Pearl Buck's Role in Critiquing Women's Status in American Society - Prof. Rosso, Appunti di Letteratura Angloamericana

Scarica Pearl Buck's Role in Critiquing Women's Status in American Society - Prof. Rosso e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Angloamericana solo su Docsity! 1 ANGLO – AMERICAN LITERATURE MOD. A 2 INDICE MOD. A) ANGLO- AMERICAN LITERATURE-LM1 .................................................. 7 Pearl Buck (1892-1973) ............................................................................................... 7 Keywords- week 1 ........................................................................................................ 7 The Insidious Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer ................................................................... 8 Conventional images of China ..................................................................................... 9 Tompkins: the cultural work of fiction ......................................................................... 9 Tompkins 1985: introduction........................................................................................ 9 Tompkins perspective and the literary canon ............................................................. 10 Cultural appropriation ................................................................................................. 11 Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University: Asia for Educators (AFE) ..................................................................................................................................... 11 Morton as a Time Machine ......................................................................................... 12 Morton : moral blind spots ......................................................................................... 13 Zadie Smith, “ Fascinated to Presume” ...................................................................... 13 Smith ........................................................................................................................... 14 America and Democracy: P. S. Buck, «Thomas Jefferson», 1943 ............................. 17 From «The Barriers of Race Prejudice» to « The Germ-Carriers of Fascism in America» .................................................................................................................................... 18 No use in fighting the war .......................................................................................... 19 Germ-Carriers of Fascism in the US .......................................................................... 20 Lye, U.S.’s Moral Superiority ..................................................................................... 20 Chapter 1 .................................................................................................................... 21 How does Pearl Buck write? Does she remind us to somebody? ............................... 22 But was Buck criticizing or comparing the freedom of women in China to the one of women in the U.S. ? ................................................................................................... 23 5 Yogita Goyal, Introduction: The Transnational Turn, 2017........................................ 58 A history of American Literature, Richard, Chichester: Whiley-Blackwell, 2011 ..... 58 Gray Making it New – The emergence of modern American literature, 1900-1945 . 58 Wagner-Martin, Linda, A History of American Literature: 1950 to the present. 201259 David Eldridge, American literature in the 1930s, 2008, CH. 1 ................................ 59 Was P. Buck «Internationalizing American Nationalism» ? ....................................... 60 «A Missionary in reverse ?» Buck’s crusade against racism ...................................... 60 Junwei Yao, «Forum: New perspectives on P. S. Buck», 2018, pp. 66-72 ................. 61 • Yao: East and West: Are we different................................................................... 61 • Yao: Cultural Dialogism ...................................................................................... 61 Pearl S. Buck and the forgotten Holocaust of the Two-Ocean War ............................ 61 Dragon Seed ............................................................................................................... 61 Dragon Seed: the novel .............................................................................................. 62 Dragon Seed sees Nationalism ................................................................................... 62 Nanking 1937 ............................................................................................................. 63 Missionary presence ................................................................................................... 64 Chapter I ..................................................................................................................... 64 White Washing ............................................................................................................ 65 Events leading to the II WW in the Pacific ............................................................... 