Shen Congwen's World of West Hunan

Shen Congwen (1902-1988), with the original name of Shen Yuehuan, was born in Fenghuang County, Hunan. In his youth, he went to the borders of Hunan, Guizhou and Sichuan to learn about the social life, folkways and customs of Miao, Han and Tujia peoples. This became the life basis of his later literary creations, and formed his unique "rural" perspective of observation. Eulogizing and manifesting human nature was the consistent aesthetic ideal in Shen Congwen's creation. He idealized the "world of west Hunan" he was familiar with, eulogized its natural and simple folkways and manifested its harmonious and primitive beauty of human nature to resist the ugly social reality.

Border Town written in 1934 is Shen Congwen's representative work, describing the magnificent and cozy world of a "border town" and a paradise full of love and beauty. A love tragedy takes place in the border town. Ship owner Shunshun's eldest son Tianbao and second eldest son Nuosong both fall in love with an old boatman's granddaughter Cuicui, but Cuicui likes Nuosong. The old boatman only wants Cuicui to get happiness "independently," but he muddle-headedly causes Tianbao to propose through a matchmaker without knowing whom she loves after all. Tianbao's proposal is rejected. Feeling disappointed, he goes out by boat and gets drowned accidentally. After Tianbao's death, the old boatman knows Cuicui's thought, and acts as a go-between for Cuicui and Nuosong. He suddenly dies in depression in a stormy night after his failed attempt. After his eldest son dies, Shunshun does not approve Nuosong's request for marrying Cuicui at once. Nuosong leaves his hometown after a quarrel with his father. These "unfortunate coincidences" turn the love between Cuicui and Nuosong into a tragedy of "kindheartedness."

All characters in the story are ordinary and kindhearted people. The author seemed to write a tragedy in which "nobody does anything wrong" and only narrate the story consciously at the level of human nature without intending to explore the artificial, social and moral factors causing the tragedy. Through the unfolding, development and ending of the story, the work depicts and manifests everybody's "beautiful and natural life form consistent with human nature."

Border Town depicts two deeply moving images: Cuicui and the old boatman - her maternal grandfather.

Cuicui is an artistic image embodying the author's ideals of "love" and "beauty." Cuicui and his maternal grandfather depend on each other for survival in her childhood. Her "beauty" is gradually manifested through her love story. Her "love" is pure, natural and sincere, completely consistent with a young girl having just awakened to love. She is neither frivolous nor wild, showing her self-consciousness, self-complacence and self-respect for love. After falling in love with Nuosong, she does not expect Nuosong's elder brother Tianbao is also in love with her. Out of faith in and devotion to love, she turns Tianbao down, but as a result the love between Cuicui and Nuosong suffers a serious setback. Tianbao's death, Nuosong's departure from his hometown and her maternal grandfathers' sudden death make her "grow up" overnight. She feels painful and sad, but does not fall. She declines the ship owner's offer of letting her stay in his home, guards the ferry like her grandfather, waits for Nuosong's return, and fights against her twisted fate persistently with hope. Under Shen Congwen's pen, the scenery of the "border town" and Cuicui are integrated and "man and nature are united.1' She is a daughter of love, a daughter of nature and a fairy embodying beauty.

The old boatman embodies "kindheartedness." Having been ferrying travelers across the river for 50 years, he regards it as his bounden duty and willingly bears the burden of hard work. He is plain, honest, simple and chivalrous, not only refusing to accept travelers' money, but also treating villagers generously and kindly and thus winning villagers' respect. After the orphan is brought up, his biggest wish is to let Cuicui get love freely and happily. Therefore, he follows Miao people's marriage customs, lets Cuicui decide her marriage affairs and thinks the person who can sing "songs for three and a half years" and move her will be her husband. He knows he is too old, so he attends to this matter so urgently that he suddenly dies from depression. The author's depiction of the old boatman clearly shows an ordinary old man's broad mind full of human beauty and ethical beauty.

Border Town also has distinctive and unique characteristics in terms of artistic expression. The author combined depiction of characters' words and acts and depiction of psychologies to reveal characters' individual traits and abundant inner feelings. Particularly, while depicting Cuicui, the author observed quietly, conjectured the adolescent feelings and sexual psychologies manifested by the young girl sensitively, and highlighted Cuicui's shy, demure and tender personality vividly through rough external depiction and refined psychological depiction. The novel's structure is natural and smooth like floating clouds and flowing water. The whole novel gradually unfolds around the core of Cuicui's love story, making the plot focused and simple and at the same time perfectly combining the purity and complexity of the plot. The author also specially inserted descriptions of Miao people's customs of antiphonal singing, marriage proposal, provision of dowries, burial, etc. in the story's development, giving Border Town unique color of rural literature. Besides, Border Town also has a strong pastoral flavor. Cuicui's expectation of life is revealed at the end of the work: "This person might never come back and might come back 'tomorrow'!" The author could not have the heart to let Cuicui despair thoroughly, so he let her withstand tests and hardships for love and wait for her lover's return with hope. This leaves hopes, expectations and imaginations to readers, and gives the end a more lingering pastoral flavor.

The value of Shen Congwen's novel pursing perfect human nature to the history of Chinese modern literature is mainly manifested in two aspects: first, such persistent pursuit of perfect human nature is not only Shen Congwen's aesthetic ideal, but also his life ideal; second, such particular pursuit integrates perfect human nature with perfect society and perfect nature and constitutes the unique "world of west Hunan."