Mr. Shen Congwen's Border Town is such a classic text about the "national fable" of Miao nationality in western Hunan. By using the methods of physical symbols and psychological analysis, we can see the deep cultural metaphor in Border Town, and find Mr. Shen Congwen's totem of thinking in images about Miao culture in western Hunan, as well as his thoughts and worries about Miao/Han and cultural conflicts between China and the West. (1) Cui Cui is the goddess of Xiangxi Miao culture in Shen Congwen's mind and the "essence" of Xiangxi Miao culture seen by Shen Congwen from the perspective of "the other" (the west). "Cui Cui grew up in a windy day, with dark skin and clear eyes like crystal. Nature has nurtured her and educated her. She is innocent and lively, just like a small animal that can be seen everywhere. People are so good, like the yellow deer on the mountain, never consider cruelty, never worry, never get angry. Usually when a stranger pays attention to her on the ferry, she looks at the stranger with bare eyes and makes it look like she can escape into the mountains at any time, but after understanding the inorganic heart of people, she plays leisurely by the water. " This image can be said to be "beautiful, healthy and natural". However, this image also contains a deep hidden pain: "Like a yellow deer, it can escape into the deep mountains at any time", which means that Miao ancestors migrated from the Central Plains to Dongting Lake and retreated back to the deep mountains in western Hunan under the oppression of the Han nationality. The deep mountain is their last refuge, a free world and their "home". The image is based on the girl in Luxi wool shop, the rural woman in Laoshan, Qingdao and the bride Mrs. Shen around her. The love story in Border Town discusses cultural issues, and sexual discourse and cultural discourse are intertwined. The image of Cui Cui embodies Shen Congwen's cultural Oedipus complex, and engraves Shen Congwen's endless grief and attachment to Miao culture in western Hunan. Cui Cui's life experience is a tragedy. Cui Cui's father is a soldier in Tunpu green camp. Strictly speaking, it is a kind of heterogeneity of Miao culture. Cui Cui itself is the product of the fusion of Han culture (paternal culture) and Miao culture (matrilineal culture). From the love tragedy of Cui Cui's parents, we can see the unequal relationship between Han culture and Miao culture, and the historical conflict and tragedy of this power relationship in the relationship between Miao and Han (such as Ganjiamiao Uprising). Cui Cui, a homeless orphan, is undoubtedly a symbol of Miao culture in western Hunan. In a miracle, the orphan actually grew up and was thirteen years old in the blink of an eye. Grandpa, a well-read and weather-beaten old man, is a symbol of the ancient history of Miao nationality. Grandpa and Cui Cui is a description of a Miao nationality with an ancient nation and a young culture. Grandpa witnessed the tragedy of Cui Cui's parents. "I don't complain in my mouth, but I can't fully agree with this unfortunate arrangement in my heart." He never thought about the significance of his position to himself, but lived there quietly and faithfully. "Cui Cui is a big shot, he has to give Cui Cui to a person, and his career is over! To whom? What kind of person must not wronged her? " An elderly grandfather is Cui Cui's only support. If Grandpa Dies, can Cui Cui, an orphan of history, join the new historical footsteps? The yellow dog has something to do with the worship of Miao people's Pan Hu and the ancestor myth of the dog, and it is also related to parents' sending Nuo. In the tenth section of Border Town, parents rowed a dragon boat and capsized into the water. Cui Cui scolded the yellow dog and said, "Come on, pretend to be crazy and sell silly. Who wants you to fall into the water if you don't capsize?" In the third chapter of Feng Zikai, the gentleman named his dog "Nuosong"-"The gentleman took the letter and said to the older dog,' Nuosong, open the door.' "The symbol of the traditional values of Baita Miao people, such as simple customs, emphasizing righteousness over profit, is what Shen Congwen called' integrity, simplicity and human beauty'. The square-headed ferry is very distinctive: a bamboo pole is erected on the boat, an iron ring is hung on it, and a section of waste cable is pulled on both sides. When someone crosses the border, he hangs the iron ring on the waste cable and leads the boat to transition back and forth-this is a closed and monotonous image, a state of existence that has nothing to do with the river (linear time, unitary history), and a metaphor