadow"; "They are living spirits. They are rooted in the black soil, subject to the sun essence and moonlight, moisturized by rain and dew, and know astronomy and geography". Obviously, the red sorghum in the novel is never just a plant. With the great life of red sorghum corresponds to the works of those who performed a scene of heroic and tragic living drama of the hero; also always accompanied by red sorghum, or with red sorghum into one. Yu Zhanao and Dai Fenglian are in the sorghum field to complete the sacred union, Dai Fenglian is in the sorghum field shed the last drop of blood, the novel compared her 30 years of life as "red sorghum like fullness". Yu Daiya with Gaomi Northeast villagers should be heroism frankly to death, sang loudly is "sorghum red", Ren vice officer in the sound of gunfire, bullets frankly forward, with a whistle blowing out the tune is "sorghum red". In this kind of depiction, man and sorghum acquire the same character. The extreme expression of this strong sense of life in the novel is to depict the pain and destruction of life with a calm and even aesthetic attitude - for example, Liu Luohan's ears and genitals were cut off and he was skinned alive, Dai Fenglian made Yu Zhanao and Leng Zhichang drink wine mixed with Luohan's blood, and the tragic deaths of his team members, etc. Because only when a person is in the midst of a great deal of suffering can he be in the midst of a great deal of suffering. Because people can only realize the existence of life strongly when they are in great pain or facing death. This kind of depiction strengthens the consciousness of life on the one hand, and at the same time makes the novel present the beauty of novelty and cruelty. The novel's affirmation of strong vitality and free-spirited life forms sometimes even transcends general ethical evaluations. The fact that Yu Zhanbei has an affair with Dai Fenglian and kills the father and son of the Shan family in order to possess Dai Fenglian is immoral by traditional Chinese ethical standards, but the work depicts this affirmatively. Even for Yu Daya, a man who is greedy for money and lust, the writer praises him for his heroism in going to his death openly. This strong sense of life even contributes to the birth of a special character - "I" in the work. In the work, "I" is not only a narrative point of view, but also a representative of the next generation that lives in a way different from Yu Zhanao and others. To my grandfather's vigorous generation, "I" can only feel inferior and admire. Yu Zhanao and the others actually form a distance and a contrast with me. In this distance and contrast, the writer strengthens his admiration for the vitality embodied by Yu Zhanao and others on the one hand, and on the other hand, he feels sad about the disappearance of that vitality in today's people. That is why in the novel "I" lamented: "the heroism of our forefathers dwarfs that of our living children and grandchildren, and while progressing, I truly feel the degradation of the species. My grandfather's generation of good men, all have the sorghum-like distinctive character of the Gaomi Northeast countrymen, not these weak descendants of ours can be compared". From an artistic point of view, the novel's stream-of-consciousness style of narrative that disrupts the space-time structure was no longer unfamiliar to readers at the time. Its biggest breakthrough, the most borrowed from Marquez and others of the magic realism approach, with a strange feeling as the driving force, change the existence of objective things in the form of static into dynamic, inanimate into alive, so that readers from the things taken for granted to obtain a new aesthetic experience: the golden sun "gear-like rotation"; black hair slipped past"; "sorghum's treacherous magnificent, strange shape, they moaned, twisted, hooted, twisted, sometimes like the devil, sometimes like relatives,...... red and green, white and black, blue and yellow, they laughed, they bawled, and cried tears like raindrops ...... "; and so on. The novel's metaphors are also novel because they are unconventional. For example, it is said that death has "sorghum-like crimson lips and corn-like golden smile"; it is said that the belly of the dead mule and horse suddenly exploded under the soaking of the water and the exposure of the sun, and "the gorgeous intestines overflowed like flowers"; it is said that "someone went to the fence to see what was going on. "Someone peed into that tin bucket on the corner of the fence, and the urine hit the wall of the bucket like beads falling from a jade plate"; and so on. In addition, in the process of narration, the writer sometimes intentionally inserts some language that deviates from the overall narration style. For example, when "I" saw my mother's small feet, I wanted to shout "Down with feudalism! Long live the freedom of the people"; a 92-year-old woman in the countryside sings a jingle; a quotation from a flat official document in the county record; and so on, all of these paint the work with a light layer of humor and witty colors. The strong sense of life,[2] the subject matter with the color of folk legend and the fusion of the different artistic means mentioned above made this middle grade novel a great success.
