Voltron is a typical character in a typical environment, which Balzac has portrayed with great success in "The Elderly". He is an important and indispensable character in the work. Without him, it is like a table missing a leg, like a person missing a pair of bright eyes that can see through the world, and it can be said that he is a clear mirror reflecting the society.
Some people think he is a representative of evil and an antagonist, but I think this notion is one-sided and an unfair evaluation of Vodou Leng. To borrow from Emin, "He was Satan on earth, both evil and reasonable." He is a representative of a society that is y poisoned by that society, but instead of wanting to compromise with that unfair society, he tries by all means to get his own share of benefits in the society, even if the means are mean and obscene. In that society of wolves and sheep, if you don't want to be a lamb to be slaughtered by everyone, you have to turn yourself into a ferocious wolf to tear at your opponents. I don't think he represents good, but he doesn't exactly represent evil either, it's just that he sees society more thoroughly than anyone else. If you compare that society to a mad cow, then Voltron is the French "butcher".
In the work of "The Elderly," Voltron does not use much language, but every word he says carries a lot of weight, and it is so classic and concise, especially when he commented on the era, his analysis of society is to the point, and every word is a thousand pounds. When he analyzes the future of the young Rastigne he reveals the nature of this society without hiding anything, "Human life is like this, as fishy as the kitchen. You can't be afraid to get your hands dirty if you want to get the grease, as long as you wash them afterwards, and that's all the morality of our time". His naked language is a more penetrating revelation of the truth of society than that which Mrs. Baucheon has so elegantly spelled out.
In Rastigny's upbringing, in his understanding of society, Voltron, Madame de Beauchene and the old man had a great influence on him, and they were all textbooks that helped him to see that society through. But I think Voltron was the most catalytic for Rastigne, Mrs. Bauzion was a polite and elegant reminder, and the old man was a presentable one, but only Voltron was the most direct guide to his life, which gave him a shock to his soul in the shortest period of time, and could be proved one by one in practice. When the young man was faced with the competition and the possible choices for his future, Voltron's conclusion to him was: "Do you know how people here make their way in the world? Either by the light of genius or by corrupting maneuvers, not by blasting into this crowd like a cannonball, but by going in like the plague. Honesty and decency are useless."
The above is the image of Voltaire Leng in "The Elderly Man", why do I write about him, because after reading the work he impressed me the most, his language his image made my heart can not be calmed for a long time, and I think, in that society he is a strong man, a cunning wolf, and ultimately the victor.
The story of Voltron made me understand more clearly the darkness and corruption of the society at that time, and made me realize the law of survival that was followed in that era, which was an unfair game circle, goodness could not take advantage of the slightest advantage, and evil ruled and possessed everything, and all of which could be reflected through the character of Voltron, so I think that Voltron is a character that is portrayed with great success.
"The Elderly Man" is one of the masterpieces of the French writer Balzac, which occupies an important position in "The Human Comedy".In 1833, Balzac created the method of character reproduction. Later, he wrote The High Old Man with a novel idea of the rules for the creation of The Human Comedy. The novel was published in December 1834 and January and February 1835, and in March 1835 copies were made. More than 1,200 copies of the novel were snapped up before the advertisements were even published, causing a strong reaction. Balzac was quite pleased with the work, which he thought surpassed Eugénie Grande and The Absolute Quest, and even all past works. Balzac used the method of character reproduction for the first time in The Elderly Man, and some of the important characters in The Human Comedy, such as Rastigne, Voltron, Nucingen, and Madame de Beaucheon, first appeared in this work. They later appear again and again in other works. So from the point of view of the system of characters, "The Elderly Man" can be said to be the prologue of "The Human Comedy"; from the point of view of the ideological content, it belongs to the central picture of "The Human Comedy"; artistically, it marks the achievement of Balzac's realist style.
