| Pearl S. Buck was expert at representing foreign cultures. With distinctive writing materials, writing technique and thoughts, from a rather plain daughter of a missionary she had grown into a notable writer with a great contribution to the cultural communication between China and America. However, labels as "a Chinese expert" or "a bridge between the civilizations of the East and West" cannot cover Pearl Buck’s complicated inner world. Therefore, beginning with the discussion of the growth patterns reflected in Pearl Buck’s works, the dissertation aims to interpret her writing intention, technique, cultural position and their respective cause of formation, soak up her wisdom more effectively, and utilize this cultural resource optimally.The introduction mainly deals with the previous and current studies of Pearl Buck home and abroad. It also briefly introduces the target, the academic view and the framework of this dissertation.Three chapters constitute the second part. The first chapter, from the perspective of the three motifs of children’s literature, classifies Pearl Buck’s children’s works into two groups:works with the motif of love and works with the motif of nature. The absence of the motif of naughty child in her works can be attributed to her education-oriented views on children, special childhood experience and influences of Chinese and Western cultures. Pearl Buck’s children’s works are always characterized with happy endings, thus reflecting her motherliness in caring about children’s happy growth.Chapter two analyses the growth patterns reflected in Pearl Buck’s adult literature. Based on her rich experiences as the source of creation, Pearl Buck revealed different growth paths of men and women from different countries for adult readers. Most of Pearl Buck’s works have happy endings in which the growing characters may fail to escape the bondage of environment, but they will never be at the mercy of fatalism. Pearl Buck’s ideal growing characters are those self-reliant, reflective and struggling people who can interact with the world positively and realize their valuable existence. These stereotypical characters as well as Pearl Buck’s didactic words reflect exactly her deep worry about the dark environment around the growing characters.Chapter three explores the growth patterns reflected in Pearl Buck’s non-fiction in which she paid great attention to the growth of the retarded and homeless children as well as young men and women in real life. Pearl Buck concluded that people’s attitude towards the retarded is in relation to the level of their civilization; American people have an inescapable responsibility for mixed-race orphans; only a decent sex education from cradle can ensure the harmony between men and women. Pearl Buck’s works prove that she was a mother of a mentally handicapped child, a protector of several vulnerable groups, and an educator of young men and women. Each of these three identities reflects her initiative responsibility and benevolence.In conclusion, the author holds that Pearl Buck played a role of "guardian" in her works. On the one hand, she possessed destructive element, for she criticized the disadvantages of different cultures thoroughly in order to remind the growing characters of a clear mind. On the other hand, she possessed guarding and creating function, for she regarded the American society as her ideal pupil while defending the advantages of different cultures. Pearl Buck’s works prove that things under heaven are no more than birth, senility, illness and death--the law of growth; so long as she could rectify and reconstruct the national character of the United States successfully, the hope of leading other nations to the road of healthy and happy growth is in the near future. The author tries to argue that although Pearl Buck’s role as a "guardian" may make her jump into a vicious circle of cultural superiority unconsciously, her good and honest sincere intention should be remembered and valued. |
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