Chinese Cultural Influence on The Night of the Iguana

機構典藏 > College of Foreign Languages and Literature > Graduate Institute & Department of English > Proceeding > Item 987654321/99557

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Title:	Chinese Cultural Influence on The Night of the Iguana
Authors:	王緒鼎
Contributors:	淡江大學英文學系
Keywords:	Tennessee Williams, Chinese culture, Western culture, comparative influence.
Date:	2014-05-30
Issue Date:	2014-11-26 23:09:37 (UTC+8)
Abstract:	This paper studies The Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams with a comparative approach by arguing that the Chinese attitudes towards life and death are positively compared and contrasted with the Western attitudes in the play. Among other things, all the Chinese allusions in the play form a coherent and systematic pattern that is established with traditional Chinese culture rooted in Confucianism and Taoism, which not only helps shape the major themes of the conflicts between flesh and spirit and between belief and disbelief, but also affects the major characters’ attitudes towards both life and death. Williams’ creation of these characters is influenced by Chinese culture in general and by Taoist philosophy in particular. All the main characters of the play have one thing in common: they have something to do with the East, especially with China.All of their behaviors and their life styles suggest a contrasting dichotomy between Western attitudes and Eastern ones towards both life and death, and the dichotomy shows that “the Eastern attitudes of stoicism and fatalism are offered as a positive alternative to the Western preoccupations with guilt and suffering,” as Glenn Embrey suggests (72).
Appears in Collections:	[Graduate Institute & Department of English] Proceeding

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