A Study of the Chinese Image of American Writer Peter Hessler: Starting from 'Pathfinding in China'

摘要

In American literature, there are many works that depict China or Chinese, and the image of China is diversified with the development of American national literature. At present, the research of China or the Chinese image in American literature is productive, most of which concentrated on the study of the representative writers and works before the new century, such as the series of Sai Zhenzhu, overseas Chinese writers Fu Manzhou, and Charlie Chan, etc. Using native American writer's literature in the new century as the research object, and American travel writer Peter Hayes's work "The Pathfinding China" as the breakthrough point, through the way of observing China of the documentary travel literature, this paper describes the new look of Chinese images, analyzes the pattern of manifestation of the othering of China and the Chinese images in American literature in the new century, and expounds the mutual conversion process of the relation between otherness and ego, and bidirectional nature of the self-image construction, expecting to have a positive impact on self-awareness and self-construction of China's images.