A Study Of The Exotic Images In Eileen Chang's Literary Works

As a Chinese writer who had been influenced by western culture and literature,and had experienced life in both Shanghai concession and Hong Kong,Eileen Chang had formed her unique aesthetic view through literary creation.One of the typical ways to express her aesthetic view is to create exotic images.Using the combined research methods of close reading,extratextual study and the theories of Imagology in Comparative Literature,this thesis discovers that Eileen Chang had created three kinds of exotic images in her literary works: exotic images created with “mania”,exotic images created with “hatred” and the "ideological" exotic images.These images are intertwined with each other and have their own characteristics.As the images of “other”,they share special relationship with the image of “self”,and such kind of relationship is formed by Eileen Chang in this way: the exotic images created with “mania” and “hatred” are in contrast to the image of “self” and reveal the unique aesthetic view of “ugliness” in Chinese and western cultures;the “ideological” exotic images serve as a mirror to the image of “self” and reflect the common ugliness of human nature in both Chinese and western literature.Eileen Chang's representation of complicated exotic images has unique significance on both her literary creation and the system of exotic images in modern Chinese literature.