In Shen Congwen's works, although there are pains and misfortunes in rural life, it is full of moral glory and the power of life. Those men and women in rural society are either simple and kind, innocent or full of vitality.

Shen Congwen's pastoral novels are not a simple transplant of traditional pastoral literature, but a creation.

Due to the restriction of asceticism culture in ancient society, China intellectuals only regard pastoral as a symbol of social ideal and self-freedom, and there is no love life in pastoral literature. There's not even a heroine. In the May 4th rural literature, as a kind of progress, the female image has become the protagonist of rural novels, but there is no love yet. In the story of bamboo forest, the protagonist is three girls, but the three girls have no love. Shen Congwen's love here is a modern transformation of this ancient literary prototype.

Love of work is a story. Cui Cui, the girl guarding the ferry, is a beautiful, innocent and naive girl. There is a local boat called Shunshun, and his two sons, Tianbao and Nuosong, are in love with her. Tianbao matched the bridge through the matchmaker and didn't get a clear answer. When his younger brother found out, he wanted to woo Cui Cui according to local customs. He consulted with his brother and courted Cui Cui by singing. But my brother Tianbao sang badly and felt that he was no match for his brother, so he gave up his pursuit and left his hometown. When he left home by boat, the boat was wrecked. Nuosong also misunderstood the old boatman because of his brother's death. He thought the old boatman was "crooked and stupid" and even killed his brother. Therefore, he also gave up his pursuit of Cui Cui and left his hometown to work in other places. The old boatman was much older because he was worried about his granddaughter's marriage and died on a thunderstorm night. Cui Cui is in love with Noel. After work, she still stayed at the ferry, waiting for the promise to be sent. The work reads: "This person may never come back, maybe he will come back tomorrow!"

In fact, this is a tragic love triangle story. However, this kind of love tragedy embodies the beauty of human nature in the natural state.

Generally speaking, tragedy often has three directions:

One is social criticism or cultural criticism. The root of such a tragedy is caused by society or culture, so such a work is a criticism of the society or culture that caused the tragedy. For example, Regret for the Past has a very strong social criticism and cultural criticism. The tragedies of Zijun and Juansheng are closely related to social reality and social culture.

The second is to reveal the cruel fate of life. Such a tragedy is caused by a force beyond human control. For example, the love tragedy between Zhou Ping and Sifeng in Thunderstorm is purely accidental, which leads to the love between half-brothers and sisters.

Third, the tragedy caused by the ugliness of human nature. This kind of works is often a criticism of human evil. This is the case with Yu Hua's novels.

However, the love tragedy in Border Town is completely different from the above tragedy. It points to the goodness of human nature. It reflects the beautiful human nature through the tragedy of love. What causes the tragedy of love is neither social environment nor culture, nor evil human nature, but good human nature. The main reason for the tragedy here is Cui Cui's innocence and purity. Cui Cui is not that kind of bold and provocative girl, but that kind of shy girl. Because of her personality, she won't express her love directly. She just kept it in her heart and didn't tell anyone, not even her grandfather. The old boatman respected his granddaughter's choice very much, so Tianbao and Nuosong didn't know who Cui Cui was going to choose, which led Tianbao to run away from home and even the boat was wrecked. As a result, there was a misunderstanding of the old boatman and the misunderstanding of flying away. So although it is a tragedy, it proves the beauty of human nature.

Therefore, Border Town expresses the author's pursuit and desire for good humanity with touching love stories and unique local customs, and embodies Shen Congwen's natural and cultural ideals.