A Study On The Image Of China Reflected In Maugham’s Works

Maugham, one of the most important writers in Britain in the20thcentury, lovedtraveling to foreign countries and leaving his footprints all over the world in all his life.Many of his works are descriptions of what he observed during his traveling, from whichwe can get an impression that he holds a strong color of Orientalism. Maugham wasconsidered as a famous British writer who liked writing about China at the beginning of20thcentury. In1920s he traveled to China and published a lot of works concerningChina which were full of his perception and imagination of China. A lot of Maugham’sworks are descriptions of China and some of his works are even set in the background ofChina. Maugham’s main works include On a Chinese Screen, The Razor’s Edge, ThePainted Veil and The East of Suez all of which describe China. Since19thcentury thewhole western world had held the opinion that China was a dilapidated and poor country,which was also reflected in Maugham’s works where we can easily find a thick “Orientalcolor”. Everything in his works about China is influenced by the Western Imperialismand Orientalism. The contrast between the longing for ancient China and the disregard ofthe future China reveals his pride and prejudice in his inner sense of superiority about hiswestern culture under the action of Orientalism.This thesis adopts the theory of Stereotype and Said’s theory of Orientalism toanalyze the image of China in Maugham’s works. The thesis studies the image of Chinain Maugham’s works on the basis of close reading and introduces the image of Chinafrom material and cultural aspects respectively. This thesis concludes that the image ofChina is the result of Maugham’s misreading of China and then anatomizes the causes ofthe image from the influence of Orientalism, the differences between one culture and theheterogeneous culture, the complex Chinese culture, Maugham’s fragmental knowledgeof China and his personal field of vision. At last the ways to reduce misreading is putforward in this thesis so as to help people to achieve an effective communication whenone culture runs into a heterogeneous culture.This thesis is divided into three parts, the introduction, the main body and theconclusion. The Main contents are as follows:In introduction, the overview of the image of China in Maugham’s works and theanalysis of the current research situation of Maugham both at home and abroad are introduced. Then the studying method, the purpose and the significance of studying thissubject is put forward.The second part is the main body, including four chapters.The theory foundation, namely the Orientalism and the theory of Stereotype aremainly introduced in the first chapter. From the20thcentury, Orientalism had thenegative meaning when Western people studied the East. Orientalism means that all thewestern researchers hold an attitude of Imperialism to understand the Oriental world or alot of foreigners hold an attitude of prejudice and bias to appreciate Oriental culture. Thetheory of stereotype was put forward by Walter Lippmann in his book opinion in1922and he was the first person to put the theory of stereotype into the research field ofsociology in the world. He holds the opinion that stereotype is a way to organize thegroup impression and it is a fixed and simple impression about the whole group of people.Therefore, stereotype is a simple idea about other groups. As a westerner, Maugham isaffected by the whole environment of the West and he examines China from a westernperspective. His works are full of Oriental color which also reflects the stereotype ideasthat Maugham and the other westerners hold to China. From his works people can see theinfluence of stereotype on shaping the image of China.In the second chapter, the analysis of the image of China is mainly carried out. InMaugham’s works, he treats the Chinese people as “the other” when he shapes the imageof China, he regards Chinese people as ugly savages. And again and again the yellowskin, the black eyes, the flat nose and the mystery of Chinese people are mentioned in hisworks. The appearances of Chinese people do not accord with the aesthetic standard ofthe Racists’. The Racists believe that the white people are superior to those coloredpeople who are reflected in literary works, the white men are beautiful, because theyhave white skin, high bridge of the nose and beautiful figure. Although in the racial level,Chinese are superior to the black people, however in the racists’ views, Chinese peoplehave short figures and their facial appearances lack of stereo feeling and most of themhave a pair of small eyes, all of these features make them close to the black but not white.So Chinese are regarded as a kind of ugly and mysterious animal. Chinese people aredifficult to understand, on the one hand, they are kind and on the other hand they areslick, sly, ruthless, dishonesty, unbelievable and easy to tell lies. And the picture of China is wild and China is a country which is poor, backward, and dirty. At that timeChina was in prevalence with pestilence. Everything in China was stagnated andbackward. In Maugham’s mind, the Chinese cities are both dirty and ruined, with noroads can be walked on and everything in it sends out stifling stench. The population inChina in the works of Maugham is huge, everywhere in China is filled with people.There is an extremely phenomenon in China which is the abandoning of babies.Obviously, Racialism is easy to be found.In the third chapter, it is pointed out that the image of China in the works ofMaugham cannot represent everything in the Oriental world totally and truly. The imageof China in Maugham’s works is shaped from a western perspective and is themisreading about Chinese culture and Chinese people. From the works, we can get anidea that Maugham further and deeply examined China. He left his footprints all overChina, from the mountains to rivers and from villages to cities. He even examined thecultural elements such as the folk customs and the constructing styles of Chinese temples.He criticized and reflected on the Confucianism, the secular ideas and even the evilcustoms in China. But, all of his ideas and thoughts are rooted in the heterogeneousculture, and his travel around China is just the scanning of the Chinese culture andphenomenon superficially, so misreading is unavoidable in his shaping of the image ofChina. In this chapter, the misreading of Maugham to Chinese culture is studied from thespiritual and the material aspects respectively. In the material aspect, misreading isanalyzed from the constructing styles of building in China, the geography conditions,even rivers and mountains. In the spiritual aspect, misreading is discussed from thesystem of China, the culture in China, and also the religion and art in China.In the fourth chapter, the causes of the misreading of Chinese culture and someways of reducing the cultural misreading in the cross-cultural communication betweenone culture and the heterogeneous culture are summed up. The image of China thatpresented by Maugham is just his imagination and the image is fictional and visionary.Misreading is not avoidable during the communication between one culture and the other.Maugham cannot make his true, believable understanding, cognition and evaluationabout China and Chinese culture just as the native Chinese do. There are a lot of reasonsabout Maugham’s misreading to China. The far distance between China and the Great Britain, the different culture backgrounds between China and Britain, the need of theBritish society, the superiority of Maugham (Briton), the culture prejudice, the culturestereotype all of which may lead to his misreading of China and Chinese culture. Thisthesis retraces the roots of misreading from the social environment of the British societythat influenced by Orientalism, the huge population of China, Maugham and otherwestern people’s stereotype ideas and the exclusive psychology of Chinese people.In the conclusion part, the image of China in the works of Maugham which holds asense of “exotic color” is summarized, and the image of China is shaped by Maughamfrom a western perspective. The image of China in his works is not the real China, butonly the description of China under the influence of his pride and prejudice. The imageof China that shaped by Maugham is influenced by his western identity, his personalviews and experiences. Maugham creates a fictional other according to his own demandand the image of “the other” is just the expression of his own desires. At last, the causesof misreading and ways to reduce it are put forward in this thesis. This thesis is in theaim to encourage Chinese people to understand the western works critically, to grasp themisreading of Chinese culture in western works and to reduce misreading whencommunicating with people from a heterogeneous culture.Misreading is unavoidable. People should treat misreading with a correct attitudeand get rid of pride, prejudice and admit the diversity of culture in the process ofcross-cultural communication. True effective cultural communication can be achievedthrough people’s efforts.