Akutagawa Ryunosuke: Nose

Recently, I was reading Rashomon by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Last night, I read one of the articles Nose, which was very touching.

Zen wisdom's nose is five or six inches long and hangs down to his chin, which has caused him great trouble: First, it is inconvenient in life. When eating, disciples need to pick their noses with wooden sticks. Disciple is not careful, his nose may fall into porridge; The most important thing is to hurt his self-esteem. Others like to talk about his distinctive nose. He pretended to be indifferent on the surface. In fact, the word "nose" is the most taboo in daily conversation. So he looked for all kinds of information to comfort himself and tried to shorten his nose. Finally, scald it with boiling water and step on it with your foot, and your nose will be shortened to its normal size. Then something very interesting happened.

After the nose is normal, the doctor thinks that people still look at him abnormally, which is actually another kind of abnormality. I feel that they "didn't laugh so recklessly before ..." People are used to the internal supply of long noses, but feel uncomfortable with the internal supply of normal noses? I'm beginning to regret shortening my nose. Suddenly one morning, my nose somehow returned to its original appearance, and so did my long nose. I don't think anyone will laugh at me anymore.

People are still laughing at him after the internal donor's nose has shrunk to normal. Akutagawa thinks so: "Everyone has two contradictory emotions. Of course, everyone has compassion. But when that man managed to get rid of his misfortune, others suddenly felt a little lost. To exaggerate, they even want that person to make the same mistake again. Inadvertently, although it is negative, it is hostile to that person's heart. -Although the inner confession can't know the secret, his unhappiness is only because he noticed the egoism of the bystanders from the attitude of the monk at the end of the pool. "

Internal supply is contradictory. He doesn't want others to laugh at him. He wants his nose to be normal. But after his nose was normal, people laughed at him, and his poor self-esteem was not comforted. He puts others' opinions of himself in the most important position, has no self, and lives in a net woven by others. He is a total villain.

PS: Akutagawa likes to criticize problems in a sarcastic tone, and often says irony or irony. Before I fully understood his writing characteristics, I watched Hell Change once, and there were countless question marks in my heart. It was not until I read Zhihu's related works that I suddenly realized.