"The Mistake by the River" is one of Yu Hua's pioneering series of works, which fictionalizes a detective story. By the mysterious and tempting river, the fourth mother-in-law was killed, and the criminal police captain Ma Zhe was responsible for investigating the case. Evidence shows that the "madman" in the town is the murderer, but the law is helpless against the madman. Next, the madman killed people one after another. Ma Zhe, who couldn't bear it, shot the madman to death with his own hands. After the madman died, Ma Zhe became a madman in people's eyes. The main purpose of the novel is not to parody or reveal violence, but to show the truth of death in the world and explore the philosophy of survival in the face of an absurd world.
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In this novel, Yu Hua attempts to draw on the French writer's joking techniques to write about reality from the side, using an ironic connotation to set off the evil of human nature shown in the story. The most exposed among them is the madman. As a mentally abnormal character, the madman expresses the violent tendencies in human nature in an extreme way such as killing. At the same time, there are also specific settings for the targets of the madman's killing. The fourth mother-in-law, who was kind to the madman during her lifetime, and the men and children who have nothing to do with the madman, use such a specific character relationship to set off the violent characteristics of the madman's nature that do not escape. The situations shown by other normal people push the original setting of normal people into the embarrassing situation of "normal people are also crazy". Xu Liang fell into a strange circle of thinking due to excessive stress, placing himself in an imaginary situation full of doubts and unable to extricate himself. During the three consecutive murders, he repeatedly fantasized about going to the river to witness the murders, and finally forced himself into a desperate situation under the imaginary reasoning of "suicide out of fear of crime". The development of detective Ma Zhe is even more bizarre. He was originally for justice, but in the end he became an evader. He unconsciously repeated the sins of the madman, and later had to ironically borrow the madman's pseudonym to meet the catastrophic ending.
In this novel, Yu Hua attempts to draw on the French writer's joking techniques to write about reality from the side, using an ironic connotation to set off the evil of human nature shown in the story. The most exposed among them is the madman. As a mentally abnormal character, the madman expresses the violent tendencies in human nature in an extreme way such as killing. At the same time, there are also specific settings for the targets of the madman's killing. The fourth mother-in-law, who was kind to the madman during her lifetime, and the men and children who have nothing to do with the madman, use such a specific character relationship to set off the violent characteristics of the madman's nature that do not escape. The situations shown by other normal people push the original setting of normal people into the embarrassing situation of "normal people are also crazy". Xu Liang fell into a strange circle of thinking due to excessive stress, placing himself in an imaginary situation full of doubts and unable to extricate himself. During the three consecutive murders, he repeatedly fantasized about going to the river to witness the murders, and finally forced himself into a desperate situation under the imaginary reasoning of "suicide out of fear of crime". The development of detective Ma Zhe is even more bizarre. He was originally for justice, but in the end he became an evader. He unconsciously repeated the sins of the madman, and later had to ironically borrow the madman's pseudonym to meet the catastrophic ending.