Shen Congwen’s Construction Of Xiangxi

Xiangxi is the most important place in Shen Congwen’s life, and he narrated his experiences and imagination of it through literary creation. In his works, Xiangxi possesses features of foreignness, genuineness and primitiveness, which are its identities and are the characteristics of Shen’s experiences of Xiangxi. These identities reside in its location, physical environment, convention, and its people’s dispositions. They are not permanent, but change with the development of Shen himself and Xiangxi.Shen explored the identities of Xiangxi all his life. He experienced Xiangxi before 20 years old and imagined it, narrated it after 20 years old. Shen had deep topophilia with Xiangxi, which came from his active participation in its environment and activities, and identifying with its meanings.Shen’s writing career can be divided into two phases by the publication of Fengzi in 1932. In the first phase, Shen who newly left Xiangxi struggled to find his self-identity, and his narration of Xiangxi went along with his construction of his self-identity; in the second phase, Shen who had left Xiangxi for a long time cared much about its situations both in his time and in future, and his narration of this place went along with his identity with Xiangxi.Shen’s construction of Xiangxi may help us understand places and their relation with human. Places are not existence, but constructed in individual’s experiences and imaginations of them. The importance of places to people doesn’t come from the length of their residence, but their participation in, identification with and caring of them. Places are not merely the background of people’s life, but also the sources of people’s self- identity.