- 上一篇：雌雄同体《奥兰多》中时代精神的体现
- 下一篇：爱伦坡的恐怖小说及其美学意蕴
In the second place, under such kind of grand and tragic context, transcendence of Taoism stands out and becomes the spirit of this novel. Taoism rises up through the air in every word of Moment in Peking, which a casual conversation or an interesting argument might be reflective and haunting. In fact, most of the Taoism is attributed to Yao Sze-an. The first part of Moment in Peking is “The Daughters of a Taoist”. Yao is a kind of “Taoist Magician”. He put a great influence on Mulan’s life and makes her believe in fate; leads Lifu into the door of Taoism; and his thoughts on Taoism penetrate into the overall story. Yao attaches no importance of money and property; he doesn’t stick in the mud and supports the revolution; he teaches his children with free and open education. Most importantly, after his children are all married and get a life of stability, instead of spending his remaining time in comfort, he gives up all his wealth and family, travelling around with nothing but his inpidual soul, to pursue real Taoism in nature, which is his dream aiming to accomplish in life. In that, Yao Sze-an is a representative of humanity and personality in Taoism by which Lin modeled his own Taoist in mind.
Looking through the whole novel, it is not difficult to find calm and peace in the chaos and disturbance. Lin Yutang understands history, observes society and experiences life with Taoism. What Lin attempts to euphemize is his respect of Taoism whose essence is nature enjoyment and nature returning. Yao Sza-an have experienced all adventures in Taoism. One builds in harmony with nature achieving the greatness of forgetting all; one backs to nature in order to seek for real inpiduality; one is isolated from all the worldly stuffs and establishes a link with soul purity. Everything is called transcendence.
2.2 Forsytism in The Forsyte Saga
Forsytism is the spiritual theme of The Forsyte Saga which takes the family’s noun form directly as its spirit. John Galsworthy applied a variety of family members for different kinds of characters to show the upper-middle class in Victorian England vividly. All the stories were presented from the angle of the Forsyte family. An extremely arrogant family achieves its fame and success, pain and sorrow by Forsytism which is totally an irony. Also, this long tale is also an intimate incarnation of the disturbance that Beauty effects in the lives of men (Gindin, 1987: 187).
Forstytism refers to a common sense of propertied class (also means upper-middle class) which is all about the sense of property and possession, and the desire for hunting money. In other word, it is all related with obsession. According to the dictionary, obsession means compulsive preoccupation with a fixed idea or an unwanted feeling or emotion, often accompanied by symptoms of anxiety. And it is often unreasonable. Galsworthy (2001: 157) once defined a Forsyte “as a man who is decidedly more than a slave of property. He knows a good thing, he knows a safe thing, and his grip on property---it doesn’t matter whether it be wives, houses, money, or reputation---is his hall mark.” In fact, it is not just a mark in Forstye family; instead, it is engraved in every member of the upper-middle class in England who is the main target for Galsworthy to satirize.
In the first chapter, Galsworthy pictured a scene in which it was a party held by the Forsytes to celebrate the engagement of Bosinney and June. He gave readers a brief introduction of the family members who are “of a certain position”. They had shares and collected pictures; they were supporters of charitable institutions; also they possessed “a talent for brisks and montar” (Galsworthy, 2001: 14). More detailed, he also wrote their residences separately in this chapter which are all around the Hyde Park because “it is the fair heart of London watched like sentinels where their desires were fixed. (Galsworthy, 2001: 14)” More ironic and hilarious part is that Galsworthy quoted a song which “rolls out proudly from its wheel” to “praise” the ostentation and extravagance of the Forsytes’ perambulating. The car they take is described as “the throne of Forsytedom”. It could be proved accordingly that the Forsytes fulfill the inscrutable law of their “great class”---the sense of property.