Road to the Destination the Road Novel

¶ … Road to the Destination

The road novel is one of most popular and indeed effective genres of novel writing. With 200 to 400 pages with which to work, novel writers can truly weave stories of learning and coming-of-age set against a backdrop of constant location shifting. After all, encountering different locations and people not only causes a character -- or person -- to grow, it sets that growth apart from stagnation and the status quo very well for a reader or fellow character. In fact, the main character or protagonist often learns most about himself while on the road in a road novel.

Very few authors chose the road or at least a state of constant flux for a short story, however. There simply is not enough space in a short story for such dealings. One exception comes to mind: Vladimir Nabokov's "Spring in Fialta" occurs in a constant state of flux and travel and never in stagnation.

Similarly, Wang Anyi's "The Destination" is a short story of flux and change, and of constantly striving towards a particular destination rather that staying put. The short story begins with a train, and the anticipation of arriving at what purports to be a final "destination."

Anyi writes, "Over the loudspeaker came the announcement, 'The train is arriving at Shanghai terminal ... ' Dozing passengers opened their eyes. "We're arriving at Shanghai.'" (Anyi, 116)

At the very beginning, we as readers are caught up in a sense of excitement about Shanghai. Here is an ultramodern city, at least compared to the rural areas in China and even Beijing, and even before being introduced to any of the short story's characters, we expect a lot from the city with the build-up Anyi provides for it.

And indeed, for the protagonist, Chen Xin, it is an exciting moment, but just in a different way than we expected: For him, it's a homecoming. He is returning to his home after years in the countryside.

However, as we soon begin to learn, Chen Xin's city of Shanghai has changed strikingly since he was last there, and many times, Chen Xin struggles against the moniker of outsider: First on the train he asserts that he is returning home to Shanghai, and then on the bus on the way to the labor market, he almost gets into a fight with someone who calls him an outsider.

The basic purpose here, from an analytical standpoint, is that Anyi is establishing that Chen Xin has no home. He is a vagabond. His older brother is obviously at home; he is married with a kid and living in the same house. Chen Xin's younger brother acts as an interesting foil for Chen Xin's character, however. We as readers are given the impression that No. 3 is the vagabond: He is the one who cannot pass his university exams and moves through life listlessly, between half-hearted chores and chuckles at a comedy show on the transistor radio.

In fact, much of Chen Xin's attention while at home is given to convincing No. 3 to study for school or get a job or do something productive, but something that will also make him tied down to a particular place, namely, his mother's home.

This attention serves to distract Chen Xin and the reader from the idea that Chen Xin himself is not at all at home: He has no desire to settle down. He fights the arranged marriage, and at no point seems excited either about the girl or about the prospect of getting married.

And with regard to finding a job, Chen Xin is much less proactive than we would suppose from a character who eggs his younger brother along to succeed. No, Chen Xin does not at all feel "at home" at home in Shanghai. Anyi accents this point by constantly putting the words, "Life is hard in Shanghai" into Chen Xi's mouth.

Then when the conflict over the room erupts with his sister-in-law, we as readers know that Chen Xin will be on his way soon, on the road again. "The Destination" becomes anything but for Chen Xin: He cannot stay at home; his life is not there, it is on the road.

And the end of the story, then, when Chen Xin leaves on the train on which he arrived, again with the graphic depiction of train travel, we know that Chen Xin's true home is ten, twenty or thirty years down the road, as Anyi writes, as a vagabond on the road, not in Shanghai.