Ambiguity And Ambivalence

Maugham is a famous writer for his excellence in novels,play writing and prose who has spent most of his life travelling,which makes his works replete with exoticism.Maugham came to China after First World War in hopes of unveiling eastern civilization and produced works including novels and travel writings featuring both in artistry and profound reflections with background set in China.Maugham has created images of Chinese and Europeans in China in his On a Chinese Screen.This thesis mainly focuses on the analysis of colonial discourse which forms and characterizes the making of image of China and how the colonial discourse constructs the exotic China and the European self on the basis of the achievements acquired by the previous studies on Maugham.The post-colonial theories are used on the analysis of colonial discourse in On a Chinese Screen.The colonial discourse in Maugham is not a fixed,dichotomous system,but rather a more complex,contradictory and fluid system.The feature of ambivalence and contradiction innate in the colonial discourse externalize its presence in constructing the images and spaces.The paradox in images and ambivalence in space find its voice in the text which derives from the ambivalence and uncertainty embedded in the colonial discourse.The colonial discourse is embedded with multiple factors: the author’s personal values,the institutional authority and cultural ideology,which generates the anxiety and crisis in the discourse itself.The desire for establishing superiority over the Other in colonial discourse,depends upon the existence of the Other.What’s the meaning of a hierarchy system which is built solely upon oneself without its ruling object? Hence it is impossible for the Self to assign superiority on themselves without the indispensable Other.This thesis introduces the term “contact zone” in travel writing to comprehend and analyze the cultural encounters between disparate cultures in terms of a more comprehensive and broad perspective of studying Maugham’s exotic space.The contact zone foregrounds the interactions between Self and Other and mutual penetrations between cultures in a way it stresses more about the spatial fluidity and ambiguity rather than spatial fixity in comparison to the traditional exotic China.By introducing “contact zone ” to studies of Maugham not only does it widen the vision of imagology studies on Maugham but corresponds perfectly with spatial instability and ambivalence inherent in colonial discourse.The first part of this thesis explicates the definition and connotation of “contact zone”.The second part discusses the complex images of the Self and the Other in the contact zone due to the ambivalence and fluidity of the colonial discourse.The third part expounds why the Europeans rely on the voiceless Chinese and “inferior ” eastern civilization to construct its own identity.Based upon above three parts the fourth part delves into two narratives in his discourse: Utopia and Dystopia.The last draws the conclusion that the nature of the“contact zone” or exotic China which is a space where different cultures and civilizations meet and clash through a Chinese screen.The construction of the exoticambivalent space entails the ambiguous images of Self and Other.Maugham conveys his reflections upon encounters and clashes between the East and the West in producing a dynamic exotic space and various images of the East and the West.He deems it perilous for both cultures either cultural autism or cultural appropriation.Hence the anxiety and existential crisis rooted in Europeans are incessantly pervasive in the textual dimension.Inevitable is the fact that in the process of establishing and maintaining power they are also susceptible to the cultural clout of the Other.