ABSTRACT
Shen Congwen’s short story “Xiaoxiao” is one of the most traditional stories in modern Chinese fiction, yet, ironically, it is also one of the most modern. Traditional in that its setting is in a rural area of West Hunan, with its ancient customs and ways; modern in its disapproval of the traditional practice of arranged marriages as well as the particular Freudian premise of the story. 2 A marriage is arranged for Xiaoxiao (Hsiao-hsiao), age 11 (12 sui), to the son of a family she works for, age 2 (“not yet 3 sui”), whom she is obliged to serve as a nanny and a nursemaid. When she is seduced by a country farmhand at the age of 15, she incurs the wrath of her mother-in-law. Traditionally, suicide is the only option for a girl in this predicament, but Xiaoxiao is saved by the pleadings of her charge, the boy she has raised, and who is to become her husband.