65 Nanking Massacre 1937 ............................................................................................. 66 2nd Sino- Japanese War ............................................................................................... 66 The Forgotten Holocaust ............................................................................................ 67 A voice against imperialism ....................................................................................... 67 Cultural mediator and political commentator ............................................................. 68 The fascist way of Empire .......................................................................................... 68 No use in fighting the war .......................................................................................... 69 6 Chapter II .................................................................................................................... 69 Chapter III................................................................................................................... 71 7 MOD. A) ANGLO- AMERICAN LITERATURE-LM1 8-9/10/2020 Pearl Buck (1892-1973) Pearl Buck was born in in Hillsboro, West Virginia. She grew up in China, where her parents were missionaries (Presbyterians), but she was educated at Randolph- Macon Woman’s College. After her graduation she returned to China and lived there until 1934 with the exception of a year spent at Cornell University, where she took an M.A. in 1926. Pearl Buck began to write in the twenties; her first novel, East Wind West Wind appeared in 1930. It was followed by The Good Earth (1931) and Sons (1932) and A House Divided (1935), together forming a trilogy of the saga of the family Wang. TGE stood on the American list of Best Sellers for a long time and earned her several awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize and the William Dean Howells Medal. In 1969, the Times attested her as one of the 10 most influential writers in the US. This means that forty years later, she was still famous, anyway. TGE was one of the most important and popular novels of that century, but a certain point, was forgotten, even if people continued to appreciate Buck’s novels. During this course we will try to discuss and answer to this question. Keywords- week 1  Cultural work  Canonicity  Cultural appropriation  Orientalism  Middlebrow ISAACS, H.R., Scratches on our minds: American views of China and India, Armonk, 10 order. In this view, novels and stories should be studied not because they manage to escape the limitations of their particular time and place, but because they offer powerful examples of the way a culture thinks about itself. Tompkins perspective and the literary canon  Using Hawthorne’s reputation as a case point, it argues that the reputation of a classic author arises not from the “intrinsic merit” of his or her work, but rather from the complex circumstances that make texts visible initially and then maintain them in their preeminent position. When classic texts are seen not as the ineffable products of genius but as the bearers of a set of national, social, economic, institutional, and professional interests, then their domination of the critical scene seems less the result of their indisputable excellence than the product of  Popular fiction, in general, at least since the middle of the nineteenth century, has been rigorously excluded from the ranks of “serious” literary works.  That exclusion seems to me [prof.] especially noteworthy in America literature, since the rhetoric of American criticism habitually invokes the democratic values as a hallmark of greatness in American authors.  When literary texts are conceived as agents of cultural formation rather than objects of interpretation and appraisal, what counts as a “good” character 11 historical contingences. or a logical, sequence of events changes accordingly. When one sets aside modernists demands…and attends to the way a text offers a blueprint for survival under a specific set of political, economic, social or religious conditions, an entirely new story begins to unfold. Cultural appropriation A term used to describe the taking over of creative or artistic forms, themes, or practices by one cultural group from another. It is in general used to describe Western appropriations of non-Western or non-white forms and carries connotations of exploitation and dominance. The concept has come into literary and visual art criticism by analogy with the acquisition of artefacts (the Elgin marbles, Benin bronzes, Lakota war shirts, etc…) by Western museums. Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University: Asia for Educators (AFE) Through it may seem problematic to choose a book written by an American, rather thana a work of authentic Chinese literature, to introduce American students to Chinese customs, there are several reasons for using The Good Earth. First, it is popular, and many students read it anyway, so a critical discussion of it is important. Second, Chinese writers in the twentieth century have been primarily concerned with china’s political fate and their works are often more didactic than realistic. Pearl Buck, on the other hand, was mainly committed to describing the Chinese people she knew and 12 to present her American audience with details of Chinese life, customs, and attitudes. Pear Buck’s standpoint is finally that of an outsider who is particularly sensitive to aspects of Chinese life that are different from what Westerners are accustomed to. Therefore, she takes pains to record many details that a Chinese writer might take for granted. The Good Earth gives an accurate and well-informed depiction of traditional Chinese culture in the early twentieth century. ▪ Brian Morton, «Virginia Woolf ? Snob! Richard Wright? Sexist! Dostoevsky ? Anti-Semite! ».  The passion for social justice that many students feel – a beautiful passion for justice – leads them to be keenly aware of the distasteful opinions held by many writers of earlier generations. When they discover the anti-Semitism of Wharton or Dostoevsky, the racism of Walt Whitman or Joseph Conrad, the sexism of Ernest Hemingway or Richard Wright, The classy snobbism of E. M. Forster or Virginia Woolf , not all of them express the repugnance as dramatically as the student I talked to, but many perform an equivalent exercise, dumping the offending books into a trash basket of their imaginations. Morton as a Time Machine  I think it is a general misunderstanding, not just his. It is as if we imagine an old book to be a time machine that brings the writer to us. We buy a book and take it home, and the writer appears before us, asking to be admitted into our company. If we find that the writer’s views are ethnocentric or sexist or racist, we reject the application, and we bar his or her entry into the present.  As the student had put it, I do not want anyone like that in my house.  I think we’d all be better readers if we realized that it isn’t the writer who’s the 15 dealing with racial tensions in contemporary America. It was written by a white woman, could a white man tell the story of the Tulsa massacres in Oklahoma ? this is hardly described in history books. Should this kind of work be left to people who have this cultural vision? It is fundamental to be aware that CA is some of the key issues discussed in the U.S.A today. A. Appiah calls it → “cultural ownership” and we could refer to the late-capitalist concept pf brand integrity. Zadie Smith after arguing about CA , makes an example with Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind referring to how culture affects the way we read. As a writer, but also as a reader, Zadie reminds the first time she came across the protagonist of the book. As a young girl, she was looking about “non-toxic representations”. This is the aspect to start from. We start with an “if” and try to find answers. Thinking about Hollywood movies we see some global creations of images that slowly become from STEREOTYPES to → ARCHEOTIPES. The Good Earth was made in an extremely famous movie. Major companies thought that parts played by non-native Chinese characters will have a negative impact on the audience. All the Chinese protagonists are played by white actors. [Referring to Breaking the Barriers] This article was first delivered at speech at Harvard University, because was one of the first to include black people during the 40s. In this speech (1942) there’s the first yes of American involved in this global war. She speaks to his “Black Audience”. From the very beginning she starts doing what she wanted to. [This means, for some generations…citation pag. 444-445] in order to avoid race prejudice, she speaks about “living in a world within a world”. This is a concept we find also today in USA debates. What Buck does is separating herself of the white history of the USA, because she grew up based on the stories her mother talked about (religious fanatism). She would point this idea of the land of opportunity, but when Buck returned to the States, she realised it was different. Her mother’s idea of the USA was not so reliable anymore. She described a situation with exactly the same problems we have today. Two separate nations trying to find a unified vision. She invites us and her audience to consider her a part of the minority. The fact that she was part of a minority in China enables her to identify in a minority → she speaks as “non- black” 16 She lists a number of artists, leaving heroes for the black community. She said : “ we are coloured” because she feels entitled to speak as a non-white person, but at the same time she says things that highlight the contradictions, the issue that are still acceptable today from African-American point of view. She accuses the government to be white people, ruling and having prejudices about black people. She doesn’t believe in erasing these racist concepts, but she has some suggestions, she has the courage to speak against race prejudices as they can checkmate every colour’s person. Lack of opportunity and poverty → tangible elements which prevent black people from having successful opportunities. In this essay [BTB] we find visionary elements which made Buck one of the most influential authors of the century. It is complex but what she was saying