Affaire and Filth
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(Really bad.Don't read!)
A small detail drew my attention when I watched the film “Nomitori samurai” yesterday.The samurai acted by Etsushi Toyokawa was a husband afraid of wife.Once he dropped his underpant to a women’s latrine because of a sudden rolling in his belly. And this gave him punishment by his wife. Not the punishment fascinated me(though it’s really fun), but the relationship between the affair and the latrine. To be more exact, it’s the relationship between illicit affairs and filth that plunged me into deep thought. It made me think back some vivid memory I got from reading before.
The day before yesterday, I read a small book written by Italian novelist Giovanni Boccaccio, which is the No.1 of “Penguin Little Black Classics”. The first story in this book really made me burst into laughter. It skillfully narrated a merchant who named Andreuccion seduced by a beautiful young woman. Andreuccion lost all his money and crashed down into an alleyway which was full of horrible filth. The story also referred to the relationship between illicit love and filth.When some greedy and stupid man wants to get extra love, they always fall in a mess of bluff which related with filth such as shit, urine, etc.
Taking a deep insight into Chinese novels, we can find this phenomenon is not uncommon. In The Dream of Red Mansion, one of the greatest Chinese novels, there is also a plot that associated the liaison with filth.It occurred after Jia Rui found himself falling in love with Wang Xifeng, and wants to get an intimacy with her. In the end, Jia Rui not only didn’t get the love, but also was subject to cold wind all the night with a bucket of shit.
It’s really interesting why the illicit affairs are always associated with the filth。Not only in the Renaissance, but also in Qing dynasty of China.I don’t know whether there are ones in The Plum in the Golden Vase, which is regarded as the best socail novel of China. I believe there must be, because the themes of this novel are love and desire. And love is strongly linked to food. Just as Mencius said, “The desire for food and sex is a part of human nature. ” Food changes to shit after digestion.So there is secretive relationship between affaire and filth.