Mao Dun's Main Works

Mao Dun's main works include Midnight, Eclipse, Frost Leaves Red Like February Flowers, Tribute to the White Poplar, Landscape Talk, Spring Silkworms, Autumn Harvest, Late Winter, Lin Family Shop, etc. Among them, Midnight was a modern Chinese novel with about 300,000 words. Mao Dun began writing in October 1931 and finished writing on December 5,1932. There were a total of 19 chapters. The novel was set in the semi-feudal and semi-colonial old Shanghai in May and June 1930, with the national capitalist Wu Sunfu as the center. It described the various contradictions and struggles in Chinese society at that time. Eclipse was a collection of novellas by modern writer Mao Dun, first published in 1930. Eclipse consisted of three novellas that were slightly continuous: Disillusionment (published in 1927), Shaking, and Pursuit (completed in 1928). The theme of Eclipse was the life experience and spiritual journey of a group of petty-capitalist intellectual youth before and after the Great Revolution. It was intended to show the three periods that the youth must go through in the tide of revolution at that time: the excitement on the eve of the revolution and the disillusionment when the revolution was in front of them, the wavering when the revolutionary struggle was fierce, and the pursuit after the disillusionment and wavering. Frost Leaves Red Like February Flowers was another masterpiece written by Mao Dun after Eclipse. The novel was set in Jiangnan villages and towns on the eve of the May 4th Movement. It described the infighting between the emerging capitalists and the gentry and landlords, as well as the sharp contradictions between them and the peasants. In the middle, there were several pairs of young men and women's emotional entanglements, which widely reflected the social life of that era. The layout was rigorous, the scene was grand, the plot was complicated, and the language was elegant. It was a masterpiece full of national style. "Tribute to the White Poplar" was an essay written by modern writer Mao Dun in 1941. The author used the white poplar trees on the northwest plateau to symbolize the tenacious and hardworking northern farmers. He praised their simplicity, strength, and spirit of striving for progress in the national liberation struggle. At the same time, he also cast a sharp ridicule on those who looked down on the people and stubbornly regressed. The article had a lofty idea, a clear image, a rigorous structure, and concise language. Landscape Talk is one of Mao Dun's representative works of lyric prose. Scenery Talks was about sceneries. The "sceneries" here included not only natural sceneries but also human activities. On the surface, he was talking about the natural "landscape", but in fact, he was writing about the person who dominated the "landscape". "Spring Silkworm" was a short story written by modern writer Mao Dun.