From "The Inferior Foreigner" To "The Superior Other"--An Imagological Analysis About The Image Of "The Foreigner" In Chinese Literature

The Imagology of the Comparative Literature, which has gained plentiful and substantial achievements overseas, especially in France, is still a virgin soil which awaits to be assartted. Under the present context which the cultures contact more and more frequently, the analysis on the exotic and different race images appearing in Chinese literatures will exert significant influence. It would eliminate the uncorrected reading and misapprehension between different cultures, copy with the relation between self and other correctly and advance the prosperity of the nations' cultures.Before the Opium War, the "others" during different historical periods, such as "the inferior others from different surrounding races" , their strengths of culture aren' t compare with China' as a whole. Though they can conquer China by sword, such as Mongolia and Manchu, they were absorbed by the mightiness of Chinese culture and became the converts finally.The relations existing Chinese collective suppositions between China and the surrounding countries were regarded as ones between the culture center and the uncultured margin, attributing to the establishment of "The Distinction Between China and The Inferior Foreigners" and "The Order between China and The Inferior foreigners" . The exotic and different race images can be described through the stereotype?"The Inferior Foreigner" in Chinese literature. They all were the "inferior others" from Chi-you , a character in ancient times myth, and Hun (匈奴) in Shiji <<史记>> , to the overseas countries depicted by The Jinghuayuan <<镜花缘>> , a novel written during the middle period of The Qing Dynasty.China confronted the mighty enemy- "the west" during the crucial collision between China and the west in the opium war. With the Western "superior other" having appeared and the collapse of " The Order between China and The Inferior foreigners" , "the huge fall" between west civilization , whose mainstream is the culture of Greece and Christianity, and Chinese civilization .whose mainstream is the confucianist culture, protruded strikingly. If the "the foreigners" in past are familiar "inferior others" , the west powers during the end of The Qing Dynasty are "the superior others" never met in past. When "Superior-self" became "inferior-self" quickly, Chinese fell into extreme pessimism from extreme conceit. The attitude towards the exotic and other races was a mixture of hate, fear and awe. The foreigners in the novel of the end of Qing Dynasty were "the superior others" . "The Japanese devil" showed the theme of "hurt and revenge" . The people dwelling on other planets, depicted in literature, film and TV plays of present ages, are human supposition on the exotic and different races in new epoch.If considering "the foreigners" in Chinese literature from culture, "the inferior foreigner" reflected the nature of hegemonism and cultural colonialism in "The Order between China and The Inferior foreigners" . In the historic and cultural context which the contradiction between China and Japan turned into main conflict, the image of "Japanese devil" is that the deposit of "The Distinction Between China and The Inferior Foreigners" buried ever in national collective unconsciousness merges again.In the times of the all kinds of cultures co-existing, the other reflecting self aren' t the "inferior others" , which follow the big countries, not the the images of the foreigner in the end of Qing Dynasty and Japanese devil, which regard China as the subject, even not the west powers implementing culture colony in world, but a new other.The imagology first face with the exotic and different race images, secondly, the self national images, which hide in the first and have a decisive function for the description of the first, therefore, the portrait of new other images must be company with the establishment of a new self images at same time.The relationship between the self and the other, which is used to cognize self, changes with the variation of political and economic power. During...