Light And Wall: On The Cultural Identification In The American

The American, written by the American writer Henry James, is regarded as one of the important works of James'international theme serial. This thesis focuses on light and wall-both I consider as two basic images of the novel. Starting from the point of these two images, this thesis analyzes both the characters in the novel and the author's own cultural identity, so as to explore the enlightenment that James gave us.This thesis has been divided into three parts. In the first part, I analyze philosophical base of the two basic images "light" and "wall" in the process of identification, and to make appropriate interpretation and extension to the content of main topic. I want to point out that "light" image contains the imagination and the desire as well as the social discourse behind them. And then, "wall" image symbolizes the gap between both sides in the imagination of the cultural identification.In the second part, I analyze the function of the visual metaphor "light" in the process of cultural idenfication of the characters in the novel and the writer himself. This part then has been divided into three chapters. In the chapter I, I analyze the scene of the novel and the relationship between two main characters, and then to explore the main characters' cultural identification under the process of desire and imagination. In chapterâ…¡, I focus on the writer---Henry James and analyze his intertextual reading of some European writer, such as Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev's work, and then find out writer's own cultural identity construction process. Chapter III can be read as the conclusion of two previous chapters. Through the analysis of James' literature interest and the social context, I demonstrate the reason and motivation for James'own cultural identification.In the third part I highlight the estrangement of cultural confusion in the process of identity construction, and make a specifically analysis on the mechanism of cultural identity construction in James's novel. Also, this part has been divided into three chapters. In chapterâ… , I analyze the types of Wall in the text. There are two kinds of Walls. The first type of the Wall is the Wall of antiquity, which is the symbol of the gaze to European culture from the eyes of Newman and James. The second type of the Wall is a cultural block between the characters in the novel. The two types of Walls function as symbols of Gaze and Estrangement in the process of construction of cultural identity. In chapterâ…¡I analyze the character:Valentin. I want to point out that the American dream project on him by Newman and his response to the foreign culture from the studies of Valentine's behaviors. In chapter III I study the image of Americans in James'work from comparing the similarities and differences between the two kinds of Americans in Paris which represented by Babcock and Newman.Through the whole text writing, I want to provide a better understanding of the relationship between literary and cultural identity construction, so we can find better poison in the present context of globalization.