The “Fantastic” Construction Of An “Ancient Empire”

Taking the perspective of Imagology in Comparative Literature,this thesis is going to focus on the image of China depicted in Robert H.van Gulik’s Judge Dee Mysteries through close reading.Generally speaking,it is developed on the basis of three questions,which are closely connected in logic: What kind of image of China does Gulik create in his novel series Judge Dee Mysteries? How does he successfully create that impressive image of China? What are the ideologies working in the process of his creation?The main body of this thesis will be divided into three parts.In the first part,the political and legal system,customs and folk cultural traditions of ancient China depicted in Judge Dee Mysteries will be explored in detail.Besides,the Image of Chinese people from different walks of life will also be concerned.In the second part,the artistic techniques used in the creation of the image of China will be studied.Gulik mainly uses three important techniques to make that image vivid,concrete and impressive,i.e.the breaking of the limitation of time,the use of multiple narrative spaces and the merging of Oriental and Western features.In the third part,there will be research on the ideologies working in the process of the creation of the image of China,which is also the focus of the Imagological study.The image of China is the outcome of a confluence of different factors,including the author’s writing motives,preferences,social collective imagination in the West,and the readers’ participation,etc.Generally speaking,Gulik adopts the attitude of “goodwill” defined by Pageaux when creating the image of China,showing respect and equality when describing the culture of the foreign country.He actively uses his academic achievements in his works and propagates his point of view towards China and Chinese culture.Besides,he successfully breaks the limitation of time and space,integrates the ancient and the modern,and merges Oriental and Western cultures,making the image of China even more attractive than what it was really like in a particular period of history.Although he cannot be completely divorced from his own social and cultural background,he still strives to create a positive image of China and reverse the existing prejudice of the Westerners towards China in the 20 th century.He hopes to use his works to help Westerners to avoid some misunderstanding and misreading of the Chinese society and culture caused by their ignorance of this country,so as to promote mutual communication and cultural exchange between China and the Western World.