A Study On Lin Yutang's Depiction Of Chinese Image

As a special phenomenon in the exchange of Chinese and western culture, Lin Yutang as well as his works have been always in a great argument. The focus of this argument is whether the Chinese images created by Lin embody the significance of Chinese culture, and whether they express the Chinese culture in accordance with the inherence of Chinese culture. However, I hold a positive towards these arguments. And this dissertation will deal with my point of view in four parts. Part One, the Chinese images in notion.The Chinese images in Lin's mind have the mental characteristic of enjoying the secular life and present, which reflects the essence in Chinese culture and limits the internal logic to create the Chinese images. Part Two, the Chinese images in secular life. It takes Yao Mulan as an example to discuss how Lin realize the Chinese people in daily life and the value reflected through their behaviors. Part Three, the Chinese images in history. This part will emphasize to the exploration of Su Dongpo's Happy Philosophy and his humanism in Chinese background, which is to reveal the characteristic of Chinese images in history. Part Four, the Chinese images in Utopia, which are the ideal images created by Lin after his research on the advantages and disadvantages of both Chinese and western culture, by which he promotes the Chinese culture as illustrated in his The Unexpected Island. The conclusion of this dissertation will be that Lin still keeps his essentiality of Chinese culture when writing, however affected deeply by western culture as well as wrote abroad with foreign language. And the Chinese images created by him are still the genre of Chinese culture.Lin provides us a way to keep our own cultural essentiality under the background of global context, which is to absorb the essence of western culture , while not cost the characteristic of Chinese culture. And it never means to be complacent and conservative to keep it. With the realization and admiration of Chinese culture, one can create the true Chinese images, and promotes the cultural spirit in spite of the disadvantages during creating, such as foreign cultural background and makes the foreigners as the implied readers.