The Chinese Female Images In Novels By Lisa See

With deep Chinese complex, Lisa See is an American writer who likes to writeabout Chinese women, so there is a reflection of both Chinese and American culture onher female images. In all the existing researching literature to Lisa See, she wasoverwhelmingly categorized as a Chinese writer and scholars were keeping trying tocomprehend her works basing on that concept which mostly resulted from her oneeighth Chinese descent. But I have some doubt of this point of view. As I think thisprimary hypothesis was some kind controversial. Actually, this red hair and blue eyeslady had more typical characteristic white appearance and she couldn’t speak mandarinat all, as for the comprehensive Chinese culture, hard to say she could understandcompletely. Her knowledge to China and Chinese only came from the scatter contact tothe people who live in US China town which only happened on weekends and holidayswith the company of her half Chinese grandfather and pure white descent localAmerican grandma. Of course the Chinese culture and practice descended from herancestors complement some of the missing. Still her limited experience resulted in someof her misunderstanding and sciolism to the complex Chinese culture and tradition.What’s more, though Lisa emphasized her Chinese decent, she manifested moreAmerican style sense of value. So my article, which is different from existing concept,is trying to acquaint her as a local American writer and analyze her works from theaspect of how this American writer understand the image of a Chinese female and whythis kind of image made by her reflected “the other”.On the other hand, we should pay attention to the fact that Lisa See did have someChinese blood relation and had much more chance to feel the Chinese atmosphere inChina town, which triggered her great passion to Chinese five thousand years historyand culture, and she did spend time and effort in spot investigation, that made herwritings can show the readers a truest China as she wish. This article will focus on twoof her works “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” and “Shanghai Girls”，which canmostly help us to figure out the Chinese female images she shaped. By revealing all thecharacters of the Chinese female images imposed by the author and the culture conflictfactor hidden behind, we can perceive and detect the reasons why the author shaped all the images through the other horizon.This thesis comprises the following four parts. Part one mainly discusses theresearching object, the researching value, the ideas and methods, and the existingfindings. Give a brief introduction of the concept of imagology, which is also thetheoretical method used in this thesis. Part two will give a comprehensive and detailedanalysis of the Chinese female images in Lisa’s works, finding clues and proof tosupport my point. Part three I will discuss the features of “the other” belonging to theChinese female images made by Lisa, unveil where and how this “the other” come from.Finally part four will make a summary to conclude my point.