The Study Of “Honest And Upright Official Complex” In Zhao Shuli’s Novel “Rhymes Of Li Youcai”

People called official who is incorruptible and fair as “honest and upright official”. In the long history of oppression, people gradually felt a very strong emotion to “honest and upright officials”. People respected and trusted “honest and upright officials” and were looking forward to their coming. These became the “honest and upright official complex”. In the modern society with rule of law, the ancient “honest and upright officials” are non-existent, however, the “honest and upright official complex” continues today. People put these old emotions on new officials, these become modern “honest and upright officials”and modern “honest and upright official complex”.Zhao Shuli’s novel “Rhymes of Li Youcai” created an “honest and upright official” character called Yang. The novel reflects the “honest and upright official complex”. The reasons of this reflection are traditional culture, actual situation of society and people’s mentality. This is a response to the realistic society. The novel’s reflecting of the “honest and upright official complex” can be seemed as a kind of poetic justice. The poetic justice has its unique value of law. It can make up for the relative justice of law from a perspective of literature and also it can guide the justice of real world.From novel to the reality, the “honest and upright official complex” which formed in feudal society has its limitations. In a society under the rule of law is been built, attaching to much importance to those “honest and upright officials” and the uncertainty resulted from the subjectivity of those officials can be an interference to legal ideology and due procedure. While placing emphasis on virtue, incorruption and wisdom of administration can really be valuable to modern society.In practice, the most important thing is to restrain officials with law. Through the development of an improved and scientific judicial system and the explicit clarification of rights and responsibilities, officials should be constrained within the framework of institution. Based on that, some further requirements on the aspect of morality for the officials can be made.