during this year was unique [see pag. 448]. “We are not better than the racist if …” and we must be better than fascists. She also claims for a reaction against racism within US. The issue for Black writing in 1942 was to define the differences between the US and the fascist nations. How could democracy be real and effective? The tense to lump people together , ignoring the individual. Here she is extremely provocative in 1942 because she talks about USA potential of becoming fascist because it tolerates racist views. “ the deadly germs of fascism are developing”. The conflict between white and non-white American is that American democracy does not grant equality of opportunity, so she says racial prejudice is the rock upon the USA id being founded. We know Buck was being surveyed by the FBI services because she was considered dangerous (as activist against black people racism). She was a supporter of the independence of India. She offers a sympathetic description against racial discrimination. She has a very radical position and the courage to articulate her thoughts. She stresses than, that America, although being based on the notion of freedom is completely different, from the practical point of view. Everyone looks for America because the USA was the first nation born out of a reaction against British Empire, standing for the right to self-government. They fought for freedom. Buck is ashamed for American → accused of being unpatriotic. She says “there’s a stigma”: America is not practicing democracy. Her being so 17 straightforward was so important in her dismissal as an artist. Breaking the Barriers helps us to read her fictional work with the awareness of her relevance as an intellectual through her courage in criticizing race prejudices. This is something that had a huge impact on her reputation. 15/10/2020 America and Democracy: P. S. Buck, «Thomas Jefferson», 1943 We have to refer to the importance of the Declaration of Independence (4th July 1776)  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. – that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government , laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.  Ordinarily the triplex of political values, included life, liberty and property. Ny substituting «the pursuit of happiness» for property, Jefferson broke with the traditional concept and laid the foundation for a unique commonwealth of justice and freedom and security. ( S. Padover, Jefferson quoted in Buck, What America means to Me 1943, p.186)  [Jefferson] laid that foundation for us and through us for every human creature now 20 ambitious men who would make of America a country to be feared and hated by those who want to be free ( ibid.). Pearl Buck was at the same time, extremely courageous and extremely disturbing for the political establishment . she linked freedom to freedom from Imperialism, from slavery. She wrote what America means to me in 1943 because what was stated was the meaning of “American”. She argued for a certain interpretation of America, her idea, the precious quality of human understanding. She was worried about the fact that the American effort would be compromised by prejudices. Germ-Carriers of Fascism in the US  Fascism lurks everywhere like the hidden germs of a deadly disease. It hides in places where we least suspect it. There are germ-carriers of fascism in every nation. Those who harbour race-prejudices are germ carriers of fascism. Those who would build up a great international power of business in the hands of the few at the expense of the people are germ-carriers of fascism. Those who dream of America as the next great imperialism power are germ-carriers of fascism. All who secretly or openly scorn the rights of human beings are germ-carriers of fascism. It is these whom we must discover and deprive of their power ( ibid. : p. 2017). For some people that was almost treason, but in her perspective, this was the only way to be an American patriot. She was tackling a number of complex and controversial issues. Her speeches were published in the first page of The New York Times, even in Vanity Fair and the Time. Lye, U.S.’s Moral Superiority  Are we all-out for democracy, for total justice, for total peace, based on human 21 equality, or are the blessings of democracy to be limited to white people only? The answer must be made clearly and quickly. To evade the question, to delay the answer is to reply in the negative. And the United States must take lead. (Buck, TT 5)  Buck’s appeal gives voice to the war’s radical potential for advancing the civil rights struggle at the same time that it rests the ideal of universal equality upon the U.S.’s moral superiority. (Lye, p. 239) She was criticizing in a very direct way the American attitude towards the race. She’s an outsider in the 1940s. Through the analysis of her works from the XX century to the XX century, we will see the shift . the revolution of her thoughts from the very beginning to nowadays. Lye notices that fact that Buck is still embracing the notion of American exceptionalism and she argues that what we find I Buck is simply our notion of Orientalism, because it is rooted on the idea of the American