Exploration Of The Chinese Image Of Science Fiction In The Late Qing Dynasty

China,in the late Qing Dynasty,was in the transitional period of social transformation.After the failure in the Opium War,Chinese people in the late Qing Dynasty gradually recognized that China’s central position in the world has been replaced by the West.While the once Middle Kingdom turned into a backward eastern continent,the emotional attitude of the people in the late Qing Dynasty shifted from self-confidence to loss.Under the influence of profound social changes and the people’s strong feelings of loss,the intellectuals of the late Qing Dynasty realized that they must re-understand the world,and rebuild China’s self-image.The science fiction novels in the late Qing Dynasty therefore became one of the important carriers for them to re-consruct China’s image.The "fantasy" part of science fiction in the late Qing Dynasty satisfies the psychological demand of constructing a brand-new Chinese image with a brand new social pattern.The "scientific" part of science fiction in the late Qing Dynasty has practical significance for scientific and cultural enlightenment,which undertook the task of social enlightenment at the same time.This paper attempted to analyze the Chinese images constructed in science fiction novels in the late Qing Dynasty through the methods of literature research,close text reading,induction and comparison.Specifically,the present study aimed at analyzing the social culture and social psychology reflected in the construction of these Chinese images.This paper was divided into five parts.The first part was the introduction,which defined the object of this study,and discussed the significance of the imagination and construction of Chinese image in science fiction novels in the late Qing Dynasty.The second part mainly analyzed the inheritance of Chinese traditional novels in the construction of the Chinese image of science fiction in the late Qing Dynasty.Science fiction is a type of fiction that conveys modern science from Western countries into China.However,science fiction in the late Qing Dynasty inherited Chinese traditional novels,which made the new factors with modern science interact with the traditional factors with Chinese culture,resulting in the uniqueness of science fiction in the late Qing Dynasty.It was this particularity that made the Chinese image created in science fiction novels in the late Qing Dynasty could be divided into two types of images: one is the alienated Chinese image under the influence of Western culture,and the other is the phantom Chinese image under the influence of traditional culture.The third part of this paper mainly focused on the "Alienated of Chinese Image” and the characteristics of this Chinese image from a “Ego Orientalism” perspective.The fourth part mainly analyzed the social concepts such as the "Resent and Envy Complex" and the cultural ideas of “the Western Culture Originating from China”.that occurred at that time,and summarizes the other One type of late Qing sci-fi novels that return to Chinese cultural traditions and depreciate the ideological tendencies of foreign cultures,combined with the specific plot and content of the novel,analyze the Chinese image and its characteristics in the late Qing sci-fi novels under this ideological tendency.The Chinese image constructed in the science fiction novels of the late Qing Dynasty is a complex image sandwiched between Chinese and the Western,ancient and modern,science and fantasy.Although the science fiction in the late Qing Dynasty had a one-sided understanding of science,and the specific conception of the Chinese image in the text of science fiction in the late Qing Dynasty was also superficial,we should fully affirm their pioneering spirit.The imagination of the future China by the intellectuals in the late Qing Dynasty and the attempts and explorations of the construction of the Chinese image made by the science fiction writers in the late Qing Dynasty provided a reference for the nation state imagination in the modern and contemporary Chinese literature.