(-) Main Characterization
Balzac wrote more than 20 people in The Elderly Man. Among them are aristocrats, financiers, retired businessmen, apartment owner's wife, university students, absconding hard laborers, young girls abandoned by their fathers, widows, old ladies, small civil servants, servants and so on. They represent the upper and lower classes of Parisian society. There are four main characters in the novel: Rastigne, Gauleiter, Voltron, and Madame de Beauchene. Their experiences form the main plot of this novel.
1. Lustigne
Balzac's novel is named after "Old Man", but it is not centered on this character. In the process of writing, Rastigne is the main character throughout the novel. Rastigne appears frequently in The Human Comedy as a young ambitious man. His first appearance is in The Grumpy Old Man. Rastigne is a developing character in The Elderly, and Balzac describes the whole process of his ambition in The Elderly, which is where the greatest value of the book lies. Rastigne was originally a poor boy from a French province, and his family saved all expenses to send him to Paris to attend university in the hope of revitalizing the family business in the future. This was a common practice in Restoration France. At the beginning of the novel, he was 21 years old, an enthusiastic and talented young man, smart and handsome, with the idea of making a fortune and moving up in the world, studying law in Paris. He had hoped to work his way up the legal ladder after graduation. But in Paris less than a year, the poverty of his family and the prosperity of Parisian society has made his desire to climb up the ladder increased tenfold. He realizes that in Paris, women have a great influence on social life and tries to conquer a few women who can be his backstage. He knew from his aunt and grandmother of a distant cousin, Madame de Baucheon. He went to her for advice on how to move up the social ladder. At that time, Mrs. Bowdoin was just a love affair, full of resentment, she said to Rustigne: "This society is nothing but a group of fools and liars, to deal with this society with an eye for an eye. The more heartless you are the faster you rise. When you strike at people unmercifully, they are afraid of you and can only use men and women as stagecoaches. Ride them to exhaustion and throw them off at the station. That way, you reach the highest peaks of desire." She told Rastigne to hide his true thoughts, to be good at faking, and to find a front in Paris with a distinguished wife. At the time, she believed that it was money that dominated status, and told Rustigne to seduce the wealthy Mrs. Nucingen as a springboard for his ascent. She said, "Love her if you can, or use her if you can't." Madame de Baucheon also brings him into society. In this way, Madame de Beaucheon gives Rastigne his first lesson in extreme egoism and becomes his first leader on his way up the ladder. When Rastigne returns to his apartment from Madame de Beaucaillon's luxurious mansion, the stark contrast of his surroundings fuels his desires. He needs money if he is to fool around in high society. So, with a clear conscience, he writes home and asks his mother and sister to come up with 1,200 francs to give him. But at this time Rastigne had not completely given up the idea of relying on learning to fight for the future, did not completely lose conscience. After writing home, his heart was also very difficult. When he realized that Gao Lao sacrificed everything for his daughter, he thought that Gao Lao was really great. He sympathized with Gao Lao and stepped forward to be his protector until he finally took care of Gao Lao's funeral.
His second leader is Voltron. Vu Tuo Leng was an absconding prisoner. He had extensive social experience and was familiar with the inner workings of the ruling class. With a sharp eye, he saw at once that Rastigne was desperate to move up the ladder. He wanted to draw Rustigne as an accomplice. He said to him: "This society has money is virtue, all covered with sludge and sitting in the car is a gentleman, covered with sludge and walking on two legs, are small rogues, pickpocketing a piece of anything, you get to the court square exhibition. People take you as a trick. Steal a million, and you are said to be a great sage in the social scene." He told Rustigne, "To climb up the ladder, you're bound to swallow me and I'm bound to swallow you, like so many spiders in a bottle." He said, "Do you know how the Parisians fight their way up? Either by the glow of money or by corrupted instincts. In this heap of men, eloquence is rare, and what prevails everywhere is corruption and degradation." He also said to Rastigne: "To get big money you have to do it boldly, that's how life is, as fishy as the kitchen. Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty if you want to rake in the grease. Just wash them afterwards. What is called morality today is just that." He directs Rastigne to seduce Mademoiselle Théophane. Mademoiselle Théophane's father was a big banker. During the Revolutionary era, he murdered people for their money. Balzac wrote about his fortune in the short story "The Red Hotel". He threw his daughter out of the house in order to save his property and pass it all on to his son. Voltron suggests that the two of them work together, with Rastigne wooing Mademoiselle Tha?pan and him trying to get her brother killed. In this way, Miss Thaiphan would have a million dollars of the family fortune to accompany her. Voltron asks for 200,000 francs afterwards. Although Rastigny did not dare to accept this proposal, but Voltron's words have been y imprinted in his heart. When he saw Mademoiselle Théophane later, a voice echoed in his ears: "800,000, 800,000 ......"
