The Study On The Utensils In Shen Congwen’s Novels

When the writer describes his works, he usually writes them from the view of literary images instead of the “object”, due to which can only create an artistic conception in the literary images, so the “object” of literary works is not the real material, also not the intuitive judgments of the material pursuit. However, due to the fact that the importance of visual facts in the demonstrating of the dream in literary images, not from the visual elements, so the creation of literary images cannot be made without visual utensils. Especially the social environment which described in a literary works is far away from the current social environment, the literary images of utensils in the inheritance and change, some were buried in the dust of history, and some were turned into cultural relics, and now there is no close relationship between utensils and our daily lives because they just existed in the far-away times described by the writer. But the utensils still have their own important social attribute in that era. This thesis elaborates on utensils of Shen Congwen’s “Xiangxi World”, tries to reconstruct the sociality of those utensils, for the better understanding of Shen Congwen’s literary works.The utensils of Shen’s literary images are filled with the most secular fireworks of the village folks, which constitutes the most elegant and warmhearted picture. The reader can imagine that border town; enjoy the simplicity and quietness there which are the city people’s desire and fantasy. This kind of feeling cannot be expressed without utensils description because of their close relationship with our daily lives. Of course, the utensils themselves don’t have any attributes, it is the result of the development of people’s life and work, but in the historical process from material life to the aesthetic life, thus firstly the utility relations come out between the people and the utensils during their productive labor, and then artistic relations. Such kind of attributes is not something inherent, but because people endowed some special significance according to the characteristics of utensils.This thesis elaborates on the description of utensils in Shen Congwen’s Border Town and The Long Rivers, in which Shen depicts the literary images of Xiangxi World. Although Shen’s world is far away from us, through the writer’s field research, the thesis tries to search for the utensils still used by Xiangxi people which mentioned in Shen’s works, and reconstruct their social attributes in the daily life and social customs. The understanding of era style and geography features in Shen’s works, which provides another useful way for us to understand Shen’s Xiangxi World and the life of Xiangxi people. Unfortunately, some utensils mentioned in Shen’s works has been lost and out of our daily lives, so we have to trace the utensils which used in Shen’s era according to his literary works, during the changes of times and utensils, thus can help deepen our cognitions of times transformation.