The Image Of China In Brian Castro’s Fiction

With the development of overseas Chinese literature,research on the representation of China by diasporic Chinese writers with cross-cultural identity is gaining momentum.The works of Brian Castro,an Australian novelist of partial Chinese origin,feature new cross-cultural themes and innovative narrative forms,and have won wide recognition as well as many literary awards.They also enable readers to gain a new understanding of race,national and cultural identity.Castro’s two novels,Birds of Passage and After China,mainly depict the lives of Chinese immigrants to Australia,with a focus on the crisis of their cultural or psychological identity.However,their connotation and significance are not limited to this.The image of China in the books deserves critical attention.In order to explore the image of China in these two novels and its relationship with the issue of identity,this thesis adopts the discourse on the relationship between self-image and hetero-image in Imagology as an analytical tool.Considering that literary images in comparative literature are seen as the sum of foreign images obtained through both literary and social processes,this thesis offers an outline of images of China in the West and images of Chinese in Australia in the section of“Literature Review”.In terms of research method,this thesis combines theory and concepts in Imagology and Orientalism with textual analysis.It identifies three images of China: imaginary China,politicized China,and exotic China.It is found that when Castro describes China,he vacillates between Orientalism and anti-Orientalism.In Birds of Passage,‘China’ exists in the character Seamus O’Young’s imaginary world,and is used as a tool to establish a cultural identity for himself.Meanwhile,in the process of shaping his own identity,Seamus also creates the heroic image of Lo Yun Shan,thus breaking down the negative stereotype of Chinese men in mainstream Australian literature.In the two texts,China is politicized,which is mainly reflected in the dichotomy between China and the West.In the China/West binary,China is the symbol of backwardness and oppression,while the Western world is characterized by modernity and freedom.Castro seems to waver between two perspectives.On the one hand,he shows sympathy for China which was invaded by Western powers in the mid-19 th century.On the other hand,he views China through the prism of Orientalism.The third image—exotic China—figures prominently in After China.This image mainly involves the feminization of Chinese men and sexualization of China.It also showcases Castro’s effort to seek wisdom from Chinese culture.To sum up,this thesis argues that in Castro’s two novels,the image of China is largely the product of Castro’s imagination conditioned by Orientalism,as well as a reflection of his endeavor to break through the confines of Orientalist influence.This thesis sheds new light on the formation of the image of China in English literature.