Cross-cultural Vision Of The Mirror Image

The mirror images in Chinese or western culture are usually traditional. And from nobles' privilege products to daily necessities of ordinary people, mirrors gradually show, in the process of popularization, their particularity, for mirrors accompany man's growing self-recognitions from the very beginning of their existence. We found that mirrors haven't been fixed as a symbol just like other ordinary one-to-one images but rather be changing as man's knowledge is enlarging. Meanwhile, mirrors have a significant impact on man's emotions, psychology and behaviors. The mirror-image research will help us know, from a different angle, our own cultures as well as the text images sceened by history. This paper consists of three parts, which are "introduction", "text" and "epilogue". This paper is intended to explore the evolution of the mirror images in both Chinese and western culture in order to sort out the images existing in both cultures.Introduction The interest of man toward mirrors can be found in the early ancient mythologies. Originally, scholars cared more about mirrors'outer beauty, so the appearances of mirrors were mostly the topics of discussions, and western scholars also paid attention to links between mirrors and lights. As time goes by, mirrors are getting more focuses. So this part chiefly makes a summary of and classifies the mirror images. And on this basis, an outline of ideas and a brief elaboration have been brought out.Chapter 1:A general view of the most primitive mirror image, where the later images come from. At first mirrors were only rich men's luxury, and they became daily necessities due to the popularity of craftworks During this time the specular developed a divination witchcraft, people started to revere mirrors since specular reflection gave birth to some kind of divination witchcraft. In the classical literary works, mirror images were further developed, and turned into representatives of affection. This part also emphatically introduces the typical mirror images within Chinese and western culture.Chapter 2:With the ongoing time, mirror images became miscellaneous, mirrors and the mirror-image copy made people feel uneasy, and also the opinions toward them were constantly changing. Mirror images sparked the thinking towards humans themselves and people feared that the images would endanger themselves,thus producing some religious taboos. This part introduces the horrors generated by the mirror images.Chapter 3:Till the highly civilized modern society, it is prominent that mirrors have caused more subjective thinkings. Mirror images are entirely broken and mirrors not only bring panic to man's own image but also work out a lot of new problems. This part is divided into several parts like "metaphors of mirrors ", mirrors in female perspective, and mirror remains, making a category for the prominent images in modern society.Epilogue:Based on the analysis above, we can get a rough understanding about how people view mirrors from the day a mirror was made and can see the transmutation of mirror images from cross-cultures. Recoginitions towards "mirrors" are merely a reflection of mankind's thought about himself, while the selections of mirror images reflect the transformation of man's way of thinking.