Research On The Oriental Image In Maugham's Short Stories

There are a lot of Oriental images in British writer Maugham's short stories,but there are obvious differences among the oriental images he has created,which reflect the different attitudes of Maugham to different oriental images,and make a comparative study of them,which is conducive to the systematic and comprehensive grasp of the Oriental image of Maugham,then the cultural motivation of these differences is unearthed,and the western social and cultural psychology is explored.This paper intends to discuss with Imagologie,text reading and other methods.The text of this article is a total of three chapters,the first chapter combined the image of Chinese scenery and characters,analyzed Maugham's creative psychology.For Chinese utensils and scenery,Maugham has utopian fantasies,trying to explore the glorious civilization of ancient China through Chinese artifacts and scenery,and in shaping Chinese characters,Maugham has shaped a flat,single image of Chinese characters with an arrogant attitude of the west-centrism.Maugham was influenced by ideology and showed a critical attitude towards Chinese characters.Inspired by Schopenhauer and Wilde,Maugham tried to find a spiritual destination in China because of his own experience and the background of the Times.In addition,Maugham,through the image of China,has increased the exotic of short stories to meet the needs of readers.Chapter Two combined the oriental image of the South Pacific Islands and Peninsular Malaysia,and analyzed the process of Western colonial advancement and the mentality of Western colonists through the perspective of western privilege.In shaping the oriental image of the South Pacific Islands,Maugham praises the beauty of its landscape,but the beauty of the scenery of the South Pacific Islands is reflected in the economic value behind it and the superiority it brings to Westerners,who shape its indigenous characters,savage,backward and attached to the west.In shaping the Malaysian peninsula,Maugham molded its landscape into a microcosm of western cities,while Malays were assimilated and moving closer to Western culture.Through the western perspective of Maugham's short stories,we find that Westerners,based on racism and western central thought,invade the South Pacific Islands and Peninsular Malaysia through economic,political and civilized colonization.Through western observation of the Eastern perspective,we find that in order to shape the legitimacy of colonization,Westerners for their own construction of the backward and barbaric civilization of the "Redemption" of the identity of the person.The third chapter: Comparing the Oriental image,Maugham inevitably shows the western superiority in shaping the oriental image,but the Chinese image is more fighting consciousness than the image of the South Pacific Islands and the image of the Malay Peninsula,which also reflects the implicit fear of China in Western society.The Chinese national conditions at the end of 19 th century and the beginning of the 20 th century,as well as the changes of Chinese image in the history of European literature,are the causes behind the differences.By exploring the causes of the differences among oriental images,we can make it clear that cultural consciousness is of great significance to the reconstruction of Chinese image.