A Study On The Construction Of Oriental Images In Maugham's The Casuarina Tree

The British writer William Somerset Maugham(1873-1965)is called “the Great Britain's Maupassant”.He has created many profound works with his unique observation perspectives and life experiences.As a representative collection of his short stories focusing on the Oriental theme,The Casuarina Tree(1926)contains his six most outstanding short stories and is praised as one of Maugham's best collections of short stories.Many critics analyze some of the famous short stories such as “The Outstation” or “The Letter” as the research texts from Orientalism,writing intentions and exploration of human nature perspectives.They have not considered the six stories as an unified study text yet.Therefore,this thesis tries to analyze the entire collection from the perspective of post-colonialism theory and explore the Oriental and Occidental contrast about rights,lifestyles and ideologies in the colonial context to present the Oriental images in Maugham's heart through close reading and in-depth analysis to the text.On account of the description and construction about the social status,survival environment and psychological changes of Oriental images,this essay elaborates on the awakening process how the East,under the colonial oppression of the West,shows its thinking and struggle for the living environment in the marginal zone of society,and the bud of native people's rebellious consciousness from three gradual aspects.Firstly,the thesis focuses on the Eastern and Western images in the three pairs of binary oppositions in The Casuarina Tree.In the post-colonial theory,the western ideological model and cultural value all have strong sense of national superiority.Maugham set West as the center of the world,domination of the discourse,and the origin of civilization,which excludes and severely marginalizes the East in this work.The second part expounds the confusion and struggle between the Orient and the Occident in a cross-cultural environment.The predicament of colonists and the colonized is the content that Maugham devoted to portraying in The Casuarina Tree.Maugham's depiction about the ambivalence of Mr Warburton who resist the influence from East while escape the Western culture and the loss of rights and tendency of assimilation for the native servants reveal the complex psychological changes of the people living in colony.At last,the thesis further explores the tragedy of the colonists and the changes of the colonized.Loneliness and confusion caused by the colonial life to the colonists make Westerners degenerate,out of control,be selfish and vainglorious.Maugham's portrayals of oriental images such as Chinese clerk Ong Chi Seng and boy Abas reveal the Easterners' awareness of struggle against the oppression of the West.This thesis points out that Maugham portrays the marginal image of East and the tragic image of West in The Casuarina Tree,which demonstrates that powerlessness of the Eastern nations and rootlessness Western colonists facing in cross-cultural living environment.Maugham reveals the hypocrisy of human nature,the fragility of life,and the tragic nature of cultural collisions under colonialism.At the same time,in this work two Oriental characters who have the protesting consciousness under the oppression of the colonists present Maugham's profound sympathy for the colonial people.He contrasts the images of the East and the West to emphasize the marginality,the sense of loss and the rebellion spirit of the Orient from multiple levels,and finally builds a confused,struggling and contradictory Oriental images under the influence of colonialism.