Counterpoint Writing Of Gender, Race And Identity

In the 18 th century, Horace Walpole, an English writer, had written a novel called Mili: A Chinese fairy tale. In the novel, the strong masculine image stands for the east while the tender female image stands for the west, which reflect the writer’s admiration for eastern culture. Walpole also originates a kind of narrative tradition, which regards the gender, race and identity as the important elements in building the relationship between eastern culture and western culture in the western literature. It is also widely employed in the literary works such as Madam Butterfly, Miss Saigon and L’amant in the 19 th century. In those novels, the writer shapes the powerful male figure to represent the east while he shapes the humble feminine figure to represent the east, which reverse his cultural orientation. However, his narrative tradition is inherited and developed in the Mili:A Chinese fairy tale. Besides, it is also adopted by the eastern writers.Due to its powerful literate influence, literary works such as Madam Butterfly not only becomes the turning point in Walpole’s cultural orientation. In this case, western people make a typical assumption that Asian look like a shy flower. Based on race discrimination reflected in the Madam Butterfly, The Chinese American writer creates M. Butterfly to deconstruct the male and female image in the novel. At the same time,eastern writers express their dissatisfaction with race discrimination in the western people’s minds through reshaping the male and female image in their own novels such as The Lost Daughter of Happiness and K, in which those writers hope to rebuild the relation between eastern and western culture. Nevertheless, the writers of the three novels emphasize that gender, race and identity is the key elements in constructing the relationship between them.These seven works ranging from Mili:A Chinese fairy tale to K fully improve this narrative tradition, in which main elements such as the gender, race and identity are frequently used and developed in different eras, forming the Counterpoint Writing relationship between them. The thesis incorporates these seven novels into entity to explore the narrative tradition and its matching relationship. The paper consists of introduction, main body and conclusion.The introduction mainly illustrates its significance. Firstly, it introduces the reason to study these seven novels together and identifies relevant concepts. Secondly, it comments the previous studies on those seven contexts comprehensively, from which we are able to conclude that related studies and researches are insufficient. Furthermore, it introduces the method and thinking pattern of the study.The main body concludes four chapters. Chapter one analyzes the initial narrative tradition which views gender, race and identity as the key elements in building the relationship between eastern and western culture in the Mili:A Chinese fairy tale. Chapter two mainly discusses the three novels Madam Butterfly, Miss Saigon and L’amant, it deeply analyzes its reversion and consolidation of the narrative tradition based on the Mili:A Chinese fairy tale and the matching relationship between them. Based on the M. Butterfly, The Lost Daughter of Happiness and K, Chapter three explores the reconstruction of the gender, race and identity to deconstruct the relationship between eastern and western culture in the Madam Butterfly,Miss Saigon and L’amant.Chapter four examines Counterpoint Writing narrative tradition in the eastern and western literature history. The last chapter summarizes the thesis and stresses the important significance of the narrative tradition which views gender, race and identity as the key elements in building the relationship between eastern and western culture.the writer puts the Mili: A Chinese fairy tale and other six novels together to conduct a comparative study, which examines the narrative tradition which views gender, race and identity as the key elements in building the relationship between eastern and western culture in the east and east literature history. It also deeply analyzes its Counterpoint Writing relationship and probes into the connotation of ideology and the writer’s identity consciousness and creative motivation reflected in the novel, which also have important academic significance.The thesis describes the formation and development of the Counterpoint Writing narrative tradition ranging from Mili:A Chinese fairy tale to K and attaches importance to the connotation involved in ideology such as gender, race and identity. It also dates back to its history to have a deeper understanding of these seven works and to better illustrate its value of literary creation and practice and it also becomes the beneficial reference to the study of comparative literature and comparative culture in the east and west.