"Death Complex" In Moment In Peking

Lin Yutang, a world-renowned Chinese American man of letters, linguist, scientist, inventor, politician, scholar, philosopher, and writer, has made great remarkable contributions to the world by writing great novels, essays, fictions, proses and translating works, and so on. Moment in Peking, the most influential one among all his works, narrates the ups and downs of three wealthy families, the Yao, the Tseng and the New. Due to its uniqueness and vivid description, it has aroused a lot of people's attention and interest all over the world, inviting the readers and scholars to do various researches on it.Based upon the text analysis, this thesis aims to interpret the new meanings embedded in the images, including the material images, the spiritual images and the social images. By analyzing the images in Moment in Peking, the writer finds that these images actually mirror Lin Yutang's death complex. What is more, the writer of this thesis also tries to demonstrate the existence of the death complex through the analysis of the three stages in life cycle:encountering the death, confronting the death and overshadowing the death. At the same time, this thesis also attempts to interprete the origins of Lin Yutang's death complex. Via the detailed analyasis of the death comlex, it will be helpful in revealing Lin Yutang's deep exploration and understanding of the life and death, thus ushering in a new interpretation of his works.Apart from the introduction and the conclusion, this thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter one is a brief introduction, which contains the writer, the novel, the literary review and the death complex. At the same time, the purposes and themes of this thesis would be dealt with in this chapter. Last but not the least, the methods adopted by this thesis will also be involved in this part. Chapter two is devoted to revealing the death complex through the images, including the material images, the spiritual images and the social images. Through the analysis of the images in Moment in Peking, we are able to prove the existences of the death complex and demonstrate the evidences of it in Moment in Peking. Chapter three will elaborate on the manifestations of the death complex in Moment in Peking, which is divided into three stages:encountering the death, confronting the death and overshadowing the death. By analyzing the three stages in life cycle, we are capable of probing into the writer's viewpoint toward life and death and bringing out Lin Yutang's exploration and understanding of life and death. Chapter four will be committed to explaining the origins of his death complex, which will be useful to understand and interpret Lin Yutang's works in the future. The last is the conclusion, the summary of all the aspects mentioned above.