User:Yidanlong/LoveMustNotBeForgotten

Love Must Not Be Forgotten is a short story by Chinese writer Zhang Jie, first published in 1979, issue of Beijing Wenxue (Beijing Literature).

The story tells of the tragedy of Zhong Yu and the veteran cadre who cannot get married to each other through a 30-year-old unmarried young woman named Shanshan's memories of her deceased mother.

It is one of the earliest works of positive expression of love in the new era. It is the representative work of Zhang Jie in the early stage. Since the work was published in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when people's thinking was still at the junction of the new and the old, so the shock this novel brought to many people is conceivable. The world has aroused enthusiastic responses and debates.

Plot
Shan Shan, the 30-year-old unmarried narrator is questioning her reluctance to marry a very ideal boyfriend, Qiao Lin. Her mother, the writer Zhong Yu passed having left her dairy "Love Must Not Be Forgotten". According to Zhong Yu's wishes, Shan Shan burned all her mother's books, but could not part with the dairy. Shan Shan recalled the conversation with her mother and read through the diary, she discovered her mother's secret relationship. Zhong Yu was divorced when she was young, and she lived a single life with her daughter Shan Shan for more than 20 years. In the 1950s, the old cadre served as a leader in Zhong Yu's office. They met and fell in love with each other. When the old cadre was spying underground in Shanghai in the 1930s, an old worker was arrested and sacrificed to cover him, and left his helpless wife and daughter behind. Out of morals and duty, he married the girl without hesitation. In 1969, the old cadre died in the Cultural Revolution. Zhong Yu, who was in her 50s at that time, suddenly had all white hair. She wrapped a black veil around her arm and she was criticized for this, saying that she insisted on the Four Old. The notebook consists of Zhong Yu's internal conversation with the old cadre.

Literary criticism
Since its birth in 1979, the work has presented a phenomenon of bipolar criticism. On the one hand, the love described in the novel is great, sincere, profound and meaningful, and it is a masterpiece of love in the literary works of the 1980s. On the other hand, some people criticize the obscure extramarital affair in the article, which is a kind of immorality. The critics who participated in the debate came from two factions – those who praised the story based from a humanistic point of view, and those who criticized the story based from a conservative and moralistic point of view.

Controversies
The short story Love Must Not Be Forgotten broke the forbidden zone in the 1970s where it was debatable to write topics about love. It reflects the social problem of young people's pursuit of marriage autonomy.

Theme
The characters in the novel fully reflect the people's concept of marriage in the old Chinese society. Most of them conflict morally and emotionally and suppress their emotions on a moral level. This makes their story even more tragic. With the gradual opening of the new society, people's concept of marriage has also changed, but how to balance morality and human nature is a huge challenge that everyone is about to face.

Zhong Yu
Zhong Yu is a writer, and she's Shan Shan's mother. When she was young, she married a man she doesn't love, they divorced eventually. As she live in loneliness and raised her daughter, she met the old cadres and they fell in love with each other.

The Old Cadres
The Cadres used to be the leader of Zhong Yu's office. In the 1930s, when he was spying underground in Shanghai, an old worker sacrificed himself to protect him. Based on morality, responsibility, class friendship, and appreciation for the dead, he married the daughter of the old worker. When he was in his 50s, he fell in love with writer Zhong Yu. During the Cultural Revolution, he was persecuted for sticking to the truth and challenging the "theoretical authority" of the moment and died in 1969.

Shan Shan
Shan Shan is the first-person narrator of this short novel. From her perspective, the novel tells the tragic love story of her mother and a veteran cadre. Although the storyline has nothing to do with Shanshan himself, it still allows readers to feel Shanshan's views on love and marriage.

Awards
Love Must Not Be Forgotten was listed as The Most Influential Novel of the Four Decades of Reform and Opening-up in September 2018.