Both of these guides analyzed for Rastigny the true nature of society's scruples. The power of money beckons him to take the path of extreme egoism, of tit for tat, of immorality for immorality, of unscrupulousness. Their words are different in form, but the substance is the same. Rastigne once said, "What Madame de Baucheon said to me civilly and elegantly, Voltair coldly and nakedly." As Rastigny was going to climb up the ladder in spite of everything, he was bound to do what they said. He first goes after Mrs. Neuchingen, and finds that she has no financial power (her dowry is controlled by her husband). Finding that his plan has fallen through, and seeing that he has no money and no future, he remembers Voltron's plan again, and turns to Miss Teyfan. But just then, Voltron is arrested. Rastigny had to go after Mrs. Neuchingen because he did not want to risk breaking the law. His ambitious character is completed after the three tragic acts of Voltron's arrest, the abandonment of Madame de Beauchene and the death of the old man. The reason why this paper is named "Golaud" is determined by the profound significance of Golaud's tragedy in the text. Gao Lao's tragedy is the most important lesson of Rastigne's social education, far more profound than the two lessons taught to him by his cousin, Madame de Beauchene and the fugitive prisoner, Voltron, the most powerful whip on the way to the formation of Rastigne's ambitious character.
2. Madame de Beauchene
She was the archetypal noblewoman of the Restoration. She was of noble birth, the last daughter of the royal house of Pougogne, and the queen of Parisian society. Her drawing room was the most significant place in aristocratic society, and whoever could show his face in her drawing room "had a letter of credentials from an aristocratic family" and passed unhindered in high society. The bourgeois women of Paris could only dream of entering it. But in reality, although she was outwardly prominent for a while, inwardly she had a feeling of decline. She realizes that money is the real master of society, and that profit is the moral principle. But she herself, with her aristocratic traditions and arrogance, denigrates bourgeois women. It can be said that she is a person who is aware of the times but refuses to go with the flow. She was in love for three years with the Spanish Marquis of Aquta, and her love was genuine. But her lover deserted her in order to marry a bourgeois aristocratic lady with a dowry of four million dollars. She therefore bids farewell to Parisian society. She held a grand ball on her way out, and Balzac depicted the scene of this farewell ball with infinite sympathy and tenderness. The novel writes: "The Baucheon mansion was surrounded by more than 500 cars with their lights shining brightly, and countless people from the upper class came to see her off, as if the Roman youths in ancient times applauded a smiling dead beast. In the gilded hall, the orchestra played music, but she was desolate inside. In the eyes of others, she was dressed in white and peaceful and quiet; behind her back she burned love letters with tears in her eyes and made preparations for her departure." Balzac used the technique of setting off and contrasting to greatly exaggerate the tragic atmosphere of her exit from the stage of history, singing an endless elegy. Later Madame de Baussaillon is abandoned again in The Outcast. Her tragedy graphically illustrates the decline of the aristocracy and the ascendancy of the bourgeoisie during the Restoration. Nobility is no match for money, and love is no match for money.
