Appreciation of Miguel streeter's Works

The essential feature of Miguel Street lies in the excessive pursuit of male dignity and male domination. The colonized people imitated the colonial means of control and rule, and used domestic violence to seek male dignity, personal power and patriarchal rule, which reflected the far-reaching influence of colonialism on the imbalance of social and political power in colonial countries from the whole social level. The mixture of multi-ethnic cultures in Miguel Street, a micro-colonial community, has a great influence on residents' living conditions and ideological state, but it is by no means the root of domestic violence. Fanon has long been keen to point out that the impulsive violence of colonists "is not the organization of nervous system, nor the eccentricity of personality, but the direct product of colonial environment."

The economic exploitation suffered by Trinidad, England in Miguel Street is the root of frequent violence reflected in the social cell of family: George, who relies on his wife to raise cattle for a living, has to make a living by running a brothel after his wife's death and is more and more rude to his daughter; Born timid, bigfoot worked as a carpenter and mason, but he couldn't make a living. He had to hit his face, inherited the name of violence and became a boxer. Only when the fireworks he made were completely unsold did Morgan "hit his children more often than before"; On the other hand, Huck "always hated his wife and often beat her with that cricket" because he bought a truck that always lost money at the instigation of his wife who was bent on making money. As Fanon said: "In the colonial period, the relationship between man and material, the relationship with the world and the relationship with history is the relationship between man and food. For a colonized person, survival does not reflect the value at all, nor is it devoted to the coordinated and fruitful development of a world. Living doesn't mean dying. Survival is to maintain life. " In the oppressed colonial environment of the third world, the mental and psychological pressure of the colonized people is the external manifestation of the great economic pressure they bear. However, because individuals are unable to resist the impact, run and exploitation of a strong economy, they choose domestic violence as a way of venting, which makes both abusers and victims suffer from colonialism. Figurative rhetoric

First, the use of simile skills.

Naipaul's collection of short stories Miguel Street is characterized by its vivid characters and strong flavor of the times. The characters in the works mainly lived in Trinidad in the West Indies in the 1930s. These characters are marginalized lower classes, most of whom are immigrants. Their material life is extremely poor, their identities are complex, their images are different and they have no sense of belonging. Compared with the celebrities and dignitaries in the society, they are at the bottom of the society, and they are in a vassal position of "no right to speak" compared with the "white people" attached to the colonial sovereign state. They are marginal people in a double sense, with more complicated personalities and fates than ordinary people in the social sense. Naipaul, with his keen observation of life, created characters with the brand of the times, showing profound ideological connotation, life details and high authenticity. Naipaul's outstanding use of similes is an important rhetorical factor in shaping vivid characters.

Simile includes noumenon, vehicle and lead word in structure, and its subtlety lies in "similarity in some comparative sense" between different things, while "adopting simile can make the image of things more vivid and realistic". Naipaul knows similes well, and when using everyday things to compare and describe characters, he skillfully grasps the similarities between them and compares them. The characters and personality characteristics are vividly portrayed, leaving a deep impression on people. For example, in the novel Miguel Street, Nai Baochan described it like this: "His eyes are fierce and cold, just like those evil dogs who never bark but look at people from the corner of their eyes"; "Morgan is like a bird at this moment. Not only is his body as small as a match, but even his slender neck shakes his head like a bird"; "The mind of the tester Huo Yite is like a grocery store, which has everything and often comes up with some strange and scary ideas"; It's actually not easy. Compared with Mrs. Huck's figure, we can easily think of a pear on the scale. She is fat and thick. When her hands are tied around her waist, her round arms are like two handles on a ball. These similes do not stop at depicting the external appearance of the characters, but can go deep into the temperament and essence of the characters and reflect their internal personality characteristics. When Naipaul uses similes, he can bind two unrelated things together, establish a complex relationship between ontology and vehicle, and hide their similarities in the depths, so that readers can obtain extraordinary rich meanings through their own aesthetic eyes. The novelty of metaphor is to choose the vehicle from the things that are used to in daily life, so that two seemingly unrelated things can communicate. In the novel, Naipaul realized the similarity between two seemingly unrelated things, and expressed it in the form of simile, so that readers could experience the similarity between ontology and vehicle in some way through the similarity of * * *, and gain the aesthetic enjoyment of language art.

Miguel Street is a novel in which Naipaul concentrated on simile rhetoric. The novel shows a world that no one pays attention to: in the barren Trinidad, there are a group of little people living on a street called Miguel Street. Among them, there is a carpenter named Bot who makes things that can't be named all day, a person who talks crazy and thinks wildly, and a big foot who looks tall and domineering, but is actually timid and timid. Each of them is at a loss and depends on some. This is also the theme of the novel: the confusion in the definition of colonial people's identity and the loss of spiritual home in the colonial era.

