The Structure Analysis Of A Long River

The work's structure is the imagery of intuitive experience to the world, reflecting the image schema and cognitive schema of the author. Traditional Chinese Culture and thought-form has outstanding characteristics of structuralization, especially the principles of binary opposition and formulaic thinking method. Deeply affected by traditional Chinese culture and thought-form, Shen Congwen worked hard and attached great importance to the structure of his works. His uncompleted work A Long River highlights the tendency of structuralization. Although Shen Congwen's works have been studied so far for more than eighty years, no one has studied the novel A Long River from the perspective of literary anthropology and no one has used the theories of structuralism to analyze it in the past researches.Structuralism is a kind of world thought in the research of humanities and sociologies in the 20th century. In a narrow sense, it is a literary theory or method used in modern linguistics, anthropology and literary criticism. The emergence and development of structuralism has broad and complex theoretical backgrounds and realities. Moreover, it lacks a unified theoretical system, so when researchers using this method, they should carefully choose the appropriate viewpoints. The structure of literature text can be divided into superstructure and substructure. Influenced by structural linguistics, structuralism theories track down substructure of the text so as to uncover the profound meaning.The superstructure of A Long River follows Remote City, using the similar figures, the similar story happened near the water. The similar typical literary images and typical environment in the two novels shows up Shen Congwen's collective unconsciousness. Collective unconsciousness is a kind of mental model and inborn disposition, passing down through racial memory and responding to some aspect of the objective world. Shen Congwen used the two words"change"and"non-change"to summarize his feeling of returning to his homeland ten years later. His"change"refered to the nature and traditions of the West Hunan, while"non-change"refered to the humanity and sociality impacted by modern civilization. It is the two words"change"and"non-change"that connect the two novels A Long River and Remote City together.Correspondingly,"change"and"non-change"in the novel A Long River is regarded as the principles of binary opposition, that is to say, the confrontation between tradition and modernity, and the opposition between the countryside and the city. The story is carried out by the traditional honest hospitable old man VS the insidious metropolis person, the country maid fulling of wild charm and godship, VS the evil-minded Chief of Security, Luobo Stream Country, a country with small sizes of landscape and population, VS the new city experienced New Life Movement.In the novel A Long River, the sound basis is the silent land, the eternal river, the simple and honest countrymen that remain unchanged in the changing world and deal with"change"through"non-change". The primitive village, the na?ve old man, the beautiful young girl and handsome boy, the quietly flowing stream, the fiery maple leaves, the fields after autumn is Shen Congwen's dream of returning home.The novel A Long River is uncompleted because of the confrontation between the countryside and the city, and the opposition between tradition and modernity. It is its uncompleted that calls for a revival of the originality, villeggiatura and harmonious life, and strongly disapproves of invasion and deprivation.The former Study about A Long River almost remains in analysis the art of narrating and the figures. This thesis is an attempt to study the novel by using structuralism theories so as to offer a new possibility for readers to understand Shen Congwen's literary ideas and the world of the West Hunan in his novel.