The Contradictory Orientation of “New” and “Old” from the Perspective of Countryside: A Comparative Analysis of Shen Congwen’s Border Town and Zhao Shuli’s Sanli Bay

Abstract

Shen Congwen and Zhao Shuli are important writers in the field of modern and contemporary rural literature. There are contradictions between “new” and “old” in their works Border Town and Sanli Bay. The author analyzes this phenomenon by combining the writer’s experience, social background and historical motivation, and finds that the main factors of the contradiction between “new” and “old” are the national cultural relations and the influence of social background. These factors are embodied in the impact of nationality, modernity and cooperative period background on rural traditional family structure. They reflect the characteristics of literary works responding to The Times and examining modern traditions in the social context of the time. Through the study of the contradiction orientation of “new” and “old”, the author perceives the development direction of modern and contemporary literature and history: modern and contemporary literature develops in the process of adapting to the changes of The Times.