The Two Others Of The Pearl S. Buck's Works

Among the short history of American literature, Pearl S. Buck, the Nobel price winner for literature in 1938, is a very special writer. Born in America, Pearl S. Buck was raised up in China, which endows her with a double-perspective. For her, China and America is at one time Other and Self, which means that, for each country, Pearl S. Buck possesses the angle of perceiving from exterior to interior. What she sees is the Other image both in China and in America.In this thesis, three of her works, East Wind, West Wind, The Good Earth, and Dragon Seed are analyzed. These three works stands for her representative works in her early, middle and later period respectively and clearly shows the process of change of the Chinese Other and the American Other in her works.In East Wind, West Wind (1927), Pearl takes the narrator's perspective to mold an image of Chinese Other of "ideology" for the westerners. In The Good Earth in 1931, a kind image of Chinese Other appears under a friendly attitude; the ideology in the image of Chinese Other is partially eliminated instead of totally disappeared, it has been switched to the image of Chinese southerners. In her late works like Dragon Seed, Pearl molds a Utopian image of Chinese Other.Comparatively speaking, the image of the American Other that Pearl modeled has less changes. In East Wind, West Wind, she creates a utopian image for her own country in the oriental context. In The Good Earth Trilogy, she creates a kind image of American Other. It is not until in her Dragon Seed that the image of the American Other becomes a Utopian one again, but which differs from that in East Wind, West Wind. The Utopian characteristic of being civilized and advanced, which is stressed by Pearl, is replaced by the characteristic of being kind and friendly. At the same time, the characteristic of salvation is maintained, while the genders which are in charge of salvation and which are in the charge of salvation are reverted. In East Wind, West Wind, the males represented the American culture which is in charge of salvage, while the females represented the Chinese culture which is in the charge of salvage. The situation is just opposite in Dragon Seed. The change is related to Pearl's religious belief and consciousness of feminism.To sum up, the image of the Chinese Other and that of the American Other modeled by Pearl are closely related. That is to say, when she molds an ideological Chinese Other, a Utopian American Other is correspondingly created. In the same cool perspective, she molds both kind Chinese Other and kind American Other.Finally, with her deep understanding of the deficiencies of Chinese culture and American culture, Pearl molds both Utopian Chinese Other and Utopian American Other in Dragon Seed. In her life, Pearl is not sure of her cultural identity and feels puzzled. Her identity of double cultures enables her to reflect on two different cultures from different perspective and notice the deficiencies in each culture.