Modernity: From the West to the East

Abstract

‘Modernity: From the West to the East’ evaluates how contemporary writers treat China in their works. It considers Chinese writers both living in China and living abroad, and Western writers with Chinese cultural backgrounds who take China as a principal subject of their work. Deploying the cultural studies scholar Stuart Hall’s critical framework of identity theory, this thesis examines personal and national identity in my chosen writers: Yang Lian, Ha Jin, Nicholas Jose and Ouyang Yu. The identity in these writers is eye-catching as a product under the influences of both Chinese and Western cultures which is triggered or facilitated by the opening-up policy in comprehensive modernisation in China. Their efforts to find an inner balance between two cultures fulfil the process of their identity construction, which has been expressed in their works concerning China. Under the umbrella cases of identity theory, this thesis will engage with Jacques Lacan’s interpretation of the relation between the subject and the other/Other, The Mirror Stage, transference and projection, Kathleen Woodward’s the second mirror stage, Manuel Castells’ three divisions of identity, and other scholars’ interpretations to analyse how they explore their own identity as transnational diasporic writers and how characters build up the identity by virtue of their experience of travelling between China and the West in their poems and novels. Such writing in more than 20 years (1990-2014) is based on the writers’ experience of living in China. It portrays modern China from different angles, which reflects their attitude towards this country, its culture and Chinese modernity literarily.