Beijing As The Other In Lisa See's Flower Net

With the development of Chinese national power, the capital city of Beijing has attracted more and more attention from the outside world and appears more and more often in the Western literature. Flower Net, written in 1997 by Lisa See, a contemporary American author, is a thriller mainly located in Beijing, a finalist for the Edgar award for best first mystery and a New York Times notable book. Previous criticism, largely focusing on Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, its adapted movie, and Shanghai Girls, etc., pays insufficient attention to Flower Net, despite the fact that Flower Net is spoken highly of by well-known newspapers and magazines such as The Washington Post Book World and Los Angeles Times Book Review. There are few related researches on this novel, not to mention the analysis of Beijing, the important locality in the novel. This thesis aims to fill this research gap by analyzing Beijing as the alien image in the novel.An author's perception of an alien image is closely related to the imagination of his own community or society, and according to contemporary French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, social imagining practices are varied between the two poles, ideology and Utopia. Alien images shaped by conforming to the social model and by employing the discourse of an author's own society are ideological, whereas those shaped by centrifugal discourses in accord with one's admiration for otherness are utopian.Inspired by Paul Ricoeur's theory and Edward W. Said's reflections on Orientalism, employing the research method of image study (imagology) in comparative literature, this thesis concentrates on the analysis of Beijing image in Flower Net and finds the image an ideological one. Beijing here is presented as the Other characterized by "authoritarianism", "bureaucracy" and "backwardness".The image is mainly presented from the perspectives of David Stark and Liu Hulan, the two major characters. First, David tends to perceive Beijing from the Western perspective as a native American. Beijing actually exists as the Other being gazed and imagined by David Stark with the Western perspective. When Los Angeles is introduced in the novel, the inferior Beijing image as the Other becomes even more conspicuous. Second, Liu Hulan is a Chinese but she observes Beijing image from the Western perspective due to westernization. Besides, the love between Liu Hulan and David Stark is actually a Western salvation legend, which strengthens Beijing image as the Other in the novel.According to the analysis of the Beijing image-the "authoritarian" "bureaucratic" and "backward" city, Beijing image as the other is manifested in Flower Net. To confirm the advanced position of Los Angeles, the stagnant Beijing image is created; to illustrate the freedom and democracy of Los Angeles, the Oriental tyrannical city image is formed; to stress the fair play and civilization of the Western city, the bureaucratic and even corruptive Beijing is imagined. Therefore, Beijing, described as an inferior, is produced as the other in comparison with the Western city.