On Cultural Hegemony Of Maugham

William Somerset Maugham, a British writer, is one of the most popular writers in the twentieth century. His work is famous for the exotic color in it. And he is good at telling a good story in a foreign setting. As for the studies of his works concerning the East, most of the domestic scholars argue that Maugham is constructing the foreign Other to criticize the European society. However, as a western writer immersing in the ideology of western imperialism, he is penetrated with imperialistic feeling and beliefs when he is writing about the East. He completes the map of British Empire in text and reiterates that western culture is superior to the eastern culture to justify western cultural hegemony over the East. From the perspective of Orientalism, this thesis takes Maugham’s classical work-The Painted Veil-as an example to disclose cultural hegemony in Maugham by analyzing the binary oppositional depiction of the western culture and eastern culture in detail.The thesis contains six chapters:The first chapter provides a brief introduction of the purpose, significance and structure of the thesis.The second chapter is literature review. There are two sections in this chapter. In the first section, the author firstly introduces the background information of Maugham as well as his attitudes towards the East and the West first. And then The Painted Veil and previous studies in Maugham’s work at home and abroad is introduced. In the second section, the author expounds the origins and development of Orientalism and Edward Said’s Orientalism theory. Furthermore, the author explains the relationship between cultural hegemony and Orientalism.The third chapter aims to analyze the construction of the Chinese culture as Other in The Painted Veil. Maugham constructed Chinese culture as the inferior and saved one from the following five aspects:the poor and pastoral material culture, mysterious social customs and practices, the savior religion as well as the saved and marginalized Chinese. Such a construction justifies that the western culture should dominate the eastern culture.Chapter four intends to analyze the identification with the western culture as Self in The Painted Veil. Maugham identifies with the western culture as the superior and the savior one from the following four perspectives:the affluent and modern material culture, advanced, progressive and powerful scientific knowledge, the savior religion and the centralized, superior, savior westerners. Maugham reiterates that western culture is superior to Chinese culture and it could and should save and dominate the Chinese culture.In the chapter five, the author discusses the reasons for the formulation of culture hegemony in Maugham as well as the essence of cultural hegemony in Maugham as a writer.The last chapter comes to conclusion. In this chapter, the author concludes the main ideas of the thesis and proves that Maugham is a writer with cultural hegemony by reiterating the binary opposition of the East and the West and justifying the culture hegemony. By analyzing western cultural hegemony on China of Maugham in The Painted Veil, the author intends to warn that in the time of west-dominated culture attacking weak culture through TV, movies, CD-ROM, broadcast, literature, newspaper document etc., Chinese as well as people in the weak culture should treat the western culture in a critical way, but not worshiping everything from the West and appreciate their national culture correctly so as to resist western culture hegemony and promote the equal culture exchanges as well as protect the diversity of culture.