The Images Of "the Other" In Graham Greene’s Works

Graham Greene (hereinafter referred to as Greene) is one of the greatestnovelists in Britain in twentieth century, who has repeatedly traveled to the exotic countries,and created a large number of exotic novels. These fictions which set against the backdrop ofAsia and Africa play an important role in the course of Greene’s creation. These novels notonly present us a peculiar exotic atmosphere, but also make a deep analysis of humanconsciousness and existence puzzledom. Based on theory and methodology of Imagology,This thesis aims at interpreting Green’s works from the overall image, includingenvironmental image and character, different from previous studies which only focused onthe exotic characters. In order to reveal the relationship of Green’s “the other” and “ego”, andthe deep cultural connotation behind this relationship. This thesis is divided into fourchapters:Chapter One mainly discusses the reason for formation the exotic image “the other” inGreene’s works. Many reasons such as Green’s character, experience and social backgrounddrive him to get away from home to the exotic countries.Chapter Two mainly discusses the images of the exotic environment in the works ofGreene. The images of the exotic environment include natural environment and socialenvironment, both of which reflect the writer’s ideology and utopian structure. Affected bythe self cultural identity, collective imagination and readers’ horizon of expectation and otherreasons, the environment in Greene’s works covers the characteristics of closure, harshness,confusion, vengefulness and so on. The author wants to reflect the existence puzzledom inEurope in a negative manner by constructing of the ideology of environmental image. Theconstruction of Utopian environment image makes the exotic environment beautiful, quiet,harmonious, and even become the haven of the Europeans.The construction of the thirdworld Utopia “the other” is what Greene hopes for the western “self” ideal place.The third chapter focuses on exotic characters in Greene’s Works. The main charactersare divided into tow categories, namely the negative characters, the positivecharacters.Greene constructs ideological characters “the other” with the help of cliches andcolonialism theory, which irony Europeans ignorance, hypocrisy from the negative aspect.Utopian characters of wisdom, wonderful humanity, and devout belief are a statement of“ego”, in hope that the Westerners bring themselves back to the world of traditional valuesystem and spiritual harmony from utilitarian times. The fourth chapter discusses relationship between “the other” and “ego”. In Greene’sworks,“exotic countries” is very close to “native one”, and so is “the other” to “ego”. Thefirst section discusses the Green’s use of “the other” to state the suffering civilization andexistence puzzledom of “ego”, thereby exposing the shortcomings of Western civilization,rethinking the Western suffering civilization and existence puzzledom. The second sectionanalyses Green’s ideals of saving the world by employing Humanitarianism.