The Image of China in Red Scarf Girl: Promoting International Understanding or Reinforcing Western Hegemony?

• Autores: Xu Xu
• Localización: Bookbird: world of children's books, ISSN 0006-7377, Vol. 53, Nº. 4, 2015, págs. 12-19
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The promotion of intercultural understanding is an important aim of international children�s literature. Often recommended by scholars and teachers as a positive international children�s book about Chinese culture, Ji-li Jiang�s Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution focuses on the author�s childhood experiences during the first two years of China�s Cultural Revolution. This article argues that the book�s prologue and epilogue frame the central narrative of the author�s experiences as a young girl during the Cultural Revolution in a way that reinforces an orientalist discourse wherein China features as a despotic and backward country in opposition to a free and democratic America. Thus, the article presents the framing sections as setting up this dichotomy fundamental to the West�s hegemony over �other� countries. However, the function of the child narrator is also highlighted. That is, the historically grounded perspective of the child narrator is cast as resisting the frames� problematic construction of the central narrative simply as an instance of China�s violence and cruelty.