Who's The Kinfolk?

Pearl Buck is the first female writer who won the Nobel Prize for literature in America, but the cross-cultural identity and writing on Chinese subject lead her achievement to a controversial focus in Chinese and American literary circles. Based on the analysis of The Good Earth, comments on Buck have once concentrated on her attitude towards Chinese culture, and the relationship between Chinese and American cultures as well. However, it is somewhat hasty to conclude Buckbs attitude only by the analysis of The Good Earth because it only talks about Chinese peasant families. Unlike The Good Earth, Kinfolk is developed around James Liang, an American Chinesebs journey to find his kinfolks, so it concentratedly manifests the power relation between Chinese and American cultures. As one of the Chinese immigrants who were born and grew up in America, Jamesbs marginalized identity symbolizes the status of Chinese cultural discourse in the post-colonial period. Through his journey from New York, past Shanghai and Peking, to Anming County, his ancestral land, the power of Chinese cultural discourse is found reconstructed at last. In other words, Jamesbs journey to find his kinfolks and get rooted in his ancestral land is the process of the reconstruction of Chinese cultural discourse.To begin with, the introductory part includes a brief introduction to Buck and Kinfolk, a detailed analysis of Buck research in America and China, and the focus and the structure of this thesis.The main body of this thesis consists of the theoretical base and text analysis. The analysis is developed from two aspects, the deconstruction and reconstruction of the discourse power of Chinese culture.Chapter Two briefly introduces the two theories employed in this thesis, post-colonialism and Foucaultbs theory of discourse and power. As for post-colonialism, it focuses on the cultural colonization and cultural identity crisis in the post-colonial period.Chapter Three attempts to demonstrate how Chinese cultural discourse power is unconsciously deconstructed from the three aspects of being disciplined, being gazed, and being silenced. In the post-colonial period, Chinese culture has been pushed to the margin. The marginalized Chinese culture and people suffer great pressure from the Western cultural hegemony. Through his experience, James reveals to readers that Chinese people are assimilated to American culture in speaking, eating and dressing habits, and wedding customs as well, whether they are Chinese immigrants or domestic Chinese intellectuals, so Chinese culture is disciplined in living habits. The ! gaze5 is a special way of discipline. Psychologically, Chinese people bear great pressure from the ! gaze5 by American culture. In Kinfolk, the result of being gazed is manifested in ! the new patriotism5 of Chinese intellectuals represented by Liang Wenhua. In her speech, ! The New Patriotism5, Buck criticizes those intellectuals harshly for they are loud in their talk of patriotism and ran about planning agitation against many things, but do nothing for their people and ignore the hardships and difficulties of their own country. Gazed by American culture, Liang Wenhua makes every effort to create a perfect but false image of China. To Americans, he hides intentionally some dissatisfactory but real defects of China; to his children, he overstates the merits of China. His creation of this image seems to construct the discourse power of Chinese culture. On the contrary, it quickens the deconstruction. Besides, the propagation of culture is largely dependent on the use of language. When the superiority of American culture is repeatedly emphasized, Chinese cultural discourse is silenced. Both Chinese immigrants in America and those domestic Chinese intellectuals are proud of speaking English fluently. Working or living, they seems to forget their mother language, and keep communicating in English. This is not only the reason for the silence of Chinese cultural discourse, but also the result of American cultural hegemony.Chapter Four illustrates how Chinese cultural discourse power is reconstructed in resisting the hegemony of American culture. Through resistance, the power relation between Chinese and Western cultures has changed. Chinese culture changes from the margin to the center, from being disciplined and gazed to disciplining and gazing American culture. To those Chinese immigrants living in America, the motherland is invisible, and mother culture cannot be perceived through experiences, so they are determined to be assimilated to American culture. Thus, Buck creates a character James and lets him return to China and discovery the beauty of China in order to reevaluate Chinese culture, and she means to tell that the strength of modern Chinese culture is the perfect combination of the tradition and modernity. Meanwhile, as a faithful supporter and propagator of Chinese culture, Mrs. Liang forms a sharp contrast with her husband. She is a real patriot. Although Mr. Liang has once been disgusted with his wife who belongs to ! the mother type5 and paid court to Violet who is ! beautiful in the most truly exotic fashion5, his final return to his wife both physically and spiritually further proves that Chinese cultural discourse has moved to the center. In The History of Sexuality, according to Foucault, the body is the site on which discourses are enacted, and power exerts and is resisted. The three marriages in Kinfolk illustrates Chinese cultural discoursebs discipline on American cultural discourse. Even though the overseas returnees, like James and Mary, have returned to their kinfolks, they fall into new anxiety that they cannot get rooted in the land because they were born and grew up in America, and were cultivated by American culture particularly. Only through their marriages with Yumei and Liu Cheng respectively, can they feel the sense of belonging. On the other hand, Louisebs marriage disciplines the Americans so that the Wetherston family show great interest in and concern about Chinese culture, and they even accept the Chinese living habits. Moreover, at the end of the novel, Peterbs death gives a heavy beat to full Americanization. Gazing American culture, Chinese culture finds the conflicts between full Americanization and Chinabs reality at that time. This ending gives Chinese people a lesson: in the post-colonial period, facing Western cultural hegemony, how should they deal with the relationship between Chinese and Western cultures?The fifth chapter is the conclusion. As a post-colonial text, through Jamesbs eyes, mind, and his physical journey to find his kinfolks, Kinfolk concentratedly reveals how the lost discourse power of Chinese culture is reconstructed through resistance to Western cultural hegemony. As Foucault says,! Where there is power, there is resistance5 (Quoted in Mills, 2003: 40). The subversive and resistant potential is stored in any marginalized discourse. Through resistance, Chinese culture moves from the margin to the center, and changes from being disciplined and gazed to disciplining and gazing American culture. Foucaultbs theory of discourse and power is employed in this thesis to analyze to the deconstruction and reconstruction of Chinese cultural discourse power in the post-colonial period, which may enhance the understanding of Buckbs attitude towards Chinese culture and the relationship between Chinese and American cultures. This thesis aims to offer a perspective for better understanding of Kinfolk and Buckbs interpretation of Sino-American relationship in culture.