ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the iterative narrative in Shen Congwen’s stories, using singulative narratives for comparison. In his story “Fuguan”, Shen writes about a country person’s impression of a clock, the modern instrument for keeping time. Narrative involves two temporal sequences: the timing of events in the storyline and time as it passes in the narrative. Shen’s stories of West Hunan are seldom filled with twists and turns. The main characters of Border Town exhibit a noteworthy “free will” uncharacteristic of the West Hunanese: the young girl fights for love, calling for divine power, while Grandpa vainly but stubbornly goes all-out to help her. Shen uses auxiliary verbs meaning “could” or “would” to disrupt a singulative understanding of the dialogue, turning it into iterative behavior in a special situation. The singulative narratives in Shen’s fiction usually rely on the harmonious alternation of the temporal order and inner duration.
