Identity Displacement and Human Awakening Amidst Survival Predicament: A Brief Analysis of Shen Congwen’s The Husband

Shen Congwen's short storyThe Husband describes a tale about boat prostitutes in Xiangxi, providing reference materials for people to understand the distorted social ethics and the alienation of people caused by urban civilization at that time.It shows the inner struggle and resistance of a countryman when facing the invasion of urban civilization, and the process of reshaping his selfworth in the resistance.This article, through textual analysis and dialectical analysis, demonstrates the impact of excessive commercialization and changes in economic forms on the alienation of people's morality and the deviation of identity cognition, as well as the budding of human awakening and resistance driven by primitive emotions, social status, and various complex social causes.It reveals Shen Congwen's praise for natural human beings to a certain extent.However, at the same time, this excessive commercialization also reflects the irreversibility of human alienation, providing explanations and analyses for the ultimately romanticized and illusory return to the homeland, highlighting that this is an impossible return.This also shows Shen Congwen's thoughts on breaking through the modernization of the countryside.