3. Voltron
His real name was Jorg Golen. Golen, nicknamed "Ghost", is an important figure of bourgeois ambition in "The Human Drama". In "Gao Lao Tou", he is an absconding hard laborer, the heart and counselor of a high-level money-stealing group of clerks, who manages large quantities of stolen goods, and is the image of a vicious predator who has not yet gained power. Voltron is very capable and has a team of henchmen under his command. He was widely read and familiar with the upper classes and saw through the political, economic and legal truths of the society of his time. He hit the nail on the head when he said to Rastigne, "The difference between a robber and a ruler lies only in the sight of blood and the absence of blood." The big bourgeoisie are nothing but robbers protected by the law, in a society where wealth is virtue. If he has four million francs, he is Mr. Four Million, a citizen of the United States, and no one will question him about his past. He wants to grow, to fight evil with evil, immorality with immorality, to go in like a cannonball and like a plague, to kill, to seduce young people, to seize wealth by any means necessary. He is familiar with the code, and will exploit the loopholes of the law, never being condemned to death when he falls into the net. He was very much a man of the world and never betrayed anyone. He said to Ra, "Call him a villain, a bad man, a scoundrel, a robber, whatever you like, just don't call me a liar or a spy." Even the undercover agent who captured him said he was a good man. His aim was to get another 200,000 francs and then go to America to buy 200 negroes and set up a big plantation. There is a great deal of adventure in this image. Voltron rebelled against society because he was ostracized by society and could not succeed in his ambition. He studies the society and exposes it in order to climb up the social ladder, and once his ambition to climb up the social ladder is realized, he will become a hawk and dog that defends the existing system. This image appears in many works. In The Elderly, he is arrested in 1819, and later he escapes again, traveling to Spain and then back to France in disguise. In "Disillusionment", he appeared as a Spanish priest, and in "The Flower of Fortune", he became the head of the secret police department in Paris, and in "Auntie Bessie", he became the director of public security and climbed up to the ruling class. It is said that Balzac wrote this figure using the experiences of a head of the secret police in Paris as a prototype. This figure of Voltron is a complex one; he is an expositor of capitalist society and a producer of evil. Balzac's attitude towards him is also ambivalent, writing him as a representative of social evils and criticizing him, but also appreciating his spontaneity, intention and ability to express his own criticism of society through his cynicism. The scene of Voltron's arrest in the novel is so heroic that the painter who was there said, "It would be quite beautiful to paint him!" The people in Voltron's apartment sympathize with him and are furious with Miss Micheneau, who betrayed him, and everyone shouts at her, "Get out, traitor!" All objected to living in an apartment with her. A robber as shrewd and tough as this was defeated by money!
4. The High Old Man
Balzac mentions his writing of The High Old Man in a letter of October 18, 1834, to Madame Hansgar. He said, "I am going to depict in this book a feeling of immense and immense power, and the hero of the work is a father." Old Man Gao is the quintessential example of fatherly love. Earlier a noodle merchant, he engaged in grain speculation during the Revolution and became a tycoon and a giant in the business world. He had a family fortune of two million dollars and went on to become mayor of the Paris district during the Empire. He was very shrewd in business and knew how to take advantage of the moment, and the novel writes that he "had the talent of a minister of state" in business. However, he could not adapt to the trend in family relationship. After his wife died, many people wanted to marry their daughters to him, but he refused. He poured out his love on his two daughters, and his affection for them grew to absurd proportions. He fulfilled their most extravagant wishes. They lived as luxuriously as a duke's mistress, and had their own carriage at the age of fifteen. When they grew up, the Gauleiter gave each of them a dowry of 800,000 francs so that they could climb into good relationships. The eldest daughter Alasdache keen door brother, married a nobleman, became the Countess of Resto; the second daughter likes money, married a banker, became Mrs. Neuchingen. The first foolish thing the old man did was to divide his property between his two daughters. At first, because he still has money, daughter and son-in-law often invited her to guests, there is always a share of his knife and fork on the table, everyone respectfully look at him, as