Between the Sense of War and Humanity ——On Contemporary Chinese War Fiction

Revolutionary war fiction is an important category in contemporary Chinese literature. In the period between 1950 and 1960,war fiction put the emphasis on figure of the position hero, namely, the revolution romanticism and heroism. It was this emphasis that overwhelmed issues which relate to that suffering resulting from the war experience. In fact, the individual ‘self was ignored completely in these early works. In the literature of the 1980s,the themes of war fiction changed from depicting heroes and heroism, to the portrayal of the ordinariness of heroes, and the common people in their heroic deeds. At the same time, the complexity and richness of the characters become a new focus of war fiction. In comparison with Russian war fiction, and based on writings of the 1990s,specifically Deng Yiguangs fictions, the paper demonstrates that war and sufferance have a close link to the representation of heroism. In shifting the focus from the description of heroic deeds and heroic adoration, to efforts which attempt to unravel the colorful and complex inner psychical world of the characters, contemporary war fiction reaches an objective comment on heroes and heroism. In doing this, the paper argues that contemporary Chinese war fiction has transcended the issue of humanity and humanism.