Conversion In A Foreign Land And Between Histories

As one of the most important literary critical approaches in the twentieth century, new historicism exerts a very important impact on the traditional views of history and historical literary creation. No longer seeing history as an objective existence, new historicism maintains that history is recorded based on the"historical narration"or"historical composition"of the"interpreters,"who are able to construct histories by employing his or her own discourse.From the perspective of new historicism, this paper attempts to evaluate Pearl Buck's literary creation by placing Buck and House of Earth in the historical context, as no writer can get rid of his historical background. In other words, literature can not be isolated from history. The paper also"restores"Buck's subjectivity, for example, her"dynamic"or"submissive"roles in her literary creation, and the"intertextual"relationship between House of Earth (as"text") and"history,"and the participation of House of Earth in the historical construction of social reality. By presenting different historical characters of the Wangs in House of Earth, Buck displays how China undergoes tremendous changes and revolutionary storms in the early 20th century, which justifies the significance of the farmer's epic.This paper consists of six chapters, including an introduction, the body and a conclusion. The body is divided into four chapters. The part of introduction outlines Buck's life experience in China and her literary achievements, a brief account of House of Earth, and the previous academic researches on Pearl Buck both at home and abroad. Chapter two presents the perspective of new historicism, which rises as a reaction against old historicism and formalism. Rather than seeing text as an independent study objective, new historicism resituates text into the historical context, and focuses on the role history plays in producing text. So, as follows, major theories of new historicism are introduced, namely,"the historicity of text"and"the textuality of history."Chapter three pursues historicist and materialist concerns through the analysis of texts and intertextuality. The intertextual relationships between House of Earth and China's reality, between the trilogy and the local Chinese literature, different historical characters in the trilogy and the earth complex are all probed in order to reveal the trilogy's textual reflection and historical interpretation of the historical context. In chapter four, Buck's autobiographic elements, her"bi-focal lens"perspective, her China complex and spiritual conversion, her writing theme and style, cultural dilemma, and humanistic religion are all explored to stress Buck's dynamic and submissive roles in her literary creation. In chapter five, it mainly talks about Buck's significant role in promoting the Sino-American cultural communication for the purpose of revealing the interactive relationship between text and history. In the conclusion, it re-confirms Buck's historical role in the specific historical context, as well as Buck's contribution in promoting the East-West cultural communication. A fair, objective and concluding remark is given to Buck and her works at its end.