respectfully look at the money. Not long after, the political situation changed, the Bourbon dynasty restored, the aristocrats regained power, the concept of the door brother raised again. Even bankers like Neuchangen also crowded into the royalist party, high old man such as noodle merchants of course, was considered by the upper class is dishonorable, is a piece of greaseproof paper in the living room of the stain, became an unwelcome person, the daughter asked her father to stop the business. Elder Gao fulfilled his daughter's request and dished out the store. In doing so, he did the second stupid thing and cut off his financial resources. in 1813, he took up residence in the Vogel apartment. In 1813, he took up residence in the apartment of the Voges, where he still had an income of 8,000 to 10,000 francs a year, but he could only see his daughters through the back door or by standing by the side of the road, waiting for their carriages to pass by. The two daughters continued to live a life of profligacy and corruption, visiting their father only when they needed money. In order to satisfy his daughters' desires, the old man moved from the best room on the second floor to the third, fourth, and fifth floors, and his board and lodging was reduced from 1,200 francs a year to 45 francs a month. He sold everything he could, and his personality changed from Mr. Gorion to "old man", "old bastard", "old panda", and became the object of everyone's delight. However, his two daughters still pressed him for money, forcing him to suffer a cerebral hemorrhage. During his critical illness, he looks forward to seeing his two daughters, but they are busy attending Madame de Baucheon's party, "even if they have to step over their father's body to get there". The old man finally realizes that he has been abandoned by his daughters and says with immense sadness, "I gave them my whole life, and today they won't give me even an hour." He also recognizes that the kind of life his daughters have led "was caused by me, I spoiled them." Before he died, he cried out in grief, "Money buys everything, and it buys daughters." He died miserably, and his daughter and son-in-law did not come to take care of the funeral, sending only two empty carriages painted with the insignia of knighthood on the day of the funeral.
The tragedy of the old man, there are profound social reasons, Balzac said at the beginning: "This tragedy is not a fabrication, nor is it a novel, everything is true, true to come to everyone can be found in their own body or heart of this tragedy in the elements." From the point of view of the society in which Mr. Gao lives, Mr. Gao's fatherly love also has deep social roots. When the novel begins, he is in his 70s and has lived in a patriarchal society for most of his life. He was a citizen before he made his fortune, and the patriarchal concepts of citizens are very strong, which is the social root of his fatherly love. During the time of the Industrial Revolution, he became a rich man who only knew how to pursue money and express his father's love by using money to satisfy his daughter's materialistic desires. Although his love is sincere, he objectively helps the society to corrupt his two daughters with money, cultivating their selfishness and gold-digging, thus making himself a victim. In addition, his two daughters are actually controlled by their husbands, their movements are restricted, and the two sons-in-law are representatives of the aristocracy and the big bourgeoisie, so that the accusation of the two daughters will inevitably lead to the indictment and criticism of the upper class. Balzac sympathizes with the Gauleiter, exaggerates his fatherly love, and writes him as tough and self-sacrificing as the Christian martyrs. He used his great soul and self-sacrificing feelings to criticize the upper class society which is full of human desires and moral degradation, and to criticize the money relationship and the moral principle of materialism in this society. The significance of the tragedy of Gao Lao is not to glorify fatherly love, but to expose the evil of money. Money destroys human nature and family to a shocking extent. In that society, the value of human beings is determined by money, and the relationship between human beings is nakedly monetary. As Marx said in the **** Proletarian Manifesto, "The bourgeoisie has removed the veil of warmth and affection that covered family relations and has transformed them into purely pecuniary relations. It has made it so that there can be no other connection between man and man than the naked relation of money, than the cold, heartless transaction of cash."
(2) The Ideological Content of The Elderly Man
The Elderly Man, through the experiences of the above four characters, reflects the trend of the gradual decline of the aristocracy during the period of dynastic restoration, and exposes and criticizes the evil of money and the naked money relationship between people.
