The Image Of China In Modern Japanese Literature

This thesis applies post-colonial theories and literary image studies to the images of China in modem Japanese literature. Centering around typical texts, the present thesis aims to sketch the evolving history of the image of China in modern Japanese literature. Chapter â…  conducts an analysis of the uncertain image of China in Meji period, which is a turning-point from text to truth. The second chapter explores into the interest in China as manifested in Japanese literature in the Taisho period, finding that writers then regards China as the East of Japan. These writers tried to seek nostalgic sentiments and exotic appeal from China, but as their understanding of the reality of the Chinese society grew, their ideal imagination of textual China became disillusioned. In chapter â…¢, made an analysis is made of the image of shanghai as a magic city. The image of the real China has been constructed from this time, although misreadings were obvious. Chapter â…£ is devoted to the analysis of the image of revolutionary China in Japanese proletarian literature at the beginning of Shouwa period. In chapter â…¤, an analysis of the "blank China" in war literature is made. Finally, in the conclusion, a chronological summary is made of the image of China in modern Japanese literature, basing on "ancient China" and "modern China" as the two key concepts.Influenced by the narrative modes of classic Chinese texts and guided by intense ideological framework, Japanese writers' imagining, experiencing, and constructing of China is at the same time a process of misreading and distortion. In fact, the image of China in modern Japanese literature is the linguistic illusion produced by the interplay of classical texts with imperial cultural ideology.