A Comparative Study Of Feminism In The Good Earth And The Field Of Life And Death

Pearl S. Buck is an American female writer ,who is famous for her novels about China. Her books have been translated into more than 30 languages and published all over the world, which contribute to cultural exchange of west and east. In 1931, her novel on China's northern countryside The Good Earth was published. Four years later, Xiao Hong, a brilliant Chinese female writer published her representative work The Field of Life and Death, which was also about the rural life in northern China. On a foundation of intensive text analysis of The Good Earth and The Field of Life and Death, this study compares Pearl S. Buck and Xiao Hong's aesthetic consciousness from perspective of feminism, aiming at approving that culture exchange between China and America is feasible and proper.Based on profound concern for general public, Pearl S. Buck always proposes that people with different culture backgrounds should take the whole world in view and have more dialogues. The appearance of The Good Earth and The Field of Life and Death is a kind of dialogue between Chinese and American culture. As masterpieces, they have been highly concerned home and abroad. However, there are only a few researches which make a comparison of them. Moreover, there hasn't any thorough comparative study between them in a feminist way. The innovation of this thesis lies here.The thesis consists of four chapters in addtion to an introduction and a conclusion.The first chapter discusses the current study sitution of The Good Earth , The Field of Life and Death and the current study sitution of feminism. The second chapter givens an outline to feminist criticism and introduces main theory of Simone de Beauvoir and Kate Millett. Through study of"the other"in The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir has not only raised the second wave of feminism movement but also promoted scholars'ponderation on females'living conditions. The Second Sex becomes foundation work of contemporary feminist theory and inspires generations of females'pursuit for self-realization and self-transcendence. In Sexual Politics, Kate Millett successfully integrates cultural criticism and literary criticism, realizes transition between these two categories of criticism, and finally creates criticism on feminist literature. The impact of Sexual Politics has made it the pioneer of American feminist criticism monograph.Chapter Three and Chapter Four are the main parts of the thesis in which the writer of the thesis makes a detailed comparative analysis of the two novels.O-lan, heroine of The Good Earth, lives in the lowest rung of feudal society and leads a hard life under twofold repression by feudalism and patriarchy. However, she doesn't give in blindly. She contests against fate on the premise of saving her own skin and protecting interests of the family. The Field of Life and Death mainly depicts rural females'survival circumstances which are full of tragedies. Their natural existence is the same as animals; social existence is the same as slaves and spiritual existence is almost stifled---leaving a miserable world of females. Meanwhile, the rebel Mother Wang's awakening of feminist consciousness and subject consciousness in seeking women's liberation are affirmed by Xiao Hong.Pearl S. Buck's feminist consciousness sprouts in her unusual family, grows at American schools and accomplishes under China's cultural background. She praises female's power, advocates female's social utility and strives for equality between men and women. Xiao Hong is regarded as one of the prominent writers on Chinese Women Literature in the 20C. The manifestation of her uniqueness and irreplaceability can be elaborated as following: for one thing, as the spokes woman of females from the lower strata, she is far off the limited vision of common female intellectuals; for another, she is consistently adhere to female's vision and life experience so as to portray women's existing truth. Moreover, the independent, sober and profound modern female awareness have been fully displayed in her writing. The conclusion points out both Pearl S. Buck and Xiao Hong present the desolation and grief during China's dark period as well as the weakness and firmness of females'nature in The Good Earth and The Field of Life and Death. However, there are some differences between their sentiment states and writing purposes, which are caused by different culture backgrounds and accepters. And undoubtedly the study of the two female writers and their masterpieces means an attempt to promote the culture exchange between China and America.