Listen to this articleThe Border Town (Chinese name: 边城) is a Chinese movie adapted from the novel of the same name written by Shen Congwen with Dai Na, Feng Hanyuan playing the leading role. It tells a story about a border town which has little connection with outside world in the early Republic of China. This movie has received an Honor Award in the 9th Canada Montreal international film festival and the Golden Rooster Award for Best Director.
Plot
Cuicui is raised by her 70-year-old grandfather. 17 years ago, Her mother was pregnant before marriage and she committed suicide after giving birth to Cuicui by drinking cold water in the river. When Cuicui grows up, her grandfather begins to worry about her marriage, because he doesn’t want Cuicui to have a miserable life like her mother. There is a rich man in the border town, who has two handsome sons that both fell in love with Cuicui. Cuicui likes the younger son while her grandfather misunderstands her feelings and thinks the older son is more suitable for Cuicui. Unfortunately, the older son dies in an accident and the rich man pins the blame on Cuicui’s grandfather. Even though the younger son loves Cuicui, he can’t marry her after the death of his dear brother. Finally, he chooses to leave the town. Cuicui’s grandfather dies on a cold, rainy night, leaving Cuicui alone in the world. However, grief doesn’t break her down. She takes over her grandfather’s work, waiting for the younger son to come back.
Creative background
“Border Town” was written in April 1934, which was the season for Shen Congwen’s love career. Although the society was turbulent in 1931, it was still a little peaceful on the whole. At this time, Chinese scholars with conscience were thinking about the nature of human nature. Shen Congwen was naturally at the forefront. Therefore, he hoped to describe a small town in western Hunan similar to the Peach Blossom Garden through his own impression of western Hunan, and pointed out a clear way for the confused human nature in urban civilization. There is pure and natural love in the world, and life needs to be converted to the nature of nature.
The archetype of the heroine Cuicui in the work is a girl with a wool shop. On the way to march, Shen Congwen had a good friend named Zhao Kaiming who met a beautiful girl named Cuicui at a knitting shop in Luxi County. Zhao Kaiming vowed to marry her. Seventeen years later, Shen Congwen’s boat stopped at Luxi. Standing on the bow of the boat, he recalled the beautiful image of Cuicui and walked towards the wool shop. In front of the door, he unexpectedly saw a girl who looked very similar to Cuicui, with familiar eyes, nose and thin mouth. Shen Congwen was too surprised to speak. So this is Cuicui’s daughter, Xiaocui. Cuicui married Zhao Kaiming, who pursued her. By this time she had died, leaving her father and daughter behind. In order not to disturb Zhao Kaiming, Shen Congwen did not greet him, but the emotional shock could not be recovered for a long time. Cuicui, a beautiful and simple girl, could not forget. In 1934, when he sat in the yard and wrote “Border Town” in the shadow of the branches and leaves of jujube and locust trees in the sun, the image of Cuicui came to light. Shen Congwen said in his “Journey to Hunan: My Husband”: “When I wrote the story of” Border Town “, the gentle nature of Minghui, the granddaughter of the ferry, came from the girl in the knitting shop.”
Profile
Cuicui
Cuicui is an innocent, kind, gentle and pure little girl. She is the author’s ideal artistic image of “love” and “beauty”. When Cuicui came to the world, she was the angel of love and the spirit of love. Her grandfather brought her up, and the old and the young depended on each other. She is both the daughter of love and the daughter of nature. In her body, she is the spirit and embodiment of beauty. The “beauty” of Cuicui is gradually expressed through her love story: the first stage: Cuicui’s love initiation stage. When she first met Nuo in the small town, the seeds of love sprouted. The second stage: Cuicui’s awareness of love. Two years later, she went to the city to see the dragon boat, and her love consciousness was fully awakened. The third stage: Cuicui’s obsession with love. After she fell in love with Nuo Song, she didn’t expect that Nuo Song’s brother also fell in love with her. Out of her loyalty to love, she clearly refused to her grandpa. However, her love with Nuoshan suddenly suffered serious setbacks. Nuoshan left her hometown and her grandpa died, which made her “grow up” overnight. Finally, like her grandpa, she held the ferry post and waited for the return of Nuo Song, which fully showed Cuicui’s strong character.
grandpa
Grandfather retains the traditional Chinese virtues, and he has unlimited affection for his granddaughter Cuicui. Worry about Cuicui’s marriage and try to promote Cuicui’s love. In life, Cui Cui is also extremely concerned. Cui Cui is not allowed to sit on hot rocks for fear of illness; Try to understand Cuicui’s thoughts emotionally. Cuicui tells stories, jokes and songs for her when she is sad and lonely. He is also a simple and honest but stubborn old man. He is confident and proud of Cuicui’s beauty. In order to marry Cuicui into a good family, he is poor and lowly, regardless of his status. His heart is filled with sorrow and anxiety and responsibility and self-confidence.
