Self-orientalism And Anti-orientalism

Amy Tan, one of the contemporary Chinese American writers, has published five novels so far, which have impact on readers and critics. Her Chinese and American cultural background endows her with double-cultural resources ,which makes the Chinese images in her novels a complicated and interesting topic.The five published novels are going to be studied with the support of some relevant theories including post-colonialism, horizon of expectation, imagologie, cultural identity and so on. The macrocontrol and close reading are adopted to analyze the oriental elements and anti-oriental elements, the main reasons for the conflicts in her works and construction of her cultural identity as a writer.The thesis consists of five parts. The introduction presents the information about Amy Tan and her works, as well as relative researches at home and abroad. In Chapter one, supported by Edward Said's Orientalism, the five works are studied from the perspectives of the Chinese characters, Chinese culture and Chinese image. In Chapter two, the anti- post colonialism strategies in her works are discussed in terms of the rebuilding of Chinese characters, Chinese and American cultures which go from conflict to integration, and the cultural hybridity in the works. It is pointed out that the novels contain the oriental elements and dissolution of the elements. In Chapter three, the reasons for co-existence of both oriental elements and anti-oriental elements in the works of Amy Tan and many other Chinese American writers, and reasons for disputes among readers at home and abroad are analyzed from the angles of readers'acceptance, writers'cultural background and motives of writing. Then the construction of cultural identity of Chinese Americans living between the two cultures is discussed further. In the conclusion, the enlightenment brought by the cross-culture writing is showed.