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关键词：中国农民小说，中国农民，农民形象
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments i
Abstract ii
摘要 iii
1 An Introduction to Pearl Sydenstricker Buck and The Good Earth 1
1.1 Buck’s Double Cultural Backgrounds 2
1.2 Social Backgrounds of The Good Earth 3
2 The Interpretation of Chinese Peasant Images 4
2.1 Chinese Peasant Images from Westerners’ View 4
2.2 Chinese Peasant Images from Pearl’s View 6
3 The Analysis of Peasant Images in The Good Earth 8
3.1 Personalities of The Main Character-Wang Lung 8
3.2 Images of Female Characters 11
3.3 Analysis of the Villagers 12
4 Influences Aroused by Pearl’s View of Chinese Peasants 14
4.1 Influences in America 14
4.2 Influences in China 15
5 Conclusion 16
Bibliography 17
1 An Introduction to Pearl Sydenstricker Buck and The Good Earth
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, a female novelist from America, was well-known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenjhu. Spending most of her early life in China, Buck was raised in a bilingual environment, and was tutored in English by her mother, in the local dialect by her Chinese friends. She had special emotion to Chinese peasants, because she lived in rural areas in China for a long time. After becoming mature, she watched Chinese people in her American-educated way and saw the country in a sympathetic way. This was the reason why she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and Nobel Prize for literature in 1938 for her personal enlightened view of Chinese people presented to American audiences with details of Chinese life, customs and attitudes. Buck’s interest in Chinese customs and tradition is the result of her gradually accumulated cultural affection in her childhood (Chen Jing, 2006:91).
When her second novel (The Good Earth) was published in 1931, it became extremely popular throughout the world. It was the first book in a trilogy that includes Sons (1932), and A House Divided (1935), and this paper will analyze the Chinese peasants’ images of The Good Earth. The story dramatized Wang Lung’s personalities, because of the rise and fall of Wang Lung’s fortunes. He lived inferior at the beginning, but had a large amount of wealth at the end. O-Lan, who was Wang Lung’s wife, lived like a slave, doing housework around the clock. She delivered three sons and three daughters, but the first daughter became mentally handicapped as a result of severe malnutrition brought on by famine. Wang Lung consistently believed that lands were most reliable things in his life and he expressed his hatred and love to the lands in the last minute of his life. Pearl S. Buck showed her deep understanding of China and its custom and culture. Her touching and moving story of the Chinese peasant Wang Lung and his family attracted the world’s attention and was made into Broadway plays and motion pictures.
The analysis of peasant images in this essay was based on The Good Earth, which would deepen readers’ comprehension of the novel as well as Chinese farmers’ personalities.
1.1 Buck’s Double Cultural Backgrounds
Buck was born in America, and arrived in China when she was five-month-old. She grew up in a bilingual environment, with an English-speaking mother and Chinese dialects-speaking friends. Even if she lived in China, she was partly affected by her missionary parents to see some traditional cultures and values from the western world. Although Buck grew up a long time in China, she was still different from the original Chinese because of her American parents and her following higher studies in America. She spent most of her early life in China, studying and playing with Chinese playmates, but she still read a number of American famous works when she was a child, such as the novels of Charles Dickens. In 1911, she returned to America, attending a Randolph-Macon woman’s college in Virginia. From 1911 to 1934, she arrived at China once for her mother’s illness. After that, Pearl left China, and then never came. It was obvious that she was influenced by American cultures not only what her mother taught when she was young in China, but also what she experienced personally in the rest of her life. Staying in America, Pearl never forgot China either. For example, she still paid closer attention to Asian women and their living conditions, which could be seen from her other works. During her career as an author, spanning forty years, Pearl S. Buck published eighty works, including novels, plays, short story collections, poems, children’s books, and biographies (Zhang Wei, 2013:9).