First of all, the novel reflects the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the bourgeoisie. The story of The Elderly takes place in the period of dynastic restoration from 1819 to 1820, when the aristocracy regained the power, the bourgeoisie, in order to improve their social status, tried their best to attach themselves to the aristocracy, such as the banker Neukirchen, who has become a baronet and participated in the royalist party in the novel. Rastigny was able to step into the upper class society by the power of Mrs. Baussein's position. However, the nobility, despite its prominence for a while, was eventually defeated by money. The retirement of Madame de Beaucheon and the bourgeoisification of Rastigne reflect the two paths of the nobility's decline. While Madame de Beauchene retires from the stage of history with a lot of resentment, Madame de Nucingen happily enters the stage of history. She makes a great show of herself at the ball, well pleased with her success. The contrast between these two representatives of the class, one retreating and one advancing, one sinking and one floating, is striking. Balzac not only reproduces this historical phenomenon, but further explores the reasons for it. On the side of the aristocracy, the Viscount de Baucheon is only concerned with food and drink, and Madame de Resdauer's lover, Troilai, is a gambler who has taken out a gambling debt of 100,000 francs. In order to pay off his debt, Madame Riesdauer had to borrow usurious loans from Gobsek, secretly taking her husband's family heirloom diamonds as collateral. This parasitic, corrupt nature of the aristocracy doomed them to their inevitable downfall. The bourgeoisie, on the other hand, is ambitious and accumulates capital by any means necessary. Voltron is nakedly plundering and seeking to make money. He is doing exactly what the banker Teyfan used to do. Gobsek was usurious, and Neuchingen was vile in appropriating his wife's property and buying and selling short. Although Balzac sympathized with the aristocracy, he, as a sober realist writer, truly reflected the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the capitalist class.
Secondly, the novel exposes the evils of money and the naked pecuniary relations between people as a negation of the emerging relations of production. Balzac's praise of the fatherly love of the high old man does subjectively reflect the bourgeois humanitarian position. He believes that only if everyone has the universal human nature such as kind parent-child love and child-daughter love, family relations can be maintained and human society can exist and develop. There are two main reasons why Gao Lao's paternal love fails. First, Gao Lao's paternal love is not simple but complex. It is a fatherly love intertwined with feudal patriarchal concepts and the bourgeois law of money, and is thus self-erasing, as Gao Laotou himself says: "Everything is my fault, I indulged them in trampling me underfoot." Secondly, the failure of Gao Lao's paternal love epitomizes the historical tragedy of the triumph of feudal patriarchal ideology over the bourgeois moral principle of the supremacy of money.
(3) Artistic Characteristics of The Elderly Man
The Elderly Man reflects the maturity of Balzac's realist style in its art, and is an important work in the Study of Customs.
First of all, the author is good at describing the typical environment. Balzac was one of the first writers to recognize the importance of environmental description. He believed that a setting, even a piece of furniture, can reflect the face of the times. Just as a fossil can reflect a biological history. So he paid great attention to describe the appearance of the area, streets, houses, furniture, furnishings, clothes and so on. Through the description of the environment to reflect the style of the times. In addition, he also saw the role of the living environment in the formation of the character, and his environment was mostly closely integrated for the characterization. This is one of the characteristics of Balzac's realism. Balzac's novels often begin with a large section of environmental description, leading from the environment to the characters and then into the plot, which is the triad of Balzac's novels. This kind of environmental description can increase the novel's sense of reality. In The Elderly Man, it is the description of Vogel's apartment first, and then it leads to the characters. Its description of the setting is representative of The Human Comedy. There are two environments that are depicted in The Elderly Man: the Vogel's Apartment. Everything about it is dark and gloomy, and people are unhappy when they think of the place. The novel is written from the streets to the interior furnishings, none of which are shabby. The furniture in the apartment is old, cracked, rotting, and mutilated, and individual rooms have a closed, musty, sour smell that chills you to the bone. This was the hangover from the Parisian underclass of the early 1820s. The other setting was the residence of Madame Baucheon, the upper class represented by the famous aristocracy and the nouveau riche. In the courtyard are parked luxurious cars and the porter is dressed in a big red dress with gold trim. The staircase was a gold-painted banister with a large red carpet, covered with flowers on both sides. The drawing-room was only two colors, gray and pink, and was beautifully furnished without a trace of frivolity. Rastigne came and went between these two environments, and the sharp contrast fueled his ambition to move up the ladder. The importance of money is reflected in the different behaviors of the people in the two environments. Rastigne's two guides, Madame de Baucheon of the upper class and Voltron of the lower class, teach him to follow the moral principle of egoism and to get money by any means necessary. It was in this environment that he learned the three lessons of philosophy of life, and finally completed the whole process of the development of the ambitious character.