Tianbao
Tianbao is straightforward and generous. He was the eldest son of the boatman, but he fell in love with the granddaughter of the poor ferry man. He knew that his brother also loved Cuicui, and they sang “duel”, but because he had mentioned his marriage first, “the elder brother took the lead”, so he must sing first; As soon as the younger brother opened his mouth, he knew that he was not an “enemy”, and he was generous enough to help his younger brother, fully demonstrating his brotherhood. Later, he went out to the beach, not only for the happiness of his brother, but also to dispel the disappointment and sadness in his heart, “so that he forgot everything above”. Finally, he died unexpectedly. It can be said that he died for his family and love.
Nuo Song
Nuo Song has his mother’s fine character and exquisite. Nuo Song pursues love alone, “duels” with his brother and sings love songs at midnight, but is not known to his sweetheart. Finally, he ran away alone and did not know where to drift.
Shunshun (supporting role)
The exiled officer “Shunshun” of the former Qing Dynasty managed the wooden boat with some savings, and prospered. He was also praised as a hero and gentleman of the “Palm Water Wharf” because of his generosity, generosity and honesty.
Appreciation of works
subject
Border Town, which embodies Shen Congwen’s aesthetic ideals of “beauty” and “love”, is one of his novels that can best express the beauty of human nature. The virtue retained in the traditional culture that “Border Town” extols so much is compared with the fact that the traditional virtue of modern society has been destroyed and is full of the superficiality, vulgarity and corruption of materialism and monetarism. The western Hunan described in “Border Town” has beautiful natural scenery and simple folk customs. People don’t talk about grades or utility. People treat each other sincerely and love each other. Grandpa’s love for granddaughter, Cuicui’s pure love for Nuo, Tianbao brothers’ sincere love for Cuicui and brothers’ sincere brotherhood love, all of which represent the traditional virtues of uncontaminated agricultural civilization. The author tries to describe the clarity and purity of nature in western Hunan, but also to describe the clarity and purity of the soul of people in western Hunan. “Border Town” is written with songs of marriage proposal, brotherhood, grandpa and Cui Cui. These forms and ways of life of people in western Hunan all imply the sadness of the loss of ancient virtues and values in real life, as well as the criticism of the overflow of material desire in modern civilization. The author praises the life style of Xiangxi people, and also wants to rebuild the national morality and personality.
artistic characteristics
“Border Town” describes the unique customs and customs of western Hunan with the beautiful strokes of both lyric poems and essays. It is mainly shown in the following two aspects:
First, the detailed psychological description. Psychological description refers to the description of the characters’ inner activities such as their will, wishes, thoughts and feelings in a specific environment. Or unfold the character’s beautiful soul, or expose the character’s ugly soul to show the character’s mental state and personality characteristics. Its methods are various: or direct analysis through dialogue, monologue, action, posture, facial expression, etc; Or use fantasy and dream to reveal indirectly; Or with the help of scenery description, atmosphere rendering and the reflection of surrounding people. There are two ways in this article: one is to reveal the characters’ psychology through their fantasies and dreams. Cui Cui’s bizarre “fantasies” make people feel the loneliness of a girl who gradually has her own psychology, and the restlessness of her heart when love is in its infancy; Cuicui’s dream of “the most beautiful and the most sweet” shows her sweet feeling of hazy love and her subconscious yearning for love. The second is to form a strong hint through the description of the characters’ language and manner in a specific environment, so as to induce readers to appreciate the inner mystery of the characters from their language and manner. Cui Cui “with a little bit of complaint” repeatedly begged her grandpa to leave the life on the ferry and return to her, which made people feel Cui Cui’s incomparable attachment to her grandpa. Listening to the “song I heard that night” sung by my grandpa, “Cuicui said to herself, ‘I’ve picked another handful of saxifrage'”, it makes people feel Cuicui’s fascination with sweet love at the beginning of love.
The second is the picturesque description of the environment. The description of the environment in the novel not only sets off the psychological activities of the characters and immerses their emotions in a poetic and picturesque atmosphere, but also shows us the unique fresh and beautiful natural scenery of the western border of Hunan. In the author’s works, the beautiful nightingale, the dense sound of insects, the beautiful dusk, the silvery moonlight… are picturesque and beautiful. These are all naturally unfolded with the fluctuation of the character’s emotional world. Or with the gentle, beautiful and calm of the dusk, it contrasts with the restlessness, desolation and thin desolation of Cuicui’s love; Or with the soft moonlight, a thin layer of white fog floating on the stream, and the voiceless ensemble of insects, Cui Cui’s ardent expectation of Nuo Song, and the purity and haziness of the girl’s love.
About the Author
Shen Congwen (28 December 1902 – 10 May 1988), formerly romanized as Shen Ts’ung-wen, was a Chinese writer who is considered one of the greatest modern Chinese writers, on par with Lu Xun. Regional culture and identity plays a much bigger role in his writing than that of other major early modern Chinese writers. He was known for combining the vernacular style with classical Chinese writing techniques. Shen is the most important of the “native soil” writers in modern Chinese literature. Shen Congwen published many excellent compositions in his life, the most famous of which is the novella Border Town. This story is about the old ferryman and his granddaughter Cuicui’s love story. Shen Congwen and his wife Zhang Zhaohe were married in 1933, Shen Congwen and Zhang Zhaohe had two sons after their marriage.
He was slated to win the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature, but died before he could be awarded the prize.
