Oirentalism And American Images Of Chinese In Bret Harte’s Works

Bret Harte is a very important American western short story writer. He is the first writerwho made descriptions of the images of Chinese immigrants in the history of Americanliterature. Bret Harte is regarded as the “Columbus of American Literature”. There are largeparts of descriptions about the Chinese immigrants images in his works, such as Wan Lee, thePagan, The Plain Language from Truthful James and Ah Sin. In these works, Bret Hartedepicts as the protagonists the Chinese immigrants who lived and worked in the United States.Bret Harte’s attitude towards Chinese immigrants is twofold. On the one hand, Harte feelssympathetic for the mistreatments of Chinese immigrants in America; on the other hand,Harte gives readers the vivid descriptions of the dull and foolish Chinese images in his works.This thesis interprets the images of Chinese immigrants in Wan Lee, the Pagan, The PlainLanguage from Truthful James and Ah Sin from the perspective of Orientalism against thehistorical background of the United States: Yellow Peril, Anti-Chinese Wave and AmericanWestward Movement. The historical background can help us with a better understanding ofthe formation of the sluggish stereotypical Chinese images in the United States. Meanwhile,we should soberly realize that Orientalism is a kind of thought that is used by the westerncountries to control the East. Therefore, the descriptions of the Chinese images are mainlyone-sided. They might only overemphasize such Chinese images as backwardness, poverty,humbleness and ignorance.