One of the major functions of literature is to reveal the social and historical situation of the times. It is, however, dangerous to look at a certain type of literature and then generalize that the aspects presented there totally and truly reflect the situation of the time. The works of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald are good examples. Though Hemingway and Fitzgerald are contemporaries, their works represent two different life styles of the people who had lived through the First World War. While both of them are excellent writers, neither of their works should be read as a complete representation of the life of the Americans after the First World War. It is only by reading both their works and works by their contemporaries, such as Faulkner, that one can start to develop a "general" picture of'the time.

In the case of modern Chinese literature, while the Peking Press and the Foreign Languages Press of the Chinese government have published literature in both Chinese and translations which reveals the promising side of the new society, literature which voices the disillusionment of the young people is relatively rare.