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Behind Growing Up: Loneliness and Search

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    ?¡ª¡ª

    Interpretation of the novel "Snow Robe"

    Zhang Ya

    Children's literature that we are familiar with usually adopts an omniscient narrative perspective.  The works either use the "author's omniscient observation method (third person)" or the "author's subjective observation method (first person)" to tell the story and unfold the plot, such as "Harry Potter", which is currently popular all over the world.  This all-knowing and omnipotent narrative technique is more conducive to guiding and stimulating readers' reading passion and interest.  The novel "Snow Robe" tells about the dreams and pains of a thirteen-year-old boy growing up. As far as the content is concerned, it should belong to the scope of children's literature, but the author uses the first-person perspective to narrate.  Years of special experiences and special feelings.  This "self-narrative" expression allows readers to have a more real understanding of the children's world from another dimension.

    1. Growth after exile

    The little protagonist Zhou Xin has no mother since childhood.  Later, his father who had been with him also went to Guangzhou to work and find his mother.  So Zhou Xin stayed alone in his hometown like countless left-behind children.  They do not have the control and scolding of their parents, let alone the care and love of their parents.  But Zhou Xin is a mature and sensible child. Although he stayed at home alone, he has no resentment and his heart is full of love.  He loves his father, his mother whom he has never met, and his grandfather who passed away.  Also due to the influence of being in a scholarly family since childhood, little Zhou Xin looks "well-bred" than other children, which invisibly arouses the dissatisfaction of Zhao Gui, a senior boy with problems.  Zhao Gui found faults and "fixed" Zhou Xin.  Zhou Xin turned Zhao Gui to the ground when he was resisting. Unfortunately, Zhao Gui's head just fell on the brick, and "thin black blood flowed out". All the students present mistakenly thought that Zhao Gui was beaten to death by Zhou Xin.  .  Zhou Xin also fled the scene because of fear and fear.  It was also based on this accident that Zhou Xin was forced to embark on a journey to Guangzhou to find his father.  In this way, he was completely thrown out of the right track of life.

    It can be said that the life experience of a big city is completely blank, unfamiliar, and even fresh and exciting in the brain of this young boy.  The life style I grew up in the mountains of Guizhou cannot be restored or copied in Guangzhou.  Guangzhou is a "new" outside world and field of knowledge for him.  It's a pity that he was caught by the golden retriever before he had time to feel the metropolis.  The Golden Retriever and his gang specialize in "trafficking" vagrants like Zhou Xin.  They arrested these older children to do child labor, and trained the younger ones to be "human mice"¡ªmaking them steal and beg along the streets in various ways to make money for them.  When Zhou Xin was thrown into the "mouse hole", the author reproduced the authentic sensory experience of this little boy at that time with the poet's sensitive and textured language:

    A smell of rustic livestock pens in the countryside blows over my face, and the voices of chirping children can be heard beside my ears

    There was a warm smell of fermenting straw in the mouse's nest, and the smell of musty pasta.  All the temperatures mixed together, in the darkness, make people drowsy.  I rubbed my eyes for a while, feeling more comfortable with the light.  It was supposed to be an abandoned warehouse.  The pitted ground was covered with thick straw, broken cardboard boxes, and newspapers. It felt like dust would be spewed out as soon as one stepped on it.

    Facing this originally dangerous situation, Zhou Xin did not have the resistance, struggle and speculation of an adult.  He observed and accepted the new environment naturally.  The new environment he observed was "the smell of warm fermented straw" and "the smell of moldy pasta". Due to the long-distance fatigue and hunger on the train, the fermented smell of pasta is also a "delicious" smell that can stimulate appetite.  Warm straw fermentation is also a comforting flavor filled with sunshine.  The use of the word "spit" makes readers completely forget that Zhou Xin is in a dangerous and harsh environment.