Naipaul vividly described the social chaos and anarchy, people's desperate thoughts and violent behavior in Trinidad colonial period through similes. For example, some similes in Miguel Street can be seen as follows: "Morgan's wife closed the front door, so Morgan had to run around the house like a crazy bull and knock on the fence"; Mrs. Huck's voice "sounds like the record in the phonograph is going backwards quickly"; "those snipes and parrots look like a group of angry and aggressive old ladies, and anyone is the target of their attack"; "He is like the donkey tied in his yard, gray and old, and relatively quiet except for the occasional hysterical roar." Obviously, these similes in Miguel Street have played a role in deepening the theme and truly showing the objective social reality.

Second, the use of metaphor

Metaphor is a common technique in literary works such as poems and novels. It contains profound and abstract ideas or themes in concrete and vivid descriptions, and often receives unforgettable and fascinating effects. Metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon, but also a human cognitive phenomenon. It is a cognitive activity of human beings to explain or understand the experience in a field, and it is a way of thinking of human beings. In this collection of short stories Miguel Street, Naipaul made good use of this technique. Through the interpretation of these metaphors, this paper discusses the remarkable role of metaphors in deepening the theme of the works.

Manman's story in Miguel Street parodies the political system and religious beliefs under the control of the colonial government. When Naipaul wrote this story in Miguel Street, Trinidad was moving from a colony to independence, but the basic social situation did not improve much. In the story, Mamam, the hero of the same name, runs for the town council and legislature with a campaign card with his photo printed on it every year, but he can only get three votes, including his own. This is a satire on western democracy. Marginalists can never change their marginal position. More absurdly, Manman declared himself the new savior and set a date for his execution. Some people are puzzled and proud of Mamam's madness in the name of God. Many people gathered, sang hymns, sent him to a place called "Blue Pool" according to his request, and then erected a cross and tied him to it. Mann shouted for people to stone him. He himself groaned in the voice of Jesus and said, "God, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." But when people really threw stones at his face and chest, he looked very sad and surprised and said, "You know what you are doing" and "Listen, this bullshit joke should be over". Then he swore and shocked everyone. Finally, the police took Maman away. The whole process is a farce, and the writer reveals the religious influence brought by the colonists in a sarcastic tone. His absurd campaign parody imitated the political situation in Trinidad at that time: the candidate was an independent individual without political parties.

People in the West Indies often pin their hopes on celebrities, hoping for liberation and redemption. Some commentators pointed out that in the late colonial period and the early independence period, the unity of politics and religion was often the characteristic of political leaders in the New World. "Manman is just an interesting story, which shows how the lack of recognized social standards quickly turns into fantasy and violence, leading leaders to just put on a show without any clear plans." Obviously, the author's description of Manman's parody of political system and religious belief has profound metaphorical significance.

The characters in Miguel Street are all losers. No matter how they struggle, how they struggle, it is in vain. They can't change their marginal group status and oppressed fate. Elias, the hero of the career choice story, has great ambitions. The dream of other children in the street is to be a blue garbage truck driver like Edas. "Those drivers can be regarded as nobles. They only do some work in the early hours of the morning and have nothing to do during the day. Despite this, they still go on strike at every turn. " But elias always dreamed of becoming a doctor. He was diligent and studious, but he failed in the exam. His goal dropped again and again, from the initial doctor to the health and quarantine officer, and finally he could only "drive a garbage truck and become a street aristocrat." Elias failed many times in the exam, not because he was not clever, nor because he didn't work hard, but because "the exam papers were written by the British." Do you expect them to let Elias pass? " This reflects the dominant position of colonial culture in the colony and the fate of the colonists being abandoned. It is quite difficult for the people at the bottom of society under the control of colonial system to change their social status and realize their life value. Therefore, the metaphorical significance of Elias' career choice experience is self-evident.

In addition, Hart, the sixteenth story in Miguel Street, is also intriguing. Hart is a person who loves life in Naipaul's eyes. He likes cricket, football and horse racing, keeps some beautiful parrots and other birds, chats on the sidewalk, drinks more wine on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, and occasionally adds magical colors to some ordinary things. "He seems to need nothing, and he is very self-sufficient." However, one day later, Hart brought a woman named Dolly home and kept buying her jewelry, becoming a man with responsibility and obligation. From the outside, Hart's family also has two changes. "One is to keep all the birds in cages; Second, the big German shepherd became unhappy after being chained. Commentator Lucy acquiesced that "two changes are metaphors for Hart to bring Dolly into his life at the expense of his free lifestyle". What happened next was even more surprising. Dolly ran away from Hart and took all the gifts he gave her. Hart found her, found her and beat her up, so he was sentenced to four years in prison. There are many metaphors like "cage" and "chain" in the novel, such as "pink house", "blue truck" and "cross".

