Orientalism And Mirror Of "the Other"

The thesis explores the interpretation on W﹒Somerset Maugham and his works the new and multistory perspectives, though there are the fruits of the analysis on his novels.The thesis is composed of three parts, namely, the Introduction, the Body and the Conclusion. The introduction part provides a brief overview of W·S Maugham's writing and how he and his novels are accepted in China. Besides, it defines the research purpose, the method as well as the research questions for this thesis. Chapter One, which mainly explores the complex of Eastern culture in W·S Maugham's works, is divided into two sections: the first section adopts the complex theory to analyze the complex of Eastern culture in Maugham's novels; the second section elaborates on the causes of Maugham's complex for Eastern culture from the perspectives of Maugham's personal experiences and his social background. Chapter Two focuses on Maugham's three novels, analyzing Maugham's"self"exploration and his pursuit for"mingling". During the process of exploration, Maugham took the East as"mingling"and sought out the vitality from the Eastern culture. Chapter Three expounds the cultural clashes and culture integration in Maugham's novels, analyzes how the cross-country love reflects the collision between the Eastern and Western cultures and explores the cultural clashes and integration demonstrated in the Chinese screen.The Conclusion part admires the commendable sprit of Maugham who could realize his lack of cultural knowledge and boldly fixed his attention on Eastern culture. However, Maugham himself still bore the insurmountable pride and prejudice towards Easternism. Since no culture in this world is closed, there should exist more exchanges between the Eastern and Western cultures so as to reach intercommunication and complementation.