for the ancient lifestyle of the Miao people. " Fengtan and Zitan are not fierce, surrounded by chicken cages; It's easy to get down around the henhouse, and the waves on Qinglang Beach are as big as houses. Grandpa, can I get off Fengtan, Zitan and Qinglang Beach by ferry? "Time view Cui Cui hummed the wizard's song of meeting God in December, and invited Zhang, Guan Fuzi, Weichi Gong, Hong Xiuquan, Li Hongzhang and others to walk in the clouds." What's wrong with serving today! "-this is a primitive sense of time. Here, all time periods: past, present and future are displayed in time. Time description based on ancestor worship and prototype regression is constantly reborn through myths and ceremonies during festivals. People in border towns use periodic festivals such as Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and Spring Festival to record time. The changes in the Han Dynasty had little influence on them. The western calendar (AD) has not yet entered the border town. In the eyes of westerners, Border Town is outside the history of the world. On this day and night river, Cui Cui's family guarded the ferry and lived a very poor life day after day. The White Pagoda guards the ferry, the Cui Cui family, and Cui Cui's dream (Cui Cui sleeps in the White Pagoda in the afternoon, and the dream is floated by the singing of mountain birds). (2) The older I get, the more I think, the more I dream-I'm crazy with envy when I see Miss Wang, the general manager of the group, wearing a twisted silver bracelet. " White chickens are released by tigers to bite people, but not others. The young lady in the group is the first ... My elder sister is wearing a pair of gold hair clips, and my second sister is wearing a pair of silver hair clips. Only Third Sister has nothing to wear. She wears bean sprouts all year round. "Cui Cui knows herself through the differences with other girls, which is an inevitable way to form her' self'. When the boatman proposed to Cui Cui, Cui Cui thought a lot: "The story of the tiger biting, four folk songs when swearing, the square pit in the paper mill, the iron juice oozing from the melting furnace in the iron works .................................." The Story of the Tiger Biting is related to Miss Wang, the general manager of the League. The marriage of Miss Wang and her parents grinding the house is a heavy burden on Cui Cui's heart. " The white chicken will bite when it is locked out by the tiger, but it won't bite others. "This is Cui Cui's illusory transcendence of' grinding a house and getting married'." Four folk songs are sung casually by children watching cattle, chopping wood and cutting pig grass "-Cui Cui was still in a state of childhood, and the square pit" is related to sex (concave object) and death (grandpa's grave is a square well). In a sense, the rebirth and adulthood of Cui Cui (Miao culture) is the death of Grandpa (Miao ancient history). "Iron Juice" is a mature girl's sexual awakening-Cui Cui is on the verge of teenage girls and young women. Cui Cui's age-a girl of fifteen or sixteen-is very important. This "essence" (girl) of Miao culture in western Hunan is regarded as "the other" by Shen Congwen from the western perspective; In other words, Xiangxi Miao culture has been "girlish" here. In Takeuchi's words, for non-western nations, "modernity" first means a state in which their subjectivity is deprived. The relationship between Cui Cui and the second child is Hegelian binary opposition between subject and object: Cui Cui is a girl, a spectator and an audience, and the second child is always a man, a spectator (the second child always praises Cui Cui for her good looks) and a speaker (matchmaking singing). Only when Cui Cui is awakened and affirmed by men (Han nationality and the West) can he grow up from a girl and have the "subjectivity" that only adults have. The happiness of Cui Cui's love is not only Cui Cui's personal rite of passage, but also the modern transformation of Miao culture in Xiangxi. Here, Cui Cui's personal development and growth process is synchronized with historical development. It is the mode of bildungsroman to show the self-transformation of the nation through personal experience. Of course, at the end of Border Town, Cui Cui's growth is not finished. The boss always falls in love with Cui Cui at the same time, which is a historical conflict between the two cultural concepts on the ownership of the Miao cultural goddess in western Hunan. The images of the eldest, the second and the eldest, as well as their different "views" and "statements" about Cui Cui, should be interpreted according to the "national discourse code".