The novellas, “Jinsuo Ji” and “The Golden Cangue,” narrate the life of Ts’ao Ch’i-ch’iao (henceforth Ch’i-ch’iao)。 Ch’i-chi’iao’s physical and psychological degeneration parallels the breakdown of their respective aristocratic families from the fall of the Qing dynasty to the end of the Sino-Japanese War。 Using the beauty and youthfulness of their bodies as commodities, and being controlled by old concept and tradition and her family, she attains wealth though, at the expense of love and sexual desire, through arranged marriages with a blind and crippled husband, the Second Master—in Chinese aristocratic feudal households called, the Chiangs。 Tormented by unsatisfied sexual desires, Ch’i-ch’iao seduce their respective brother-in-law named, Chi-tse。 Ch’i-ch’iao is rejected by Chi-tse in her youth and becomes disillusioned by his deceptive affection in her middle age, all the suffering lead her to madness, she tried everything to destroy the happiness of her children, control them, to let them have a similar fate as she had。 The Golden Cangue, the title of the novellas, is just like the life of Ch’i-ch’iao, and in the end it passed onto her children。

1。2 Research purposes

Although some of the voice would rather regard self-translation as a branch of rewriting, they tend to believe that a bilingual writer cannot translate his work faithfully from the original text, but rather he will add/delete the plot for his own consideration。 But as a bilingual writer, Eileen Chang had her translation background, she had thorough education and awareness of the principle of translation。

This paper would like to criticize and evaluate the translation done in Eileen Chang’s novellas The Golden Cangue, a work to show her master of English language, and translation skills, and what is most important: the culture awareness in both Western and Eastern culture。论文网

2。 Literature Review

2。1 Studies on the translation of Jinsuo Ji

Written in 1943, Jinsuo Ji (the Chinese version) was Eileen Chang’s magnum opus。 The moment it was published in 1942, Jinsuo Ji was well received and Chang took off from then on。 C。 T。 Hsia stated that Jinsuo Ji is “the greatest novella in the history of Chinese literature” (Hsia, 2005)。 None of Chang’s any other works received such high praise from such a literary giant。 The importance of Jinsuo Ji in Chang’s writing career is self-evident。 What makes Jinsuo Ji successful? David Der-wei Wang’s words may reflect something, “The novella excels in its unsentimental expose of women’s fate in the traditional family system and in its intricate narrative skill, which superbly fulfills the standards of high realism。” (Chang, 1998) 

In 1956 when Chang has moved the United States, she began to write Pink Tears in English based on the plot of Jinsuo Ji。 However, this English version was rejected by the publishing house。 Then she revised Pink Tears into The Rogue of North and had it published in 1967。 The following year she translated The Rogue of North into Chinese novel re-entitled Yuan-nü。 It was in 1971 that she, entrusted by C。 T。 Hsia, translated Jinsuo Ji into The Golden Cangue, which was collected in Hsia’s Twentieth-Century Chinese Stories。 The evolvement of Jinsuo Ji can be presented in the following diagram:

Diagram 1 The Evolvement of Jinsuo Ji (陈吉莱, 2009)

Yuan-nü (怨女) is the Chinese version of The Rogue of North with no change of the storyline。 The final version The Golden Cangue is a translation of Jinsuo Ji。 

Compared with plentiful attention being paid to Chang’s literary works since the 1940s, studies on her translation have only begun in recent years。

In the book Self-translation Approaches to Translation studies - A Case study of Chang’s Self-translation, Chen Jirong (陈吉荣: 2009) attempts to summarize the initial theoretical framework, on which the self-translation theory is based through multiple comparisons between translation strategies and researches on self-translation corpus。 Chen states that the self-translation of Jinsuo Ji evolves from rewriting to incomplete loyalty and then to complete loyalty。 Vertically, Chen tracks the dual identity of Eileen Chang (both as a writer and a translator) and the development of text narration by making a comparative study between all five different versions of Jinsuo Ji。 Horizontally, Chen reveals the stylistic features by comparing Jinsuo Ji and its direct translation The Golden Cangue。 It is found that Chang’s rewriting is ascribed both to the poetics of the target language and to her financial status。 Stories of the five texts, however, are not influenced by Western culture at all。 It is in how conflicts develop that the five texts differ。 As a comprehensive research, the thesis covers the aspects of literature, linguistics and translation; many of the examples listed are persuasive; her analyses are logical and strict。 However, she does not take a proper stand on the issue of western culture。 One of these versions was published in America when Chang was in financial difficulties。 To make a living, how could Chang turn a blind eye to western culture which has absolutely influenced the contemporary poetics?