The Image Analysis Of Beijing In Last Days In Beijing

Pierre Loti was a famous French writer in the late19th century early20th century,who had shaped many brilliant images of ancient oriental civilizations. In1900, as both aFrench Fleet Officer and a journalist of The Le Figaro, Pierre Loti entered Beijing, herecorded what he saw and heard, which was taken into his book “Last days in Beijing”. Inthe book, the writer sculptured a dual-image of Beijing: a ruined, exhausted, lifelessBeijing on one hand and a Beijing with glorious historic accumulations on the other. Underthe same historical circumstance, however, Beijing was differently perceived by writersfrom domestic and abroad, domestic writers tended to present a chaotic Beijing in whichlawmakers were ruled out and exiled; government officers misconducted and the citizenslived in great pain. while Pierre Loti exposed a very different Beijing from his point ofview. In the “Marco Polo Travel Notes” in the13thcentury, Beijing was solely described asa city of abundance and prosper; in Martini’s “Tatar ZhanJi” he recorded a Beijing in thewar time in which a war-blazed city still reflected its glorious and ancient legacy;Magalhaes’s “The New History of China” gave a closer touch to Beijing’s blossom andprosper. In the late19thCentury, Archibald Little, an English writer also marked a differentBeijing in her “A Kingdom with Blue Robes”, she claimed Beijing such an ill-developedcity with poor hygiene conditions, uncivilized citizens and decaying civilization.Compared to those one-sided descriptions about Beijing, Loti’s dual-image of Beijingserved as a great turning point in descriptions of Beijing in the20thcentury. Loti’s workabout Beijing was also in close connection to the social background in his time, whenFrance’s aggressive colonial expansion on a fast pace; the French nation’s high superioritycomplex overdose; the flop between ideal and reality. His work also reflects his own dualidentity which originates his spiral feelings of sorrow and nostalgia. This dictation mainlyanalyzes the uniqueness of the Dual-Image of Beijing in Charlotte’s “Last Days in Beijing”and the causes of such description. It is based on image studies, flanked by comparisonmethod to describe the work horizontally and vertically...