Carmen, or Garman, the name is just a symbol, it doesn’t matter how you write it. The permanent charm of symbols does not lie in textual research, but on interpretation. In 1845, she emerged from the ivory tower of the French writer Mérimé, constantly stimulating the reader’s appetite for interpretation. In the more than 160 years since then, its charm has not diminished at all, and it has been interpreted by everyone in different forms. Critics generally use such an interpretation: “Carmen” is a “flower of evil”. By creating the image of Carmen, Merimi reveals the hypocritical civilization of capitalism and a strong female self-consciousness lurking.
Changing social roles
Throughout human history, the role of “women” has taken a path of sadness and desolation. The Bible, the source of western culture, regards women as seductive and degenerate disasters. From the perspective of traditional literary aesthetics, most of the traditional female images in the world’s literary world exist as objects of family, dependence and sacrifice.
But Carmen is different. First of all, from the appearance of Carmen, she is an anti-traditional female gentle and elegant demeanor, showing a fierce beauty – “She is petite, young, slender, and has a pair of big eyes.” “Her skin is although Very smooth, but very close to bronze. Her eyes, though a little squinted, are large and beautiful; her lips, though a little thick, are well-lined, revealing snow-white teeth, whiter than peeled almonds. Her hair, though A little thick, but dark in color, with blue reflections, long and bright like a crow’s wings… Her beauty is a strange, wild beauty; her face surprises you at first sight, but Will never forget. Especially her eyes, with a sensual and fierce look.” Looking at her outfit, “she was wearing a very short red dress, revealing not only a ripped white stockings, but also a A pair of dainty red Moroccan leather shoes tied with a fiery red ribbon. She pushed back her cape to expose her shoulders and a large bunch of acacias on top of her shirt…”
Secondly, Carmen’s inner character is also contrary to the meekness of traditional women, showing strength and courage. Occasional friction with a colleague, she drew a knife, crossed someone’s face, and cynically said, “Dig a sink for flies to drink.” but the kindness of “I” in the novel to Carmen did not influence her, and the golden watch of “I” was still missing; she was ruthless and merciless. Wounded accomplice; she was mercenary, murdered, and did whatever she wanted, even her one-eyed husband was nearly plotted against. She is charming and flirtatious, looks like an angel, and is as poisonous as a snake and scorpion.
Again, as one of the “Wandering Bohemians” in Baudelaire’s poem, Carmen is accustomed to living a life of wandering and erratic. The concept of a stable home has been dissolved in her concept. Her “home” can be a random inn, a small hotel, or streets and alleys, barren mountains and remote mountains. Her footprints cover every inch of Spain. However, Carmen’s wandering around the world is not to follow men, she has her own independent belief in survival – “We are not born with materials that only grow cabbage. Our destiny is to rely on the ideas of foreigners to maintain our own life.” She engages in smuggling and theft, risky ventures that fit her cultural norms. In the group of people she deals with, she is worthy of being outstanding, she is the leader; in the eyes of everyone, she is an idol worthy of worship, “the lucky star of this group of people”. When everyone is in trouble, she can break through the siege and save all beings. In this sense, Carmen has changed the traditional female dependent, weak and passive family role, walked out of the family, chose her own independent aspirations, obeyed her own independent will and personality, and adopted a social, autonomous, An independent female image stands in the world literary world.
Rebelling against traditional concepts
In a society dominated by male-centered consciousness, women are bound by many cruel rules and regulations and cannot move. “The concept of chastity” is one of the shackles. It has been suppressing women’s “self-consciousness”, making it impossible to release.
This original interpretation of the concept of chastity has disappeared in Carmen’s field of consciousness. Carmen has a new interpretation of the concept of chastity. Chastity can be presented as a gift to a benefactor, which is Calais’s rule, a spontaneous expression of the human nature of her cultural norms, and at the same time a conscious outburst of female self-consciousness. When she gave her virginity to repay her benefactor Don Jose, she once said something like this: “According to our rules, I don’t owe you anything anymore, we’re done.” But when she broke up with Don Jose , she clearly said: “Boy, I love you a little bit”. Then, the only way to understand Carmen’s mind is: In the eyes of a gypsy girl, true love should be the unity of spirit and flesh, the unity of love and sexuality, without which it is incomplete. So, when Carmen found out that she really fell in love with Don Jose, she no longer regarded the sexual relationship between men and women as a means of repayment, but infused her soul into it and injected all her passion; finally, When she discovers that Don José’s love has become an obstacle in her quest for a free paradise, Carmen is by no means reluctant to maintain the status quo. In Carmen’s view, as a woman, she has the right to make different choices about love at different times, and when she truly loves someone, she can explode with all her enthusiasm, and everything she gives comes from the heart. When her lover, Don Jose, was wounded, she kept her eyes open and guarded day and night. When her one-eyed husband was trapped in a prison, Carmen took the initiative to rescue her for more than three years. What’s more valuable is that Carmen can deceive countless dignitaries and wealthy people with sweet words and charming charms, but he refuses to use a few words to deceive the people he once loved, and even refuses to lie half a sentence in exchange for his own life. In this sense, Carmen broke free from the shackles of the traditional male society’s concept of chastity on women, no longer wandering in the forced discourse of men, but sang along the way with a firm and free pace, cheering for women’s self-liberation.
