First of all, I do not agree with this ending in terms of emotional expression, and secondly, the following opinions and remarks are mainly based on the plot. The original work has the expression of the original author, and the secondary creation of the play is the expression of the screenwriter and the director. The two do not need to be confused. They can be viewed in separate ways. It seems that the same story, but different ways of expression, have made the story go in a different direction. direction.
I think before talking about emotional entanglement, we should think about a question: the spirit of gentleman or chivalry, this absolute sense of honor, this kind of decency that is maintained everywhere, at the moment when the old era collapses and the new era rolls in, is it necessary? If you insist, you still have to face reality and recalibrate. After all, the torrent of the times will not give anyone a chance to breathe. It is not so much a person's elegy, but a dirge of the times.
Let's first put aside the characters of the more hypocritical people who went down the river in the play, and talk about the so-called positive gentleman spirit. Is the spirit of a gentleman really absolutely positive? Whether this spirit is false, intentional, unreal, suppressing human nature, when this spirit runs through your emotions all the time, the change you make is not your real choice, is it your choice, or is it your choice? The power of the times makes you so choose.
After watching the whole play, what is right and wrong in the face of spiritual decency and freedom of behavior? Is chivalry worthy of praise, criticism, or just remembrance. But from the ending point of view, if the memory is only a hypocritical lost aristocratic spirit of the old era, why so much space, so laborious and thankless.
The spirit of a gentleman not only defines that era, that class, but also the nature of a person. If there is no such thing as a gentleman's spirit from the beginning to the end, we can't call it false. This person has completed the last era of human nature indoctrination (this indoctrination can also be polarized).
Benny's character seems to be caught in a hypocritical aristocratic spirit throughout the play. He hates his wife's elopement and cheating, and he has to suppress himself to maintain a gentleman's dignity. Protecting his wife is like protecting himself and his family. Honor and Dignity. In the depression, he seemed to fall in love with that radical woman for granted. He tried to get out of that false set of rules and became disrespectful. Set of "hypocritical" gentleman's shackles. It seems so, really?
What we need to understand in this relationship is what kind of emotion the male protagonist has towards his wife. It is because of the romantic history of his wife, and he does not dare to love such a reckless wife while maintaining the dignity and decency of a gentleman. In fact, I really want to love, or this marriage is only bound by religious beliefs and disgust. From the male protagonist sniffing his wife's pajamas, facing his wife's frank questioning, he couldn't wait to hug him, obviously wanting to love. In this way, the hypocrisy of chivalry is more vividly reflected.
In the play, through his wife's words, he secretly laments that this character is the only remaining gentleman in the UK, a very sincere and upright person, and uses the darkness of the people around him to set off the male protagonist's meticulous attention to honor and decency to highlight the spirit of a gentleman. Look at what this kind of gentleman's spirit has given him. He thinks that the other party is not marrying him because of love, but because of his use, so he tolerates rejection everywhere, so that his wife can live a comfortable and decent life. On the surface, he is maintaining honor, but in fact, it is more difficult. It's like the retention of love, as the wife said later, she thinks that there is always a last chance to make the two fall in love again. This idea should not only be shared by the wife, but the two should both be looking forward to each other and are unwilling. Those decent The false rejection of her is more like an excuse to be emotional in the future, which is why, even though she is a wife, she always feels like a mistress. The husband's hypocritical restraint and forbearance, and the wife's numbness because of this restraint and forbearance, made her madly attack her husband, wanting to reveal her true nature. Look, at this time, do you think the spirit of a gentleman is really good? Isn't it fake? Assuming that there are no such decent considerations, the male protagonist tells his wife his anger generously, expresses his love without any scruples, strives for and occupies instead of wanting love, and is forced by self-esteem, decency and honor like a piece of wood. This kind of gentleman's spirit is so positive. And the elusive kiss in the fog with the radical woman and the conversation on the grass seem more like a means of balancing his wife's derailment, a kind of psychological compensation.
If the ending can be with his wife, the dialectical value is obviously higher. It can show that the gentleman's spirit suppresses people's nature, so that those who love each other should wear a decent mask to get along numbly, not free, and can peel off the hypocritical mask of the gentleman's spirit alone, without hurting the story itself, "I force it. In the spirit of a decent gentleman, I endured severe pain and tolerated you, and finally I abandoned this kind of gentleman's decency and fell in love with you again."
This kind of ending treatment, literary value and logic are obviously better and more normal than the ending with the radical woman. It's not that she's inexplicably affectionately confessed to her wife and then falsely went to cater to the radical woman. Besides, the wife is always jealous and blatantly defiantly trying to get her husband's attention. I don't think that a person with such erudite and profound literary skills is knowledgeable. Molecules, did not understand his wife's hot eyes at all, is this normal? This hypocritical disregard is not a decency.
After that late-night confession, his wife was jealous that he would fall for a radical woman after the war. Whether it was jealousy or misunderstanding, he cut down a tree in a fit of anger. The national culture is deeply rooted, destroying the foundation, cutting it down, throwing it into the stove, and burning it to the ground. What follows is the disillusionment of the protagonist of the old era, and he plunges into the new era, but does this mean that What was before has become nothing.
If in the end he falls in love again with his wife who is forced to face the spirit of the times, in essence, it is not the hypocritical side of the old-time gentleman's spirit that trapped him, but the new-age gentleman's spirit that stands out has gradually taught him to get rid of hypocrisy. , facing your sincere heart. Ignoring is not decency, facing all this is real decency. This ending not only maintains the dialectic of the gentleman's spirit, but also makes the plot more normal and reasonable. It is not such a hypocritical woman who chooses a radical woman after forcibly facing a heart-wrenching wife in order to get rid of the bondage of the old times. To get rid of hypocrisy and fall back into another hypocrisy.
Finally, sum up all the doubts: If the ending of the play is a serious criticism of the spirit of a gentleman, then why should we always tell the sincere side of the protagonist gentleman through the mouth of his wife, and always slap the faces of those who follow the trend of the times with the actual behavior of the protagonist People who choose to let go of themselves? If it is a serious praise, why did the protagonist end up with the radical girl? In this way, wouldn’t the previous face to face his wife become a fake and ridiculous gentleman’s disguise, and choosing to be with a radical girl would not officially abandon him. Yu Huai's decency and honor as a gentleman in the old era chose the freedom of the new era? If it is a dialectical remembrance, wouldn't it be possible to accomplish it reasonably only with the wife?
Just looking at it this way, the ending in the play is just a piece of shit for me!
In the end, if you want to understand the deep-rooted character mask of the British, how profound and restrained the people who were shaped by the education of that era, let's go to see Kazuo Ishiguro's long-lasting scars.
The gentlemanly demeanor of the British and the self-restraint of the Chinese are both leftovers of the times. The softness and delicacy that remains after some repairs are exactly what I think can change the spring breeze and rain in human nature.
2021.5.22 night
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