The Imaginary Construction In Bai Xianyong’s Novels

Bai Xianyong is one of the most important representative writers in Taiwan in the 1960s. We can find that the author creates images of the works carefully and deliberately, which is a important and significant feature of the fictional world. There are a large numbers of images which contain broad and deep meaning in his novels. These images form many special background in the novel story,they play a very important role in the shaping of character,the expression of the meaning of work and the formation of aesthetic taste, at the same time, they permeate the author’s complex emotions and thoughts.Furthermore, as the artistic characteristic of traditional Chinese literature, the creation of image reflects the inheritance and creation of Chinese traditional literature.Using the method of detailed reading of text, this paper chooses four representative images including chrysanthemum, moon, typhoon and mahjong to study particularly and arrange systematically. Combined with the connotation of images in Chinese traditional literature,this paper try to dig out the complex emotions,cultural connotation and aesthetic value, and to clear the inheritance and creation of Chinese traditional literature from the perspective of image.The first chapter focuses on the analysis of chrysanthemum image.Chrysanthemum image represents noble character and reclusive idea in Chinese traditional literature, Bai Xianyong give this image richer and more unique meaning. The chrysanthemum image of the author’s works conveys the author’s deep nostalgia to human innocence, Chinese traditional culture and the lost ideals and hopes, it contains a kind of endless sentimental feelings, and shows the author’s thinking of the individual, history and culture. Meanwhile, the sentimental color of the chrysanthemum image in the works have some connection with the chrysanthemum that represent the meaning of mourning in Chinese traditional culture in some extent, and the creation also inherits the Chinese literary tradition of writing sad feelings.The second chapter describes the moon image. The moon image in Chinese traditional literature is the carrier of complex emotions, including sadness of loneliness and frustration, pain of Acacia, broad-minded and detached feelings and the ideas of history and universe.The moon image in traditional literature is mainly a carrier of personal emotions, but the moon image in Bai Xianyong’novel is more like an objective witness, and it shows the world of pure and beautiful, dignified and desolate, immorality and gloomy, cruel and complex.to convey the concern for the people, at the same time, it conveys the author’s concern for the entire human.The third chapter discusses the typhoon image. Typhoon image in English and American literature of ocean often shows the people’s force of resistance, reflects a kind of positive attitude, while in traditional Chinese literature people often express their fear and disgust feelings to the typhoon image, that make the typhoon image with more misery color. And the typhoon image in Bai Xianyong’novel also implies the feelings of sorrow, moreover, it is linked to homosexuals, showing the injustice and suffering the gay have suffered in society, and this has innovative significance. At the same time, the creation of the typhoon image breaks the traditional limitation of typhoon image which conveys people’s feelings of fear and worry, and it contains the author’s care and understanding to the vulnerable groups in society.The fourth chapter interprets the image of mahjong. Mahjong image has been get into the literary vision for relatively short time and, it is generally used as a kind of daily life things to reflect people’s living conditions and spiritual space. Bai Xianyong inherits the narrative tradition of daily life, he links mahjong image and the marginalized people together, to show the individual’s mental anxiety, and also it reflects the author’s deep concern for the marginalized person.