Chinese Image Writing In Birdless Summer

Birdless Summer is one of Han Suyin‘s autobiographical works,which not only presents Han Suyin‘s cognition of China but also offers an important channel for the West to understand China.Taking Han Suyin‘s autobiographical work Birdless Summer as the research object and using Comparative Literary Imagologie as the theoretical foundation,this thesis aims to discuss Chinese images presented by Han Suyin in Birdless Summer,explore the strategies used in her writing China and deeply probe into the reasons for the formation of Han Suyin‘s Chinese image writing.First of all,Chinese images presented in Birdless Summer divide into three aspects,namely Chinese people,traditional Chinese culture,and Chinese society.Han Suyin expresses her sympathy for the lower class who go ahead without fear of hardships,the status and murmuring condition of women,and the dissatisfaction with the loyalty of Kuomintang senior officials and their internal corruption.The writing of traditional Chinese culture is reflected in Han Suyin‘s recognition of Chinese ancestral hall and genealogy culture and her criticism of Chinese feudal superstition.And the writing of Chinese society is polarized.On the one hand,Chinese society is written as a place scarred by imperialist invasion,poor living conditions and war.On the other hand,China is regarded as a splendid place with beautiful natural environment.Secondly,Han Suyin uses three strategies including comparative writing of Chinese and Western natural and social environments,fragmented writing of Chinese and Western life experiences,and the mutual gaze between herself and Chinese-Western history.The comparative writing of Chinese and Western natural and social environment is embodied in Han Suyin‘s writing on the Chinese-Western natural and social environment,which compares the Chinese natural and social environment with that of the West to present Han Suyin‘s dimensional cognition of China.The fragmented writing of her Chinese-Western life experiences is reflected in the fact that Han Suyin intersperses her life experience in China and the West with the development and changes of Chinese-Western society and history,which makes the Chinese cognition presented in this work more specific.The mutual gaze between Han Suyin and Chinese-Western history is reflected in her attempts to make equal dialogue between China and the West.Finally,the reasons for Han Suyin‘s writing of Chinese image lie in her multicultural identity,sentiment for cultural communication and dissemination,and the deconstruction of the Western social collective imagination of China.In the first place,the hybridity of her multicultural identity makes Han Suyin seek the roots of her cultural identity,which is reflected in the acceptance of her extended family in Sichuan province and the exploration of her family‘s Hakka cultural origin.In the second place,devoting to cultural communication and dissemination between China and the West makes Han Suyin write China calmly in the face of the gaze of Western others.Her works are the representation of her desire for cultural communication,but they are also closely related to the mainstream Western cultural environment.In the third place,the influence of the mainstream Western culture and Han Suyin‘s life experience in China gives her confidence to deconstruct the stereotypes of China,which is reflected in the misreading and misinterpretation of China by the West,as well as Han Suyin‘s writing of Chinese mahjong,opium and other aspects of the Western society.In general,after making a comparison between Chinese and Western natural and social environments,interspersing her life experience in China and the West with the development and changes of Chinese-Western society and performing a mutual gaze between herself and Chinese-Western history,Han Suyin attempts to write about Chinese people,society and culture with her cognition in Birdless Summer.The reason lies in Han Suyin‘s pursuit of the root of her multicultural identity,her sentiment for cultural communication and dissemination,and her efforts to deconstruct the stereotype of China in the West.