Space and Translation: Fictional Spaces in David Hawkes’ The Story of the Stone

Abstract

This thesis investigates the fictional spaces of Hongloumeng in David Hawkes’ translation, The Story of the Stone (published between 1973 and 1986), employing a spatial approach, with a focus on the translator’s treatment of space in relation to fictional buildings, people of both high and low-status, and women. The study begins with a literature review of Redology in both Chinese and Anglo-American academia. By examining both literary criticism and translation criticism of Hongloumeng, it demonstrates that the novel’s fictional spaces are textually constructed on the basis of Confucianism and reveals that there is a gap within existing redological literature pertaining to exploring Hongloumeng’s fictional spaces from a translational approach.
Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s theory of space and architecture, this thesis contrasts the source text of Hongloumeng with its English translation, with special reference to the renditions of descriptions of fictional buildings. Based on translational analysis of the spatial position, arrangement and structure of these fictional buildings, it is argued that Hawkes’ fictional buildings differ from those depicted in the source text, due to his use of substitution, generalisation, adaptation and omission strategies. Through the transformation of these fictional buildings, the translator may challenge traditional Chinese architectural aesthetic values, instead presenting Westernised or Europeanised architectural aesthetic values characterised by a preference for “vertical” spatial orientation, a departure from spatial aesthetics rooted in orderliness, and an inclination towards non-centralised architectural design.
Based on Michel Foucault’s theory of space and power, this thesis also examines the fictional spaces of high-status and low-status individuals in Hawkes’ translation. Focusing on characters’ spatial behaviour, seating arrangements and naming of rooms, it argues that depictions of these fictional spaces in the translation are at variance with those in the source text, as a result of substitution, generalisation, adaptation and omission strategies. Those differences suggest that Hawkes tries to build “equal” power relations (social order) and develop a “horizontal-alignment” spatial consciousness within the fictional spaces of both high-status and low-status individuals, thus mitigating the inequalities in social rank and challenging traditional
Chinese people’s “vertical-alignment” spatial consciousness.
Employing Doreen Massey’s theory of space and gender, this thesis additionally investigates the representation of women’s spaces within the fictional world of Hongloumeng, as depicted in Hawkes’ translation. By analysing the spatial separation, spatial size and spatial stereotypes, it argues that the way in which Hawkes portrays women’s fictional spaces, using addition, omission, substitution, and adaptation strategies, differs from their representation in the source text. In this reconstruction of women’s fictional spaces of Hongloumeng, the translator appears to challenge Confucian gender relations that link “external”, “big” and “positive” with males, and “internal”, “small” and “negative” with females. This, in turn, reduces the gender-based inequalities portrayed in the original text.
The thesis attempts to demonstrate that the fictional spaces depicted in the original text of Hongloumeng diverge from those presented in David Hawkes’ translation, reinforcing prior redological research findings that Hawkes’ translation predominantly employs a domestication approach. Specifically, the Confucian social, power, and gender relations influencing the textual construction of these fictional spaces undergo reshaping through various translation strategies, which this study aims to unveil, thereby challenging traditional Chinese values concerning architectural aesthetics, social hierarchy, and women’s gender roles. By integrating spatial analysis with translational methods, the study aims to not only explore the disparities in fictional spaces but also uncover a new research domain—the intersections of critical space studies and translation studies.

Date of Award	12 Jan 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Bangor University
Sponsors	Bangor University-China Scholarship Council
Supervisor	Helena Miguelez-Carballeira (Supervisor) & Shasha Wang (Supervisor)