Advocating the consciousness of freedom
Since the disintegration of the clan society, women have lost the qualification to stand side by side with men, and become a gender symbol that meets the needs of the male-dominated society for beauty, dignity, obedience, etc. It is precisely this male-dominated right to speak. The world suppresses women’s pursuit of the essence of human beings – freedom. Women are deprived of various independent and autonomous characteristics of the subject and become a relative existence. In the practical activities of human pursuit of freedom, he has become a shadow behind a man, thus leaving a bleak beauty in the sky where human beings sway “freedom”.
However, Carmen in Merimi’s works appeared in the gallery of world literary figures as a “free man”. In the depths of her heart, she had an instinctive impulse to oppose restraint and restriction. Physical bondage pursues the human truth that “the core of human nature is freedom”. In a society centered on male discourse, its glamorous and exciting feeling is like a thousand springs suddenly coming in an instant. Don Jose, is an absolute macho, his ultimate concern is how to conquer women, control women, and make women their own private property. Therefore, from the very first moment he knew Carmen, he exercised his male dominance will and stubbornly demanded to monopolize her body, because in his opinion, this is the proper meaning of love. Moreover, in his consciousness, a woman should have the natural responsibility and obligation to bear children and manage the housework for him. She shouldn’t have her own ideals and pursuits, she shouldn’t put her career above their family life, she should just stay at home with her husband and children, and be his vassal honestly, what he wants is a patriarchal culture “The Ideal Wife”. However, Carmen did the opposite and fought him tit for tat. In order to achieve the purpose of completing various transactions, she did not hesitate to sell her looks. She stole, cheated, murdered, and smuggled.
In fact, from the very beginning, Carmen was soberly aware that “dogs and wolves will not be peaceful for a long time”, and that her marriage with Don Jose was destined to end in tragedy, but she could not refuse the real call from the deepest emotions in her heart, “Since you left me, I always feel that something is missing.” And once she found out that she didn’t love Tang Jose anymore, she was absolutely unambiguous and said frankly to Tang Jose: “I don’t love you anymore… I can tell some more lies, but I don’t want to do it now.” Carmen’s view of love is clear: true love is the natural match of two hearts, it does not premise on money. She truly loved Don Jose, but she never reached out to him for a penny. On the contrary, after Don Jose was imprisoned, she gave generously to help him escape; true love should take freedom as the starting point and destination. When love becomes a bondage and a compulsion, it is better to devote oneself to it than to live for it. So, when Don Jose asked her to choose death and marriage without freedom, she chose death without hesitation, because she was willing to die for free love. From this point of view, Don Jose is not free. He forced himself to prove his love with death. He could sacrifice everything and just ask Carmen to continue to love him. This kind of obsession with love is really a complete abandonment of freedom. . Don Jose once betrayed the cultural norms he belonged to, abandoned his root culture, and stepped into the cultural norms to which Carmen belonged. He thinks this is a sacrifice he made for Carmen, and he has the right to demand that Carmen also step into the cultural norms to which he belongs. In Don Jose’s view, the love between a man and a woman should be based on giving up freedom and gaining possession from each other. But Carmen would not accept this kind of love. She would rather choose death as the price for her freedom than live in the cage of losing her freedom. So there is a wonderful confession from Carmen, “Be free, rather die”, “Follow you to death, I am willing, but not willing to live with you”, “As my Roma, you have the right to kill your Romy: But Carmen is always free, she was born as a Gary, and died as a Gary ghost.”
The image of Carmen shaped by Merimei with her unique aesthetic value orientation has realized the role renewal of the female image from family to society, breaking through the role of men The various rules and precepts stipulated by the world for women have stepped out of the cage of traditional ethical and moral norms of women’s images and exhaled the voice of women’s self-liberation. It is an all-round and violent subversion of the male world in history. The image will have permanent charm in the world literary world.
