A Comparative Study Of Female Images In Three Chinese Translations Of The Painted Veil

The Painted Veil has been considered the novel that expresses Maugham’s attitude toward love and marriage.This thesis selects three representative Chinese translations of The Painted Veil,including Liu Xianzhi’s Cai Se de Mian Sha(1988),Zhang Helong’s Mian Sha(2017),and Zhang Baihua’s Mian Sha(2018),and then conducts analysis and comparison after careful reading of three texts.This thesis attempts to explore the elements that influence the portrait of the female images that translators created in three different translations by using the concept of fusion of horizons with the descriptive and comparative research method,thus showing different translations produced by translators under the influence of different time backgrounds,research backgrounds,and view of women.And then it further analyzes the process of the variation in female images.Compared with the horizons of the original text,the author finds out that Liu Xianzhi’s horizon is more traditional with the female images described with the restraint of social norms on women;Zhang Helong’s horizon is more objective,trying to reproduce female images of progressive and faithful to themselves in the original text from an observer’s perspective;Zhang Baihua’s horizon has a clear tolerance of woman,showing strong and independent female images.Therefore,this thesis finds that the three translators studied Maugham to some extent and published other translations,but because of different horizons and translation claims of the three translators,leading to different images of women in the three translations.Meanwhile,the degree of the fusion between the translator’s horizons,the original text’s horizons,and the horizons of the readers can explain the variation of female images to a certain extent,and the translation techniques of omission,amplification and inversion that are highlighted by different translators are important means of achieving the change in female images.