The gist of the last lesson

This is a well-known short story. Because of its profound theme and vivid artistic techniques, it has been selected by many countries as a textbook for primary and secondary school students to receive patriotic education and understand French literature.

The novel focuses on the incident in which the invaders forced local schools to teach German after Alsace, France, was occupied by the German Prussian army. The last lesson is a typical environment with special significance, because French is not allowed to be taught in schools from now on, and children should learn the language of foreign rulers and accept foreign culture from now on. This is a cultural aggression by the invaders after the military occupation. Here, the author raised the significance of a primary school lesson to the height of bidding farewell to the motherland, making any scene and details of this lesson have solemn significance.

There are two points in the novel that deserve special attention in art.

The first is a clever narrative perspective. The theme of the work is very serious, but the performance of this theme has chosen a clever angle. The original subtitle of the work is "The Self-report of a Child in Alsace Province". The author chose a naughty boy as the protagonist. Through his ignorant and naive style and his psychological changes, he indirectly wrote the heartfelt grief of the people of Alsace and their silent protest against the invaders, showing their deep feelings for the motherland. The little hero received an unprecedented education in this class, and the readers were moved by it.

Second, vivid characters, scenes, details and psychological descriptions. The novel carefully uses a lot of descriptions to show people's reaction in the last lesson, among which Mr. Hamel is the most important.

Such as a detailed description. Many details of this novel are very intriguing. Take the details of the author's description of pigeons cooing on the roof, which makes little Francis ask a humorous question: "They won't force these pigeons to sing in German!" Immediately, writing suddenly stopped. The answer is left to the reader to think and supplement. Another example is Hamel's Little Black Silk Hat with Embroidered Edges, Old Man Hao Sou's Introduction, and the big glasses placed horizontally in the book, all of which left a deep impression on people. There are also two Prussian army drills and trumpets in the works, several beetles flying in the classroom, and the Chinese character "Long live France" written on the blackboard. These details seem handy, but they are not dispensable. They play the role of setting off the environment, depicting characters and revealing the theme. Every detail contains profound meaning and is thought-provoking.

Another example is Mr. Hamel's description. The novel observes and describes the image of Mr. Hamel from the perspective of young Franz. Due to the limitation of angle, the author can't go deep into Mr. Hamel's heart directly, and can only express his psychological activities and personality characteristics by means of representation, language and action description. First of all, his main impression of the teacher is that "the teacher has a big iron ruler in his hand …", and when he entered the classroom, he also specially noticed that the teacher "had that scary iron ruler under his arm". However, when Mr. Hamel appeared in front of the readers, he was very gentle and he was wearing an unusual coat and hat, which surprised little Francis. It turns out that Mr. Hamel will leave the school where he has served for forty years, and he and his students will bid farewell to their motherland for the last time! In addition, Mr. Hamel kept calm and maintained his image under great pressure at the moment of great grief. What a noble bearing! In the last lesson, Mr. Hamel criticized everyone, deeply blamed himself, and admonished the children, which made the image of a conscientious and moral teacher stand out clearly. Finally, Mr. Hamel wrote Long Live France, which is like a close-up, fully showing the strong feelings of the characters and giving people a deep impression. Usually, he is a strict teacher, showing solemnity, fearlessness and affection at key times, and deeply affecting the children's hearts with his words and deeds. This is the image of Mr. Hamel created by the author. This image is blurred first, then clear, and finally stands in front of every reader like a statue, which makes people strongly feel the external strength and internal passion of this character!