Gratitude, Justice, and Survival: Conceptions of Loyalty and Righteousness among Minor Characters in Water Margin

Abstract

The theme of loyalty and righteousness in Water Margin, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, has long attracted scholarly attention. Most studies, however, focus on major figures such as Song Jiang, Lin Chong, Wu Song, Lu Zhishen, and Li Kui, giving less attention to minor characters who appear infrequently and occupy relatively little narrative space. These characters’ understandings of loyalty and righteousness are more than secondary versions of those expressed by the novel’s leading figures. They emerge through three interrelated dimensions: gratitude and obligation, justice, and survival. Gratitude and obligation concern the personal duty to repay kindness; justice concerns public fairness and the basic demands of conscience; survival provides both the practical context and the underlying impetus for moral choices in a time of disorder. On this basis, the loyalty and righteousness of minor characters can be understood in three forms: those rooted in gratitude, those grounded in justice, and those directed toward the dynasty and country. These forms extend from private relationships to public concerns and from individuals to communities, while frequently overlapping in particular struggles for survival. Together, they enrich the novel’s treatment of loyalty and righteousness and reveal the diversity and complexity of these values in traditional Chinese culture.