Zhao Shuli's Life and Works

Zhao Shuli (1906—— 1970), formerly known as Zhao Shuli, was born in Yuchi Village, Qinshui County. Modern famous novelist. Born in a poor peasant family. 1937, joined the China * * * production party. He has served as member of the Standing Committee of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, director of the Chinese Writers Association and chairman of the Chinese Quyi Artists Association. He has been the editorial board member of Quyi and People's Literature, the representative of the Eighth Congress of China Producers' Party, and the representative of the first, second and third National People's Congress.

Zhao Shuli occupies an important position in the history of modern literature in China. As early as War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression's time, he devoted himself to the popularization of revolutionary literature and art, and wrote many novels that reflected rural social life and were well received by the masses, such as Disciples' Rules, Li Youcai's Banhua, Li Jiazhuang's Changes and Fu Gui. After the liberation of the whole country, he continued to go deep into rural life, constantly cultivated and wrote, and was employed by China literary circles. The short exercises, the long storytelling Lingquan Cave (the first episode), the doer Pan Yongfu and the novel Three Mile Bay are all fascinating.

After ten years of catastrophe, Zhao Shuli suffered severe physical and mental damage and died on1September 23, 970 at the age of 64.

Zhao Shuli is one of the few outstanding writers in China who are really familiar with the countryside and love the people. His works truly reproduce the great changes in rural areas of China over the past decades, with unique national forms and styles. He has made fruitful contributions to carrying forward China's excellent national literary tradition and promoting the popularization of revolutionary literature and art.

Zhao Shuli's Novels and Folk Customs in Southeast Shanxi

There is a novel school "Yao Dan School" in the history of modern and contemporary literature in China. This school, represented by the famous writer Zhao Shuli, is deeply loved by readers with its fresh and simple national form, lively popular language and fresh and rich local flavor. This school also includes a group of novelists such as,, Rong,, Sun Gan and so on. In the late 1950s, they formed a group of writers and created many excellent works with the flavor of "yam and egg". For example, Zhao Shuli's Marriage of Little Erhei, Half Flowers, Sanliwan, Changes and Registration of New York, Early Learning for Three Years, My First Superintendent, Rong's The Secret of Building a Horse Shed and Girls, Sun Gan's Scar Story, etc.

Zhao Shuli, the pioneer of "Shanyao Egg School", is known as the "iron pen" and "holy hand" of modern novels for his great literary achievements, and occupies an important position in the history of modern literature. There are many reasons for his success, one of which is that he is rooted in the soil of his hometown in southeastern Shanxi, is familiar with the countryside and loves the people, and describes a large number of unique regional folk customs in southeastern Shanxi, or as a profound folk cultural background of his works, or as a means to shape characters, reveal their psychology and promote their character development, showing distinctive national characteristics.

The value of Zhao Shuli's novels lies in: through his own aesthetic processing, the chaotic and naive folk customs have been turned into a vivid literary creation village, which reflects the rural life in the Taihang area in the 1930s and 1960s and shows readers a vivid picture of rural customs.

Zhao Shuli's novels cover almost all aspects of folk customs in southeastern Shanxi, including productive labor, food, clothing, housing and transportation, weddings and funerals, religious beliefs and folk literature and art, among which the following three aspects are the most prominent.

First, the folk customs of family, clan and village society. The second section of Sanliwan introduces the living environment of Wang Baoquan and Wang Jinsheng, and introduces caves and their usage customs in the order of east, west, north and south. For example, the four-hole division of labor in the west is like this: Jinsheng and Yusheng are married and have a family, each living in one hole. Wang Baoquan and the old couple live in a cave. My daughter Yu Mei lives in a cave, but it is a cave, which is connected with the cave where her parents live. There is no way with a window. She has to go through her parents' door to get in and out. This shows that on the one hand, prostitutes are older and need to live separately from their parents; On the other hand, because she is unmarried, she should be wary of deviant and disorderly rituals, and visit her parents' bridal chamber, and every move can be supervised and restrained by her parents. Here, caves are no longer simple objects, but reflect the traditional folk psychology and become a comprehensive cultural phenomenon.

"Three Mile Bay" also describes the division of labor, economic distribution, life management and complicated relationship between two old-fashioned family members, and reveals the influence of parents' authority and old ethics on the old-fashioned family. The description of "eating pancakes" in Li Jiazhuang Changes, a folk custom in southeastern Shanxi, has a deeper social connotation. The folk characteristic of "eating pancakes" is that there is a dispute in the village. During the process of eating pancakes, the two sides ask the village head, patriarch or local influential people to judge, and the location is located in the temple in the village. After the judge makes a ruling, the losing party should bear the responsibility and pay the cost of eating pancakes. In the novel, Zhang Tiesuo, a farmer, had an argument with the nephew of Li Ruzhen, the village chief. The village chief arbitrarily commented on Zhang Tiesuo's loss, occupied Zhang Tiesuo's land and made him pay for pancakes. After Zhang Tiesuo came home, he said a few words angrily. Hearing this, the village chief put the couple in prison and finally lost their land and property, ending the difficulties. The works profoundly reveal the feudal agents who combined theocracy and political power, relying on the support of warlords and rulers to brutally oppress the working people.

Second, marriage and love customs. There are a lot of descriptions of marriage and love customs in Zhao Shuli's novels to reflect farmers' ideological outlook on life and the spirit of the times. The third fairy in Little Black Marriage married Yu Fushi in 1930s, just 15 years old, and was the first handsome daughter-in-law in Qianhouzhuang. But under the influence of backward and ignorant superstition, she gradually became a coquettish woman. Although she is 45 years old, she prefers to be an old lady. She still needs to embroider on her little shoes and edge her trousers. She dresses up every day. The author vividly depicts a female image with morbid psychology and distorted personality, and exposes the evil consequences brought by feudal marriage. The little moth in Registration has a lover named security guard, but her parents married her to a carpenter. Although she is very reluctant, according to the traditional marriage custom, she still has to be carried to her husband's house, beaten and beaten, and allowed to make room for young men. As usual, on the first day of New Year's Day, two women helped her kowtow from door to door to pay New Year's greetings, and took her husband "back to her mother's house". Later, because she exchanged tokens of love with the security guard, she was beaten by the carpenter Zhang, and her mother-in-law and neighbors also thought that she had a "bad reputation." The marriage tragedy of moths is also caused by feudal ethics. On the other hand, evil does not suppress right, which shows women's resistance to the unreasonable marriage that oppresses people by force, and reflects the complex class contradictions and changes of the times at that time. The "arhat money" in the registration is a token of love used by mother and Ai Ai, and it is also a unique custom in southeastern Shanxi, which has profound symbolic significance.

Third, the use of folk literary expressions. Zhao Shuli successfully borrowed from the "storytelling" technique in folk literature and art, used stories to set stories, cleverly set links, and made the plot coherent and ups and downs. In the use of language, a large number of spoken languages of people in southeastern Shanxi are refined, which are popular, simple and vivid, making the novel present a kind of "natural beauty".