The American Image In Seventeen-year Literature After The Establishment Of PRC

The China-US relation is in the most special period during the seventeen years after the establishment of People’s Republic of China. The relations between the two countries deteriorated under the impact of The Cold War. And this poor relationship reflected in the literary works. Base on the theory of image studies of Comparative Literature, this paper reviews and analyzes the"American image" in Chinese literature during the seventeen years after the founding of PRC. These images embody the understanding and views of the Chinese people about the United States at that time. In this paper, the author explore the underlying meaning of such "image" by analyzing these images.The emotion and attitude of Chinese people towards the United States and the Americans is quite complicated, which changes according to U.S China policy. From the late Qing dynasty to before the founding of PRC, America’s image in Chinese literature has been either "deified" or "demonized". In the early days of new China, Anti-American propaganda was running high in whole China, which affected literary intellectuals’view about the United States, and the translation of American literature was also strictly restricted under literature and art policy. Thus, writer’s creation has been greatly affected by national mainstream consciousness, historical background and literature and art policy.In the Seventeen-year Literature, the United States is the fiercest imperialist country, and also the number one enemy of Chinese people, but its military power, social politics, science technology, culture and arts are now far fallen into decay. These images have been stamped with the brand of the time.By using method of class analysis, American images in the Seventeen-year Literature, including army-men, politicians and common people, are either good or bad--the soldiers and politicians are demonized while the common people belong to the the few positive image. But few women and children have been discussed at that time.Overall, the American images have been closely connected to the China-US relations.The paper focuses on how the Chinese influences the America’s images by discussing the American image of the seventeen-year literature. According to the analysis of the American images,the paper tries to find the China’s images behind.