superiority. She’s highlighting the fact that the White are spreading racism, that is the thing which prevents America from being a real democracy. She encourages the U.S. to take the lead in proving their democracy is true. She’s trying to make an argument that could not be totally convincing. Chapter 1  It was Wang Lung’s marriage day . At first, opening his eyes in the blackness about his bed, he could not think why the dawn seemed different from any other. The house was still except for the faint, gasping cough of his old father, whose room was opposite to his own across the middle room. Every morning the old man’s cough was the first sound to be heard. Wang lung usually lay listening to it and moved only when he heard it approaching nearer and when he heard the door of his father’s 22 room squeak upon its wooden hinges. But this morning he did not wait. He sprang up and pushed aside the curtains of his bed. It was a dark, ruddy dawn, and through a small square hole of a window, where the tattered paper fluttered, a glimpse of bronze sky gleamed. He went to the hole and tore the paper away. “It is spring, and I do not need this”, he muttered. How does Pearl Buck write? Does she remind us to somebody? Her way of writing is easy, both from the lexical point of view and the style. Some critics said that The Good Earth is a mixture of the Bible and Hemingway (who transformed the way of writing which praised simplicity and straightforwardness → linguistic economy. She opens a window onto a different world. Till the first lines, we start learning things about the house, but we also find some references to the seasons. We will encounter a vision of life which shows a certain perception of time in a cyclic way, instead of linearity. There’s an emphasis on things that come back like the seasons. There are lots of references to natural elements. It provides us a key to read the development of Wang Lung. We have the first reference to the role of women. The politics of gender → the gender asymmetry of this culture is one of the engines of the story. There’s a very detailed description of life in the countryside. Tea is very valuable, very expensive in China, but Wang Lung decides to prepare it in this special occasion. The simple gesture of preparing the tea is important to Buck. A Chinese accused her of being unprepared about Chinese habits. The fact of throwing the dry leaves of tea like that is the custom of the northern part of China. So, till the beginning there’s this attempt to delegitimate Buck’s writing. Descriptions are very simple, very similar to what we find in anthropological essays of this period. Wang Lung is getting ready to go to town, he’s a bit worried because all he knows about her future wife is that she’s a slave of a Great House. He didn’t want the women to be beautiful, it would be a problem, so he accepts his father’s view of marriage. The expectations about women are clearly defined in the discourse between father and son. 25  Buck’s Wang Lung followed in the footsteps of characters such as Uncle Tom and Charlie Chan, whose popular reception lay chiefly in their submissive service to white superiors, reflecting “racist white supremacy passed off as love and acceptance”. (p. 205). Lye sketches a few turning points in the American reception of Pearl Buck’s works. What emerges is that until the 1960s Pearl Buck was seen as a leader in promoting cross-cultural understanding between the USA and Asia. She was under scrutiny under FBI → too close to China. During McCarthy era she was accused of being a communist, of being secretly close to communist ideas. Like “a friend of China”. She devoted to Asian cultural and cross-cultural exchanges. After the 1970s she became an example of American orientalism, because she was the daughter of a missionary, that was the first issue and was something instrumental in the political control of Asia. In the second place, she was accused of inaccuracy of the Chinese portrait (for ex. the tea debate). C. Lye mentions a book of 1974 about Asian-American writing as an example of Pearl Buck’s writing development. Accusation of being a racist, white supremacist because of her description of Wang Lung. Comparison with “Charlie Chan” and “Uncle Tom’s cabin” as a white paradigm to read race relations; a paradigm that projects these white expectations of black characters. → idea of slavery compatible with peaceful life. Karen J. Leong, The China Mystique, pg. 27  The authority of Buck’s experience and her effective use of realism dramatically contributed to the transformation of American orientalism into more positive yet still distorted perceptions of China and the Chinese. Buck received particular praise for her straightforward account of O-Lan giving birth. This scene, written in detached prose that echoed contemporary anthropological accounts of “primitive” societies, had a realism rendered more acceptable to American readers by its focus on a foreign body in a foreign location. She thus perpetuated to a degree the conceit that 26 Americans could possess intimate knowledge about china and the Chinese. Orientalism  Orientalism’s incipient form derived from nineteenth-century European imperialist imaginings of Asia’s cultures and peoples though the lens of European values, norms, and culture.  