The Research Of Residents' Images In Shanghai

This dissertation aims to investigate the Shanghaier images of Christopher New 's novel Shanghai which is one of the most famous western literature works at the early 20th century. With the help of the theories about Imagologie, Heterotopia, Cultural hybridity , in view of comparative literature, analyzing the images of the natives, the aliens and the cultural hybrids. Through the people's economic, political and cultural activities, expressing the city's culture and spirit.The first chapter reveals the approaches and value of the dissertation by contradictinguishing the civil and overseas current research. The second chapter analyses meticulously the cultural images of the natives, the aliens and the cultural hybrids in Shanghai. The third chapter includes five parts. The first one clears the function of the novel as the mirror by using Jacques Lacan's Mirror Theory. To illustrate that the text explains not only what the other is, but also how the ego think. The second section reveals the hatred attitude towards Shanghai which is held by most of the foreign writers of the first half of 20^th century. The attitude comes from Daniel-Henri Pageaux's theory, namely three basic attitudes, fanaticism, hatred and reciprocal. They are used to describe the ego's attitudes towards the other. The third and fourth section analyze deep the influences and breakthroughs of the writer from the politics (consciousness) and the stereotype (depiction) of the imaginaire social. The fifth section elaborates principally the reasons of the certain other which are absent or deformed in order to investigate the writer's deep cultural mentality and creation modus. The fourth chapter gives a cultural and theoretic depth to the dissertation by pointing out and studying the attention to the cultural hybridity in Christopher's text. There are two topics, the first one reveals the natives' adaptation to Shanghai's cultural hybridity, which is symmetrically with the third chapter in both content and structure. The other one expounds the west's compromise and reciprocal in order to prove Christopher's uniqueness and value.Before starting the concrete dissertation, we'll clear the basic conceptions and introduce the western popular appraisals which are made of Shanghaier and the city. Aim to highlight Shanghai's inheritances and evolutions to traditional opinions. Using the same elements to explain that the images of city heterotopia are just imaginations and morph on the realities which are limited by the imaginaire social and cultural backgrounds. On the contrary, using the different points to interpret Christopher's particular cultural and historical thinking. The most clear feature of Christopher's novels is objective. It comes from the unhomed standpoint. The conclusion of the dissertation points out that Christopher didn't regard Shanghai as evil or honest city, but paid close attention to the new culture and the rewrite of culture identities which is changed by cultural hybridity.