A Study Of Extra-territorial Creation Of Lao She

In the1920s, Lao She began his creation in Britain, and his novel creation in theperiod of visiting United States had been mature in the1940s. Modern westernideological trend and Chinese traditional ideas affect the creation of Lao She in theperiod of Britain and America profoundly. In the meantime, the different culturalperspective of Britain and America provide Lao She with different creatingbackground and frame of reference. Therefore, the exploration of Lao She’sextra-territorial creation period in the aspect of culture, female images and humorhelp us to understand Lao She and the connotation of his works better.Lao She is a culture-focused writer, he had always insisted on the principle ofcultural criticism, and gradually developed his own cultural view; Lao She is a masterof civil social life and humorist with literary reputation, he created a rich and colorfulwoman’s world and made the languages full of wit and humor. Analyzing thedevelopment of Chinese culture and the national character which was derived fromthe culture is the consistent theme of Lao She’s novels, in which he confronts theadvantages and disadvantages of Chinese and western culture in a rational andobjective way. Neither did he confine in the decadent feudal tradition, nor did hefollow the capital of western modern culture blindly. What he attempted to do was tointegrate the two kinds of culture so as to realize the complementary advantages, andconstruct the ideal culture of his type. Though Lao She has repeatedly claimed that hewas afraid to write stories about women, the image of female characters in his novelsconstitute another colorful world worthy of further study. At the beginning of thenovel creation, Lao She inspected women in the traditional vision of men with arelatively conservative attitude. But the extraterritorial knowledge and his personallife experiences made him obliged to praise and sympathize the traditional womansincerely. However, as to non-traditional women named Nora who was affected by thenew culture after May Fourth, Lao She focuses more on the writing of their tragicexistence in cracks between Chinese and western culture. In the early creation time,Lao She’s novels regarded excessive exaggeration as humor which appearedsophisticated and unctuous. However, after constantly thinking and practice, At last,he applies the use of humor in his works in a reasonable way. His humor, which wasgradually externalized into his personal character and filled in his fiction perfectly, isno longer a simple artistic style, but a natural way of emotional expression. Researching on cultural caring, female images, and humorous style of the LaoShe’s creation in the period of Britain and America is not only a research perspectivesupdating, but also an important opportunity to penetrate into Lao She and his workswhich possesses great academic significance.