Eternal Alien Visitors

Gypsies are regarded as the major concern and object of expression of many artists all the time. They play an important role in world literature. They are initially depicted as the image of "other" or "alien" and finally they are fixed by means of miscellaneous images. The focus of this thesis is on Gypsies' images in world classic novels. The present writer intends to straighten out and sum up the Gypsies' images within the scope of world novels, expecting to summarize the common "other" world of all writers. In order to analyze and interpret the relative works, imagology of comparative literature, post-colonialism and feminism are applied in this thesis, through which the present writer obtains her own understanding of this phenomenon.The dissertation can be divided into three chapters: Chapter One relates to the introduction of the historical background of Gypsies and correlative theories. In this chapter, the concept of "other" is respectively elaborated in the imagology of comparative literature, feminism and post-colonialism. In Chapter Two, Gypsies are classified into different images such as good singers and dancers, fortune-tellers, thieves and vagabonds, among whom the similarities and difference are later summarized. In the third chapter, Gypsies' images are interpreted from different dimensions. They are studied from the perspectives of post-colonialism, narratology and comparative literature respectively.At the end of the thesis, the present writer draws the conclusion that Gypsies, as the eternal alien visitors, whose images are the mysteries that are created by other nations and refect people's "Gypsy complex". However, throughout the history and in spite of the vicissitude of ideology, the writing about Gypsies is still restricted by male consciousness, post-colonial consciousness and imagology. Systematic analysis of Gypsies' images can be used for reference to better understand the images of world nations.