Metaphor is one of the means of literature visualization, which enables people to grasp the unknown things according to the known things, and in the process of mutual stimulation between the known things and the unknown things, it achieves the aesthetic effect of "saying something here and being intentional there", and constructs the way for people to observe, understand and think about things. Obviously, the use of metaphor makes this collection of short stories icing on the cake, which makes it more tasteful and fragrant to read.

Third, the use of metonymy.

Synonyms are also commonly used techniques in literary works such as poems and novels. "The characteristic is that the part replaces the whole, or the whole refers to the part, the concrete replaces the abstract, or the abstract replaces the concrete." In the collection of short stories Miguel Street, the author successfully chose Miguel Street and Laura as the background and protagonist of the story respectively, which truly presented the life picture of Trinidad people in 1930s and 1940s, and outlined the colonial people's muddled, bewildered, humble and weird life state after marginalization. At the beginning of the story "Fireworks Master", the author inadvertently described Miguel Street as follows: "If a stranger drives through Miguel Street, he can only say:' Slum!'" "Because he can only see these. However, those of us who live here regard this street as a world, and all the people here have their own uniqueness. Mann is crazy, George is an idiot, Bigfoot is a thug, Hite is an adventurer, Pope is a philosopher, and Morgan is a clown among us. "

More significantly, in the ninth story "Certified Public Accountant titus Hoyt", the narrator tells that he just moved from the countryside to Port of Spain, and his mother told him to go out and do some shopping. When he came back, he got lost and couldn't find his home. The commentator said, "I found about six streets named Miguel." The narrator is obviously suggesting that Miguel Street is around him, and the plight of people living on those streets is no different from that of people living on Boys Street. Miguel Street became the symbol and epitome of the whole colonial society, and the life of the lower class it reflected was also a true portrayal of the life of the colonial lower class at that time. In a broader sense, the significance of Miguel Street is not limited to the small "local world" of Miguel Street, and "Miguel Street" is a microscopic world that can be seen from small to large. Naipaul's works are not only a criticism of colonial society, but also a reflection on people and life itself.

Miguel Street truly reproduces a group of little people living in Trinidad society: vagrants, carpenters, coachmen, lunatics, drunkards, cowards, visionaries, comedy artists, educators, hairdressers, mechanical geniuses, fashion youths, vagrants, poor mothers, poor children and so on. They are marginal people, with extremely poor material life, complex and vague identity and no sense of cultural belonging.

The book gives a typical and concise description of each protagonist's personality, such as Bogart who pretends to make a living as a tailor, Pope who pretends to be a carpenter, George, the brothel owner who gathers a group of women in the pink room, and Blake Wordsworth who claims to be the greatest poet in the world. Especially the description of Laura, the heroine in Mother's Instinct, is unforgettable. Laura is a character who bears the burden of life and sex, and is a typical woman in Trinidad colony. Laura is the mother of eight children. When she learned that her eldest daughter was pregnant at a young age and went her own way, she cried bitterly. Soon, when she learned the news that her eldest daughter committed suicide by jumping into the sea, she only said a few words: "This is good, this is good, this is better." On the surface, this sentence is contrary to the meaning of the topic "Mother's Instinct". In fact, this is the author's point of view: Laura recognizes her daughter's choice. For a daughter, instead of living in humiliation and repeating the mistakes of her mother, it is better to leave this desperate world and get a kind of liberation and redemption. "Just as Miguel Street is a microcosm of Trinidad colonial society, Laura is the representative of Naipaul's meticulous portrayal of the vast number of women who have succumbed to this environment." Commentator Peggy also thinks: "For a woman like Laura, in this world, only casual sex and having more children are the only channels to happiness and warmth. They can't get rid of poverty and have no other creativity. " In the process of telling the story, the author narrates his personal life experience, puts himself in the abyss of individual destiny, feels their pain and confusion, and presents the "real existence of repressed history" with the hardships and experiences of typical characters.

Four. conclusion

To sum up, Naipaul has a unique keen sense of things. With his unique way of thinking and style, he presented a complete picture of the life of the people at the bottom of the colony in a metaphorical way. It describes people's ignorance, the distortion of human nature by colonial culture and poverty in a cold style, which makes people deeply feel the sadness and suffocation of riffraff and makes people think deeply.