Humble Opinion On Writing About "Neutral Characters" Controversy In "Seventeen Years"

In contemporary literary of China,"seventeen years" was the childhood stages of theliterature regulations, the last three national representative conferences of literary and artworkers were played an important role during such time.The first conference portraied themasses of workers, peasants and soldiers became the prime task for the writers to create theliterature and art.To create new heroes became the important task of literature and art after thesecond conference, and overcome the tendency of works which produces mechanical andstereotyped had also become a conceptual problem.During the third conference, the countrywas in adjustment period,"Guangzhou Meeting","Xinqiao Meeting" and "Dalian Meeting"were held in succession, Shao Quanlin claimed for "writing about neutral characters middlepeople" and "realism deepening" theory in "Dalian Meeting".The controversy on writing about neutral characters began form "writing about neutralcharacters is literary views of bourgeois" and "the material of writing about neutralcharacters", which are published in Journal of Literature and Art in No8-9,1964.In the debate,the creation subject was focus on writing "neutral characters" whether or not. Gladiator werenot only questioned about the meaning of the "neutral characters", but still discussed whetherwe could write "neutral characters" and how to write "neutral characters", the argumentshighlighted both the essence of writing about neutral characters and its education function, italso involved the derived of writing "ordinary people". Creation method was concerned aboutwhat is realism deepening, the realism how to deepening and the very essence of realismdeepening.Aiming at the bad situation of literature creation, writing about "neutral characters"and "realism deepening" theory should be considered as a positive significance. But it hadn’trushed out of the mainstream ideology,"realism deepening" only became a reparative to thecreative. The limitation of the debate which is demonstrated by frequentlly led Shao Quanlin’s theory and criticism to the higher plane of principle. and quote out of context to suit Shao’spurposes, misinterpretation and misreading about Shao’s original intention, and set off Shaoto "one-sided". The existing limitation of writing about "neutral characters" was halfway intheory, the ambiguousness concept was a clear proof; There was a uniformity of problems on the formulation of "realism deepening", the atmosphere for Literature became more and morejacobinical, Shao Quanlin and his theory soon became victims of the class struggle in a newliterary fronts, which presented a big limitation to "seventeen years" literature criterion.During the controversy on writing about neutral characters, the representative text were:"The History of Entrepreneurship","Red Flag","The Enomous Change of Country","ThreeMiles Bay ","Taking Physical Exercise", and "the first sister-in-law of Lai", etc, the "neutralcharacters" of these fiction can be divided into three kinds: one acts as a foil to the positiveheroes, who have had a change for many reasons. They were "discipline" by the mainstreambecause of their "ineffectiveness", such as the old man named Liang San in "The History ofEntrepreneurship" and Yan Zhihe in "Red Flag"; the other is defaulted for the needs of thewriter, such as zhao Shuli’s novles about series "neutral characters" and Xi Rong’s "the firstsister-in-law of Lai";The third is full of dramatic, such as Ting Mianhu in "The EnomousChange of Country", etc. Although assumed different forms in different novels, they all beingin daily life, writing on ordinary times is a collapse of grand narrative in "seventeen years".The artistic charm of the "neutral characters" just lies in it.On the "transformation" view of literature, writing about "neutral characters" is a kind offunctional characters to the "seventeen years" literature, which is complement and perfect tothe "heroes". It requires to write the reality by the way of "realism deepening", and makesevery effort to shape the characters in daily life. In "seventeen years" period, that is a return ofrealism; The theoretical and creation had widened the narrow creation environment ofliterature to some extent. As a last call for the realistic spirit in "seventeen years",writingabout "neutral characters" and "realism deepening" have important significance of the literaryhistory, it not only carries a foreshadowing of the revival of realism at the end of1970’s andthe beginning of1980’s, but also has exert positive influence over the literary creation fromthe new period to the new century.