Orientalism assumes that the cultures of the West and Orient are in diametric opposition. American orientalism from the turn of the century through the 1920s projects similarly distorted images of Chinese as primitive, slavish, exotic, manipulative and amoral, while American nationalism views its own population as modern, free, civilized, and trustworthy. The term refers to European description of Asian cultures from the XIX century onwards. These cultures were pointed through the lens of European norms and cultures. On the other hand, American characters tend to be examples of independence, reliability. In the end, most of them are in doubt of being examples of civilized and moral behaviour. Why do we use the term “ORIENTALISM” ? Orientalism used to refer to Academic works about Asia, but now, in literary studies we use it as a consequence of the success of a ground-breaking book published in 1978, Orientalism, by Edward Said. He provided a new perspective on European culture and its approach of eastern culture. The European culture produced the Orient. These forms of cultural power (History, Philosophy…), the academic disciplines had an impact on the colonial rule. These are the most important elements which help the western powers to maintain their colonial rule. Here we state that the idea that words are an instrument of power, and cultural power is as significant as the economic, political, military ones.  Said’s argument was that “European culture was able to manage – and even produce 27 – the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the post-Enlightenment period”. That management was a discursive production, through the discourse of orientalism that made “the Orient” an object of power. Said argued that these forms of culture power, organized through disciplines such as history, anthropology and philology, were as significant maintenance of colonial rule as the political, economic and military policies that had dominated academic study. Leong, American Orientalism  American orientalism draws on orientalism more generally to affirm the political, social, and cultural superiority of the US and European Americans relative to Asia and Asian Americans. One especially powerful discursive trope of Orientalism is the exoticization and femininization of Asia nations and their cultures. As viewed through the lens of gendered and heteronormative relations of power, European and American orientalism justified power inequities resulting from colonization, territorialization, and imperialist destiny. After Said, a number of books have tried to enlarge Said’s assumptions, his theoretical frameworks. Said → European Orientalism ≠ Leong → American Orientalism. Lye: The 1930s critical reception  Malcolm Cowley wrote that “she has a truly extraordinary gift for presenting the Chinese, not as quaint and illogical, yellow-skinned, exotic devil-dolls, but as human beings merely, animated by motives we can always understand even when 30 literary texts. The political economy of The Good Earth: a retelling of the Horatio Alger myth…?  Ragged Dick; or Street Life in New York with the Bootblacks (serialized in 1867, published in book form in 1868), the story of a poor shoeshine boy who rises to wealth, Alger found his lifelong theme. In the more than 100 books that he would write over 30 years, Alger followed the rags-to-riches formula that he had hit upon his first book.  The novel’s concern with matters of economic transition from feudalism, or the process of the peasants’ detachment from the land. The intergenerational conflict between peasant father and his merchant and nationalist sons, lends itself to a reading of the clash between tradition and modernity.  The text’s bourgeois moralization of work is reflected in the deceit and licentious dangers that arise from idleness. In this book we find a description of the economic transition from feudalism. From a process of detachment from the land; a transition that was taking place also in the USA. Another aspect is also the intergenerational conflict between family members, tradition vs. modernity. Romantic Anticapitalism  Wang Lung’s purchase of Lotus , the realization of sexual “dreams into flesh”, substitutes the unhealthy possession of a woman’s body for proper masculine self- possession. The sexualization of the evils of over-expenditure admonishes against the dangers of economic exchange and suggests a textual attitude of romantic 31 anticapitalism.  In pointed contrast to O-Lan’s hoarding, his acquisitive behaviour functions as capital reinvestment.  