    It was here that Zhou Xin met two good friends: Ah Huang and Jacques.  And they are honored as "Ultraman" - the hero and warrior in the hearts of children.  During the day, these children were driven to the streets, either stealing or begging, to make money for the golden retriever.  They didn't feel tired at night, but under the leadership of Ultraman Zhou Xin, they rehearsed the battle with their common enemy, the golden mouse.  What made them enjoy it the most was that they imagined the scene when they fled:

    I suddenly thought: "If there is such a day, we escape together, run out of this broken house, and we will go out singing songs"

    "What song are you singing?"

    "Sing "The Internationale"" Jacques said enthusiastically

    Everyone began to sing wildly.

    "This is the final struggle, unite, and by tomorrow, Internacional will definitely be realized"

    I said: "This is too complicated, I can't remember or sing it all"

    "Then what are you singing?"

    "Let's sing the national anthem for two reasons: this dish can inspire courage. Second: we sing it every day in school, and we can't sing it wrong."

    &?Clean and transparent like poetry.

    "I buried my head for a long time, and I felt a little dizzy. I crawled on the ground, and my face was pressed against the soft green grass. It was so cool and fragrant. The sun warmed my back and buttocks. It was so beautiful, and I wanted to sleep again.  The sound of the city permeates the ground from the air, the buzzing, river-like music comes from the center of the earth, trembling, trembling all the time, I feel myself in the grass, under the sun,  It melts comfortably." It's all about feeling.  Although the number of words is not many, it includes the senses of touch, smell, sight, taste, hearing, and some subtle bodily sensations.  And the author connects and mixes these feelings.  At the same time, because Zhou Xin did not grow up in the city, he replaced the feeling of the city with a kind of rural experience.  And similar expressions can be easily picked up in novels.

    Some behaviors of children are also poetic in themselves, such as the chapter of Zhou Xin's dialogue with "Stone" and the description of "Dream", which read like fairy tales and prose poems.  In fact, besides writing novels, the author Xi Li also writes poems and prose.  Therefore, the original childish vision and behavior coupled with the infiltration of the author's poetic temperament make the novel very poetic.  However, the poetic text of the novel points to a cruel reality.  They are a group of children who have been thrown out of the normal track. They are lonely and lack a sense of security, and they don't even have enough food and clothing.  So the poetry of the novel is a sentimental poetry.  In the sentimental writing, we can feel the compassionate heart of the author Xili.

    In addition, in addition to the two obvious images of "snow robe" and "snake clothes", the novel also has a slightly hidden image: the paper streamer on the grave.  The first chapter of the novel has this description: "In spring, we saw graves in the wilderness, buried in the soil were familiar or unfamiliar folks, and even one of our closest relatives. And those who disappeared in the earthquake  How lucky they are, because they left in front of the eyes of their relatives. Before they left, there were cries, tears, and kisses to comfort their souls. Bamboo poles were inserted on the graves, and winter flowers fluttered on the bamboo poles.  The white paper streamers hanging are very new, and the jagged slices make them look elegant when they swing in the wind." At the end of the novel, "paper streamers" also appeared: "We stood by a small tree  , Looking back, there are tombs covered in weeds everywhere, but there are white paper streamers hanging on them, so they can be seen at a glance from a long distance."  The two appearances of the "paper banner" symbolizing death make the novel a closed structure.  What's more, the "paper streamers", "snow robes" and "snake clothes" are all "white". From the perspective of color psychology, white is pure and infinite.  The three white images lead the text of the novel to a higher philosophical level: thinking about life and death.  Therefore, in terms of content, the novel tells about growth, pain and love, but at the same time, the author has deeper metaphysical thinking on this basis.  Therefore, the novel "Snow Robe" not only contains the significance of growth, pain, and love at the literary level, but also at the philosophical level, that is: life, death, dreams, and eternity.

    Therefore, in terms of content, "Snow Robe" belongs to children's literature, but the meaning of the text is far more than that.  Its implied readers should tend to be more adult readers.  It awakens adults' attention to children, and also awakens their attention to life.

    (The author is a postgraduate student of the Chinese Department of Guangdong Vocational and Technical Teachers College) (remember this site website: www.hlnovel.com
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