The Manifestations Of Orientalism In Ha Jin's Works

Ha Jin is currently a very popular Chinese American writer whose works have gained worldwide reputation. This thesis aims to summarize the features of Orientalism in Ha Jin's works through the study of their themes and details.The Introduction presents Ha Jin's personal information, the existing studies of Ha Jin and his works, and the research objectives of this thesis.The first chapter introduces Edward W. Said's theory of Orientalism. In his theoretical work Orientalism Said makes it clear that in history there has been a power relation between the East and the West, therefore Orientalism is an ideological tool the West adopts to take control of the East. As a discourse, Orientalism has been inevitably imposing a strong influence and limitation upon literature.The second chapter selects Ha Jin's collection of short stories Under the Red Flag, and employs Said's theory to carry out the study of Orientalism's manifestation in this work which is summarized as "The Representation of Oriental Characters". "The Representation of Oriental Characters" is manifestated as the extremely exaggerated and distorted representation of Chinese people.The third chapter selects two of Ha Jin's novels Waiting and War Trash as the analytical material. The Orientalism's manifestation in these two works are summarized as "The Representation of Oriental Politics". Instead of directly distorting the image of Chinese people, "The Representation of Oriental Politics" assigns Chinese people with normal human emotions and desires, and in an exaggerated way reinforces the certain wrong policies Chinese government has ever carried out. Compared to "The Representation of Oriental Characters", "The Representation of Oriental Politics" is oriented toward a more direct political aim—demeaning of Chinese political system and leadership of Chinese Communist Party.The Conclusion argues that the narrative inequality in the literary texts is essentially the reflection of inequalities in the field of economy, culture and politics. Orientalism is capable of taking different forms of representations in different texts; however, these representations are alike in their ultimate purpose—to provide cultural and ideological resources for the Western powers' imperialistic strategies.