Secondly, there is the typical characterization. Balzac set himself the task of writing a history of the customs of 19th century France. He believed that the task of reflecting the times could only be accomplished by creating typical characterizations. To reflect the times, it is necessary to depict the main characters of the era, especially the various aristocratic and bourgeois images. Balzac had his own view on typical, he believed that typical is a sample of class, the most distinctive character traits of a certain type of characters. So all his characters have distinctive personalities. Balzac wrote about human desires as character traits, and he usually used exaggeration to emphasize a certain kind of lust of such characters, so that the characters acted under the domination of this kind of lust. For example, he writes about Grotesque's possessiveness of money, Uncle Bunce's antiquarian fetish, Baron Yulaw's lust in Auntie Bessie, and so on. In The Elderly Man, he endeavors to depict Rastigne's desire to climb up the ladder despite all odds, and uses exaggeration to render the Elderly Man's fatherly love and highlight his paternalism. Balzac's characters are social beings, and he pays attention to portraying them in both horizontal and vertical aspects. On the vertical side, he writes about the process of character formation; on the horizontal side, he writes about the performance of the character in different occasions and social relationships, so as to make the character image full and have a sense of subject. This is how he portrays Rastigne. In addition, he is also good at portraying characters through portraits, language and detailed descriptions to reflect their mental outlook, identity and character traits. The book describes Voltron's appearance as "forty years old, with colored sideburns," and "people would cry out for a good man when they saw his kind!" He had "broad shoulders, a well-developed chest with bulging muscles, square hands that were very thick, with tufts of thick, tea-red hair in the middle of his fingers. A face wrinkled without age seemed to be the mark of a cold character, but by his soft and genial manner he did not appear to be cold." "In spite of his easy-going appearance, he had a deep and resolute gaze that called forth fear." This portrait, then, shows Voltron's strong, deep, and cold character traits that fit his status as an absconder. Vo Tol Leng's language, whether it is a long discourse or a few short sentences, is vivid and graphic, and straightforwardly shows his rich experience, keen observation and brisk personality. There are a lot of details in the novel, such as writing the old man put the bread under the napkin close to his nose to smell, this detail reveals his old habit of noodle merchant business, is a typical character image.
Third, rigorous structure. Balzac studied the great structure of Shakespeare. In The Elderly Man, two main plot threads are written. One is the writing of Rastigne's degeneration from a nobleman's son to a bourgeois ambitious man, and one is the tragedy of the High Old Man. These two threads are intertwined from the time Rastigne goes to the Baucheon residence and returns to the Vogel apartment. Later, due to the pathological paternalism of the Gauleiter, he pimps out his daughter, a practice which then accelerates Rastigne's fall as well as his death. In addition, the novel is written with two secondary plot threads, which are the abandonment of Madame Baucheon and the arrest of Voltron. These two clues are primary and secondary and are written in different ways. The history of Rastigne's character formation is the main thread, and the stories of the other characters, all organized in this thread, play different roles in the formation of Rastigne's ambitious character. The story of Gao Lao begins with a side profile of his past, and then the death of Gao Lao is written positively, forming the climax of the book. The novel is clearly layered and unfolds layer by layer with great drama.