Modern Social Science Research

Since the beginning of the new century, Wang Anyi’s fiction has consistently focused on the disjunction and integration between urban and rural spaces, with particular attention to the phenomenon of “rural women entering the city.” Using Fuping and Plant Water Chestnuts Above, Lotus Roots Below as core texts, this study explores the gendered norms, survival pressures and growth environments that rural women encounter in the process of urban migration. It reveals their experiences of spiritual dislocation and identity anxiety amid social transformation and modernization. Through subtle, everyday narratives, Wang Anyi vividly portrays the struggles and resilience of women caught between the rural and the urban, expressing a profound humanistic concern for marginalized individuals and enriching urban narratives with greater cultural complexity and diversity.

Wang Anyi; Writing in urban and rural areas; Fuping; Plant Water Chestnuts Above, Lotus Roots Below