Some Chapters
On the ninth day of the eighth month of the ancient calendar in 1939, my father, a bandit breed, was a little more than fourteen years old. He followed the team of Commander Yu Zhanao, the legendary hero who later became famous all over the world, to ambush an enemy motorcade on the Jiao Ping highway. Grandma put on her jacket and escorted them to the village head. Commander Yu said, "Stand still." Grandma stood still. Grandma said to my father, "Douguan, listen to your godfather." My father didn't squeak; he looked at Grandma's tall body. Sniffing the hot scent that emanated from Grandma's jacket, he suddenly felt cool air. He shivered and his stomach rumbled for a while. Commander Yu patted his father's head and said, "Go, Dryer." The sky and earth were chaotic, the scenery was shadowed, and the team's cluttered footsteps had sounded far away. In front of my father's eyes hung a blue-white fog mantle, blocking his vision, only heard the sound of the team's footsteps, did not see the team's shape and shadow. Father tightly tugged at the corner of Commander Yu's coat, his legs moved quickly. Grandma is like a shore that is getting farther and farther away, and the fog is like seawater that is getting nearer and nearer and more and more turbulent, and my father's grip on Commander Yu is like holding on to the side of a boat.
Father thus ran to the wordless green stone tombstone that belonged to him in the red sorghum field towering over his hometown. His grave has been withered grass, once a bare-bottomed boy led a snow-white goat to this place, the goat unhurriedly nibbled the grass on the grave, the boy stood on the tombstone, angrily pissed, and then let loose singing: sorghum red - Japan is coming - - compatriots ready - - compatriots ready - - compatriots ready - - compatriots ready - - compatriots ready - - compatriots ready - - compatriots ready - - compatriots ready - - compatriots ready -Compatriots get ready -Shoot and fire- Some people say that this boy herding sheep is me, I do not know if it is me. I had extreme love for the Gaomi Northeast Township, had extreme hatred for the Gaomi Northeast Township, grew up hard to study Marxism, I finally realized: the Gaomi Northeast Township is undoubtedly the most beautiful and most ugly, the most transcendent and most secular, the most holy and most sordid, the most heroes and heroines and sons of bitches, and the most able to drink and most able to love the place on the earth. Survive in this land of my folks, like to eat sorghum, every year a large number of planting. August late fall, boundless sorghum red into a sea of blood, sorghum high density brilliant, sorghum poignant and lovely, sorghum love stirring. Autumn wind is pale, the sun is very prosperous, tile blue sky wanders a plump white cloud, sorghum slides on a plump white cloud of fuchsia shadow. A team of dark red men traveled through the sorghum trees pulling nets for decades. They have killed people and served their country well, they have performed a heroic and tragic dance drama that dwarfs us living misfits, and in the midst of progress, I truly feel the degradation of the species.
After leaving the village, the party marched down a narrow dirt road, the sound of human footsteps interspersed with the rustling of broken grass along the roadside. The fog was oddly thick and lively. On my father's face, countless small, dense dots of water congealed into large grains of water droplets, and a handful of his hair, stuck to his scalp. From the sorghum fields on both sides of the road wafted the faint scent of peppermint and the bitter, slightly sweet odor of ripe sorghum, which my father had long been accustomed to smelling, and which was not new or strange. On this march through the fog, my father smelled that new, yellow-red, fishy-sweet scent.
That smell came through vaguely from the smell of mint and sorghum, evoking a very distant memory in the depths of my father's mind