On the Art of Preparation before Thunderstorm

Before Thunderstorm is a famous essay published by Mao Dun in the early 1930s. The article is highly praised by the world, not only because it has a strong sense of the times, but also because the author uses the art of creating momentum, giving people an immersive feeling.

The first is to get power from the weather environment. According to our life experience, there will always be sultry weather before a thunderstorm. But in the author's pen, the sultry weather before the thunderstorm is unusual: it gets hot from early morning. In this regard, the author does not hesitate to paint the sultry atmosphere in the morning from top to bottom, from far to near, from touch to vision. Hot bridge stones, people sleeping on the street, gray curtains, dry rivers, cracked fields ... In addition, many rhetorical devices, such as exaggeration, metaphor, personification and so on. They are all used, such as "the soil is as hard as cement" and "something seems to come out of their flat mouths like white smoke." Make the sultry atmosphere more vivid and concrete. After reading this, readers will feel that they are surrounded by a sultry air, expecting a thunderstorm, but the author does not stop there, but continues to focus on describing the afternoon environment: not only the weather is hot, but also flies and mosquitoes take the opportunity to wreak havoc. "The air is twice as stuffy as before! That curtain is twice as thick as before! It's doubly black! " The three "doubles" and three exclamation points here push the gloomy and sultry atmosphere to the extreme.

The second is to gain motivation from feeling and psychology. The author not only tries to exaggerate the sultry atmosphere in the article, but also consciously focuses this atmosphere on people's feelings. In the morning, it is "all pores are closed"; In the morning, it becomes "sweat, come out, come out"; Finally, it is "sweating, dry mouth burning, soft." The upgrade of physical feeling leads to the upgrade of psychological feeling. From "My heart is full of Tao Tao, as if I want to vomit something", people have been "like a fish about to * * *". I feel that the end of the world can't be worse! Therefore, through unique descriptions, the author pushed the feelings of the predecessors of Thunderstorm to the limit of patience step by step and pushed the expectation of Thunderstorm to a climax.

Once again, the author gained motivation in writing and language. The author's description is also full of twists and turns. For example, when people are "like a fish on the verge of * * *", looking forward to a thunderstorm, the situation has really changed, which makes people's expectations for a thunderstorm suddenly rise, but this glimmer of hope is fleeting. People who have experienced the twists and turns of expectation-disappointment are more eager for thunderstorms. In addition, with the aggravation of sultry weather and the change of people's feelings, the author's language is constantly changing, from irritability to anger, and finally to anger, the language is getting stronger and stronger, the feelings are getting higher and higher, and the infection to readers is getting stronger and stronger.

In this way, in chronological order, from the whole to the details, from the outside to the inside, the author pushed the sultry weather before the thunderstorm and people's depressed and irritable mood to the limit step by step, and people's urgent hope for the thunderstorm reached the limit, and an unstoppable thunderstorm came.