On The Evolution Of The Images Of Chinese Other In Pearl S. Buck's Three Works

Pearl S. Buck is a famous female writer in the American literary history. She observed and learned from rich life both in China and America. She was nurtured in Chinese cultural environment, at the same time receiving education from her parents and American university. She actively engaged in American public welfare for the rest of her life. Since any individual lives in its culture, and can't do without the support of a particular culture, Pearl Buck is of no exception. From the search of cultural identity of Peal S. Buck, the paper will define her identity as an American. The reason is that in her cultural world, American culture plays a decisive role, though she is an American who knows about Chinese culture. From the perspective of Imagologie, Chinese images in her works are the images of foreign Other. When she observes and imagines the Chinese Other, she also conducts examination and reflection of the American Self.From this point, the paper selects Pearl S. Buck's three works of different periods:early for the East Wind and the West Wind, the middle for Dragon Seed, and later for Kinfolks to investigate the images of the Chinese Other. It's easy to see that the images of Chinese Other in these three works present a trend of evolution. In the East Wind and the West Wind, the author mould an image of Chinese Other of ideology which was in accord with the collective imagination of Western society. Then, the author mould a utopian image of Chinese Other in her Dragon Seed. She got rid of the dominant ideology framework, and understood China and Chinese people under new revelation. At last, the author mould Chinese Intellectuals who had two different values in Kinfolks. These two images were both in accord with and different from the collective imagination of Western society, so the image of Chinese Other of ideology and utopian image of Chinese Other were unified.There are reasons for these three different stages of evolution, which needs to investigate social background of the works and the author's feelings and attitudes toward China in different periods. However, it's not enough to explain the images of Chinese Other from the above aspects. In Imagologie, the image of Other complements that of Self, so the creator's purpose is not to show the foreign country but to show his own. Taking the collective imagination of society and the Western culture as a frame of reference, this paper is to observe the change of Pearl Buck's thoughts, and to know about both China and West and their cultures. In other words, the description of Pearl Buck on the images of Chinese Other also has a double meaning in reflecting the Self.This paper is divided into five parts:introduction, three chapters and conclusion.This paper makes a brief review of Pearl S. Buck's life experiences in the introduction. It is the complex life experiences that have influence on her writing in different periods. The first chapter makes a comprehensive description of Pearl's cultural identity in order to establish its Chinese Other and American Self. Chapter two makes a detailed analysis of Chinese Other:from the image of ideology to utopian image and then to a unified one, this is a changing process. Chapter three presents social background of three works to explore the reasons for the evolution of Chinese Other from the external to the text. It's quite necessary to strengthen the interaction of Chinese Other and American Self, which can give readers a more objective understanding of her ideological trajectory and ideal life. The last part is to make a conclusion of the whole paper.