Pearl S. Buck

Rachel Choi-F Block

Background

Pearl Sydenstricker Buck

The Good Earth & Dragon Seed

Modernism

Philanthropist

Nobel Prize winner

Chinese & American history

Modernism

Approximately from 1930 to 1950.

After WWII

Realistic values

F Scott. Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, James Joyce

Individualism, frustration, cultural divergence

Wang Lung, O-lan, Lotus, Uncle

Hardworking Chinese farmer, toiling for success

The richest man in town

Conflicts between materialistic desires & his own principles value of land

Exotic Chinese culture western societies

Love of the land, corrupting influence of the wealth, and inferior status of women

Vivid illustration of Chinese culture

The Good Earth(1931)

Dragon Seed (1944) Ling Tan, Lao San

Ordinary Chinese farmer experiences Japanese invasion Nanking Massacre

Family destroyed, sons become guerrillas

All men are evil

Dark side of Chinese history

Outrageousness of man’s inhumanity in wartime, sense of peace

Buck’s own experience

So…

Combined the Chinese culture & western culture

Once-mysterious culture more familiar

Evocative novels about Chinese culture

Buck: benefactress, Pulitzer & Nobel Prize winner, writer of bicultural novels

Bibliography

Pictures

http://www.born-today.com/btpix/buck_pearl.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_O_L1W8HmE8E/Sm1_yw0KpHI/AAAAAAAAAvg/w6DOqO9qGpU/s400/china-america.jpg

http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n26/n132022.jpg

http://hotcupofcoffee.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/cover-dragonseed.jpg

http://www.orlok.com/cyberbil/pearl2/graphics/pport.jpg