Beijingers In London

"Er Ma", as one of famous works of Lao She, was produced by him when he was in England last century."Er Ma", on the one hand, is the last work Lao She produced during the time when he was in England; on the other hand, it is the only work that Lao She makes the foreign land, in Er Ma is England, as the writing context, in which various images were built. The writing purpose of Lao She is a comparison of national character between Chinese and British. Lao She, during five years as he taught in England, has clear ideas about the social situation and the national quality; moreover, he has a relatively objective valuation on the English culture and national character. All of these provide convenience for Lao She to create a variety of meaningful images in this work.For a long time, there are different arguments for these different images in the course of discussion. This paper, nevertheless, will make a summary of images, mainly for the images of figures in "Er Ma" in the perspective of Imagologie. I will divide the images as:the image of Chinese in their own perception; the image of Chinese in English perception; and the image of English. By analyzing these three main sorts of images, I would like to suggest that these three images, though it seems that they, to some degree, are independent, essentially have close relationship with each other. They get their own particular meaning by each other. Furthermore, I will argue for that such relationship means that Lao She is intended to make these three images as the agents of different cultures as well as the complicated relationship between these cultures. To make them as agents effectively, Lao She, as a great writer, uses the particular writing strategies which will be discussed in detail. As writing strategies are applied on these images there is a further and critical question:on what basis these images become prominent by these writing strategies and accordingly assistant to complete Lao She’s writing purpose. We could, by analysis in terms of images and writing strategies, see that it is Lao She’s double fields of vision of Chinese tradition and a kind of "orientalizing" in the western culture that makes Lao She build these three typical images; ultimately these images fulfill themselves in "Er Ma".This paper is divided into three parts:the first chapter will summary and analyze three images:the image of Chinese in their own perception; the image of Chinese in English perception; and the image of English. Also this chapter will discuss the different characteristics and the relationship of them. Chapter two is on the basis of analysis of the first chapter:on the one hand, discussing the deep meanings in these images, finding their nature by the discrepancy of them, in particular, the different meanings of culture conveyed by the images. On the other hand, around them the writing strategies will be analyzed in detail, to see how the narrative method and language style altogether influence the various images. Chapter three will argue for a double fields of vision of Chinese tradition and a kind of "orientalizing" in the western culture Lao She has, to see how Lao She builds these images with critical opinions, how such opinions to form, how his awareness of unexpected development, his awareness of Chinese culture, and his awareness of modern nation influence each other. This chapter at the end will point out that on account of the historical limitation, Lao She inevitably orientalizes himself when he criticizes the Easternism.To sum up, this paper analyzes the different images built in "Er Ma" in terms of Imagologie; discusses further a kind of double fields of visions that Lao She has. To affirm Lao She’s position in the history of literature. This is a exploration of Imagologie to put into practice in "Er Ma".