Populism leader Ignatius Donnelly, agrarian critiques of monopoly capital distinguished good from evil on the basis of property size. TGE reflects a similar perspective by idealizing Wang Lung the small farmer and condemning Wang Lung, the absentee landlord, despite the fact that both are steeped in market relations. Wang Lung acquires property, becomes a lord-owner. There are two important aspects to consider concerning his evolution; first of all, the land-work sacrifice in order two save money and acquire more land. On the other hand, the money saved is being spent. So, what does it tells about Capitalism…? Both versions of Wang Lung are steeped in market relations. This novel, on the surface is the story of a family in which Wang Lung is the centre of consciousness. His point of view, his perception filters all the information of the story and about the other characters too. We can say, we have “two different Wang Lungs”. These fundamental aspects lead us to state that is a story of conflict between tradition and modernity, referred both to China and the USA. It is a story about a new way of farming and accumulating wealth. Wang Lung’s Orientalization  The acquisition of wealth infuses WL’s world with increasing sings of Chineseness: silk garments, polygamy and concubinage, opium (which WL gives to his uncle and aunt), culinary delicacies, bounded female servants (or “slaves”), and a generally increasing hierarchization of gender relations.  Depicting the metamorphosis of the universal (American) farmer into an Oriental lord, The Good Earth is ultimately less a celebration of up-ward mobility than a 32 populist declamation against oligarchy. The protagonist WL, changes during the novel. He changes in terms of social status : from shy, poor farmer, to rich, respected landlord. But how does the economic element intercept the cultural aspect…? We will notice WL’s orientalization. As he becomes richer, he becomes “more Chinese”. All these aspects which were absent from the very beginning will become part of his life (polygamy, opium, etc...). The hierarchization becomes more and more complex. When he acquires wealth, he goes from American to → Oriental. Therefore, the national element and the economic one implicates that we are facing his process of becoming more Chinese and less American. Lye: McCarthy’s Witch-hunt  In the years following the II World War, the McCarthy’s witch-hunt of American “China Hands” came to the centre of the contention that US foreign policy in China had been subverted from within, through the propagation of the myth that the Chinese Communists were in fact harm-less agrarian democrats. In truth, anyone who had expressed criticisms of the KMT’s conduct of the war , and reservations about US support for Chang Kai-Shek, fell prey to accusations of subversion.  Almost every intellectual in both the government and private sector with policy expertise of China came under investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and many cases their careers, and the institutions that supported them, were destroyed.  In the figural convergence of Chinese Communists and American pioneers, Edgar Snow’s and Pearl Buck’s rewriting of the Chinese countryside played a large part. 35  Also, the solemnity of her writing is compared to the Bible (Ch. 2) 22/10/2020 Feminist fiction in a “Non-Feminist Age” [Shaffer Robert. (2016). Feminist Novels in a “Non-Feminist” Age: Pearl Buck on Asian and American Women. Journal of Transnational American Studies, 7(1). ]. The point of the essay is that Buck was a feminist writer who, for instance, was writing in a non-feminist period, as quoted. First of all, Was Buck a feminist? It depends on what we mean, when talking about feminism. In fact, in some essays, writings and interviews she claimed that she did not considered herself to be a feminist. Shaffer here disagrees with Buck’s opinion of herself. His essay is to prove that PB was indeed writing novels that had a starting point perfectly compatible with the idea of feminism, even though she wrote in a non-feminist way. This was essentially was Shaffer was criticizing. Feminism as categorised by two ways:  The movement that lead to the possibility to vote  A long silence of almost 40 years, until the 60s, when the 2nd wave of feminism invaded. So, Shaffer is trying to deconstruct these notions. Here, he’s trying to prove that the decades from the 30s to the 60s were not a “non-feminist age”; but also, he wants us to understand the particular brand of feminism. Critique of women’s status in American society  Buck, who was best known s a writer and commentator on Chinese life, increasingly used her position as an “expert” on Asia, not to show that women’s roles in the US were better than women’s roles or status in China, but to critique women’s status in American society itself. 36 PB used her reputation as an expert on China to critique women’s status in the American society, although on the surface her novels were apparently dealing only with the Chinese society. “Critical Internationalism”  Buck exemplified “critical internationalism utilizing the cross-cultural perspective that her life bestowed upon her to point out changes and improvements that needed to be made in the US rather than to uphold the viewpoint that American society constituted a model for the world. As part of this challenging perspective, buck rejected the idea that “modernization” or “Westernization” in and of themselves would lead to the improvement of women’s status. She was spreading an internationalist attitude that was not shared in American society. She was employing a “cross-cultural perspective” which enables us to understand that she used to do