Realistic Portrait of the Life of an Innocent Girl
Shen Congwen’s “Xiaoxiao” is set in his hometown, the western rural Hunan province where the majority of peasant farmers and ethnic minorities dwell. In contrast to most writers of the May Fourth Movement, Shen Congwen does not bluntly point out the social and political issues of this period in his story. Instead, he gently paints the realistic portrait of an innocent girl’s life to make suggestions of adapting modernization as well as gentle criticism of Confucian principles through the absurdities […]