The Chinese Complex Of Pearl S. Buck

Pearl S. Buck, a famous American woman writer and Nobel Prize winner of the year 1938, spent almost 40 years of her life in China and had an indissoluble bond with China. Therefore, China, Chinese people (especially Chinese peasants) and Chinese culture had influenced her profoundly.Having lived in China since childhood, Pearl S. Buck's manner and conduct, and emotion were deeply marked with the Chinese elements, which formed her strong Chinese Complex in real life. With great sympathy for the sufferings and the fate of Chinese peasants, she highly praised the noble quality of Chinese peasants and always felt appreciated for their saving of her life. With abundant assimilation of the Chinese Confucian culture and extensive reading of the great Chinese classical novels, she vigorously advocated the Chinese culture move toward the world. She often missed the Chinese food and friends, was always concerned about the life and fate of her motherland, and made great support for the cause of Anti-Japanese War.Because of the reasons mentioned above, Pearl S. Buck preferred Chinese themes in her writing and, furthermore, her strong Chinese Complex gradually moved to a conscious awareness of culture. The Good Earth in 1931 and Dragon Seed in 1942 were typical representatives of this area. The former gave a real picture of the native Chinese village, explained the soil complex of the Chinese peasants, reproduced the tragic destiny of the Chinese peasant woman, and thus become an epic of Chinese peasant life. With fluent narrative style and realistic art practices, the latter described the great catastrophe that Japanese invasion of China brought to the rural areas, exposed the evil and atrocities of the Japanese invaders, paid a tribute to the heroic feat of the ordinary Chinese people who bravely fought with the enemy, and thus become an epic of Chinese Nation's War. However, Pearl S. Buck's preference for Chinese themes was far beyond her contemporaries. This was because she had much more profound sense of understanding and identity of Chinese culture in her Chinese Complex. Therefore, she could explain the Chinese culture, and describe the public customs with a tolerant, understanding and even defensive attitude.Indeed, the creativity of Pearl S. Buck's writing was closely related with her life experience—she lived in China for nearly 40 years. And it was also much more inseparable with her time when China was in a period of social unrest. She had the honor of witnessing the development and changes of modern Chinese society and the various trends of thought in Chinese society. As an American living in China and with a strong feeling of China, Pearl S. Buck made her own life experiences in China as a reference and had a conscious thought of the outlet of China, which greatly enhanced her Chinese Complex. She pointed out that the outlet of China's rural areas was to make the intellectuals go into the countryside, giving enlightenment to the ordinary people through culture and education. At the same time, she made a profound reflection on the road and the way of Chinese Revolution to save the country and considered that the old warlords'regime change and storm-blasting radical revolution, which were greatly divorced from the ordinary people, could not become the outlet of Chinese Revolution. In addition, she also had an unswerving confidence of traditional Chinese culture and vigorously carried forward the native civilization while opposed the worship of Western civilization. These are the value of Pearl S. Buck and her writing of Chinese themes.