The Call Of The Earth

Pearl S. Buck is the first woman writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in American history, and so far, the only Nobel Prize winner in Literature because of writing the novel of Chinese theme. The Good Earth is the most outstanding works of Pearl S. Buck, and brings her great success "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China"(Hallstrom,1938) in this novel. The Good Earth tells a story of a diligent and earthy peasant, and describes the rise and decline of his family. Born in American, Pearl S. Buck grew up in China. Because of her special east-west cultural background, scholars at home and abroad mainly study her and her works from the perspective of the cultural differences. Some scholars also study Pearl S. Buck and her works from feminism, colonialism, and so on. This thesis tries to analyse The Good Earth from the perspective of ecocriticism, and explores the ecological theme in this works.Ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the natural environment. It is an enormous and complex system of literary criticism. In this enormous and complex system, the author selects the trichotomy of the ecology(2000), which is one branch of ecocritical theory put forward by Chinese scholar Lu Shuyuan, to analyse The Good Earth. Lu Shuyuan proposes that the ecology can be divided into three parts:the natural ecology which studies the nature, the social ecology which studies the political and economic activities of the human society, and the spiritual ecology which studies human emotion and spirit. He also points out that these three aspects are approximately equivalent to the three relationships presented by Chinese contemporary scholar Liang Shuming:relationship between man and nature, relationship between man and man, relationship between man and self. Based on the theory presented by Lu Shuyuan, the thesis discusses the natural ecology, social ecology and spiritual ecology embodied in The Good Earth.The thesis contains six chapters:Chapter One briefly introduces Pearl S. Buck and her The Good Earth. The first part introduces the background of writing this thesis. The second part introduces Pearl S. Buck's special personal experience, cultural background and her achievement in literature, and briefly introduces the plot of The Good Earth.The third part of this chapter is about the framework of the thesis.Chapter Two is the literature review. The first part of this chapter is about the background and development of ecocriticism and detailedly introduces ecocritical theory put forward by Chinese scholar Lu Shuyuan. The second part of this chapter gives a general literature review on Pearl S. Buck and The Good Earth. Chapter Three analyses the natural ecology which mainly finds expression in the relationship between man and nature in The Good Earth. As the delegate of the nature, earth plays a very important role in The Good Earth. So, this chapter analyses the relationships between main characters and earth. The first part of this chapter discusses the harmonious—separated—re-harmonious relationship between Wang Lung and earth, meanwhile shows the psychological change of Wang Lung at the same time. The second part analyses the relationship between O-lan, the female protagonist, and earth. There are many remarkable resemblances between O-lan and earth both in appearance and inward. Thus the second chapter discusses the relationship between O-lan and earth from these two aspects.Chapter Four analyses the social ecology which mainly finds expression in the relationship between man and man in The Good Earth. The social ecology includes the state of balance and imbalance, thus the first part of this chapter explores the imbalance of the social ecology which mainly finds expression in the dissimilation and alienation of man and man relationship. By listing the loyal and trustful relationship between Wang Lung and Ching and the warmful farther—daughter relationship between Wang Lung and his fool daughter, the second part discusses the balanced state of social ecology.Chapter Five analyses the spiritual ecology which mainly finds expression in the relationship between man and self in The Good Earth. The first part of this chapter explores the spiritual world of Wang Lung, analysing the spiritual crises as well as the spiritual self-redemption of Wang Lung. The second part explores the spiritual world of female protagonist O-lan, analysing the spiritual preciousness as well as the spiritual crises of O-lan under the oppression of patriarchy.Chapter Six is the conclusion. The first part is the main findings in this study. From the analysis, it comes to the conclusion that the natural ecology, social ecology and spiritual ecology as three aspects of the ecology are indivisible, and the change of anyone of them will cause the change of the others. The second part is the contribution of this study. This part points out that one of the most important way of solving the ecology crises is to respect the nature and keep a harmonious relationship with it, thus man, as a part of the nature, may exist and maintain a harmonious relationship with all things on earth. The third part is about the limitations of the study, meanwhile points out the direction of the further study.