“文学是人学”这个命题之后,舆论逐渐将人物性格的刻画视为叙事文学的使命。但是,西方文学批评史资料显示,批评家对文学之中人物性格的分析兴趣并不大。一种观点认为,人物性格可以脱离文学的上下文单独存留于读者的记忆;另一种观点认为,这些人物性格只能存活于文本。马克思主义批评学派强调现实主义文学之中的典型性格,这是人物跨出文本与历史潮流相互衔接的阐释机制;结构主义叙事学强调人物仅仅是一种语言构造,角色的功能与历史无关。今天,由于脱离历史语境,结构主义叙事学已经式微,但现实主义之中典型性格的阐释机制同样面临挑战。“阶级”这个范畴所承担的意义必须重新评估。这恰恰表明了历史对文学的新要求。 After the proposition that “literature is humanity”, public opinion gradually regards the characterization of characters as the mission of narrative literature. However, the history of Western literary criticism shows that critics are not interested in the analysis of the character in literature. One view holds that the character’s personality can be left alone in the reader’s memory without the context of literature. The other view is that these characters can only survive in the text. Marxist criticism emphasizes the typical character of realism literature, which is the interpretation mechanism that characters go beyond the interconnectedness of texts and historical trends. Structuralist narratology emphasizes that characters are merely a kind of linguistic construct, and the function of characters has nothing to do with history. Today, structuralist narratologies have become less and less due to being out of context with history, but the interpretative mechanisms of typical personalities in realism are also challenged. The significance of the category “class” must be re-evaluated. This just shows the new historical requirements of literature.