"Legal" Or "Custom"? —Zhao Shuli’s Novels (1949-1964)

Zhao Shuli has been a famous writer in the 1940s. As the successful practice of Mao Zedong’s discourse, in1947, he had been the "direction" of Chinese literature. As his name indicated, "reasoning" has become an extremely important narrative activities in Zhao Shuli’s novels. Before the founding of new China in 1949, Zhao realized that because of the existence of the "power" of the landlords, farmers can’t guarantee their own interests by rural custom. So, Zhao decided to overcome the weakness of the custom with the "legal" of the communist party.However, after the founding of new China in 1949, as the landlord class exit, the discord between custom and legal stand out gradually. Specifically manifests in Family including marriage and the restructuring of family; then expand to the outside, namely rural space including human relationship, legal and "mediation"; then to the later of Agricultural Cooperation Movement, Zhao Shuli expressed the reflection on the legal theory characterized by modern knowledge.Thus, what’s this thesis attempts to discuss is the disagreement between "custom" and "legal" after 1949. On the one hand, Zhao attempts to reform the custom by the legal of socialism; on the other hand, the disagreement between custom and legal became so fierce that Zhao had an ambiguous attitude toward the two sides, not clear like 1940’s(Because of the present common enemy:landlord). This also shows the fate of "Zhao Shuli Direction" in contemporary from another angle.Then, corresponding to the discussion above, this thesis has three parts to discuss the ambiguous attitude. Part one:Discuss the formation of marriage, the crisis of family division, and Zhao’s efforts to bridge over within family. Part two:Discuss family extension, namely nostalgia and human relationship. Zhao ease the contradiction of "custom" and "legal" with "mediation" to avoid the violence appeared in some novels of cooperative movement. The third part, more epitaxially, mainly discusses the educated youth, to some extent, this part may be seen as a rethinking of Zhao Shuli’s reflection on modern knowledge.