Images Of The West In The Political Novel Of Late Qing Dynasty

The political novel in late Qing Dynasty, which went from its rising to subtle development from 1902 to 1911, has promoted the prosperity of modern novel which made novels go from the edge of literature to the center. Aims at changing people' s ideology and reforming political systems as its responsibilities, the political novel has a close relationship with the west as the other. There are plenty of description and statements about the west which forms complicated images of the west. This thesis mainly applies image theories and mythology of comparative literature, in the perspective of character image and system image, to analyze the shaping factors, characteristic, effects and its influences of the images in the political novel of late Qing Dynasty.With the instrument of west powers, great changes have taken place to the intellectuals of late Qing Dynasty: the nation notion becomes national race and national country ideology came into being. Meanwhile, they constructed a new order of their own with reference of the west. On the aspect of figure image, this thesis analysis four types of west images from the background of changing people' s ideology to explore its forming reason, characteristic and effects of the image; on the aspect of system image, this thesis analysis western system image from the description of the novels to explain the influence of west and complicated attitudes on the western images of Liang Qichao and others.The discourse of the other is actually discourse of the self. The western images in the political novel in the late Qing Dynasty reflected writers' eagerness to construct new order and reluctance to depart national feelings. Also, images of the west reflects modernity trend of China.