Narrative of Authentic Love and Alienation in Wang Anyi’s The Destination
حوزههای تخصصی:
This essay undertakes a critical investigation of Wang Anyi’s short story, The Destination , employing Erich Fromm’s humanist psychoanalysis to elucidate the complex interplay between societal transformation, the erosion of authentic love, and the resulting existential anxieties within the context of contemporary Chinese modernity. The analysis focuses on the protagonist, Chen Xin, and his return to a radically transformed Shanghai, a disorienting architectural and bureaucratic maze that disrupts historical continuity. This spatial disorientation, the essay argues, mirrors Chen Xin’s strained familial ties, which exemplify Fromm’s notion of alienated pseudo-love, wherein genuine emotional intimacy is replaced by commodified social exchanges operating under the pressures of a state-capitalist regime. Fromm’s contrast between a way of life focused on owning and controlling things, versus one that emphasizes being present, growing as a person, and forming meaningful relationships, reveals a subjectivity caught between the pressure of inherited ideologies and the basic human need for love, care, and real emotional connection in a globalized and increasingly commodified society.