what many intellectuals of these years refused to do, especially after the II WW. Buck and Intersectionality  Moreover, Buck analysed divisions among women, not just commonalities or unity, especially in China, but also in her analyses of the Us. Tis insight – that women of different classes , marital statuses, or ages could have divergent or even conflicting interests—was submerged in the renewed feminist upsurge of the 1960s and 1970s but is now very much at the heart of feminist scholarship. The fact that she was not recognized as a feminist has to do with the fact that in the 40s and 50s there was a very weak awareness of the complexity of female identity. So, she did not want to be associated to that kind of general approach. She didn’t that the American women were that large group that considered they would be taken into account 37 at the same time. She was more interested in the elements that divided women , the “nuances” that made each female experience unique. Her view of the complexity and differences among women prevented her from feeling closeness to the feminist movements of the 40s and 50s. Then she was cancelled mainly because of her political engagement and her fighting against racial segregation. Shaffer’s thesis  Scholars in recent years have begun to rectify the long-standing neglect of both Buck’s literary works and her political activism, but even feminist literary criticism has tended to focus mainly on The Good Earth to the exclusion of the other works on Asian and American life. This essay, drawing on her fiction, contemporary reviews (especially those by women), and correspondence with readers and other writers , survey’s Buck’s analyses of women’s roles in Asia and the US from the 30s to the 60s , showing similarities and differences, and changes and continuities, across space and time. We are now ready to appreciate the modernity of Buck’s approach. The point of Shaffer’s essay is that it was her political activism which lead the erasure of her contribution from the American literature. Now, we can read her works in the light of a new awareness, both of the history of feminism and the history of supremacist activism. Intersectionality in “Encyclopaedia Britannica”  In the 2010s intersectionality became the rallying cry of many left-win activists fighting for social justice. The Oxford English Dictionary added the word in 2015, and Merriam-Webster published a definition two years later. The term skyrocketed in popularity, in part due to the philosophy espoused by Women’s March organizers 40 China as a setting of luxury—of wily mandarins and beautiful leisured ladies—to show both O-Lan’s “unquestioning devotion” to her husband and the critical importance of her labour to the household system. Modernization and liberation  Buck, who by 1932 had developed a trenchant critique of missionary work in China, emphasized more the costs and challenges to Chinese women of “modernization” than the potential for liberation. While she saw, as a colleague instructor in China in the 1920s, that some of her male students wanted educated women as wives, she notes more caustically that as they grew older hey became more ambivalent about what they wanted in a marriage, longing for “the perfect woman, a college graduate who in the evening with fascinating intelligence will stimulate his mind and in the morning with sweet stupidity will fetch him his tea.”. - Pearl Buck, “New modes of Chinese Marriage” Asia, August 1927,653. She referred both the traditional representation of women in European and American literature, but also leads us to understand the clash between traditional and modern Chinese culture. It is complex, somehow contradictory, and she describes it in an article published in 1927, New modes of Chinese Marriage, but there’s a change in the expectations related to femininity and this change is so radical. There’s also a growing resistance in the male part, that’s also what Shaffer wants to point out. Arranged Marriage after the revolution There’s a change in the perception of women and arranged marriages too. This novel is set in the years leading to a revolution, a series of decades of enormous transformations and Pearl Buck touches upon all these elements. 41 Chapter 4 [Pg. 42] Wang Lung doesn’t change his perception of O-Lan. If we don’t pay attention, we will not understand that she is never aware of the fact that O-Lan is the driving force to his success. He never connects the things that enables him to become prosperous. [pg. 45-46] They have to decide what to do with the Silver and it’s O-Lan who decides to “dig a small hole in the wall cleverly”. We know it’s always a surprise to Wang Lung the fact that she does clever things. He continues to consider her slow and dull. What we see is O-Lan’s smartness, but WL still cannot see it. Chapter 5 [Pg. 51-52] She notices subtle things, which are cleverly deducted : The Ancient Mistress was wearing the same coat she wore the past year → this deduction leads him to state they were having economic difficulties ( “a pinch”, as quoted). She’s very aware of every detail and uses words with great carefulness. She’s very bright in decodifying the reality around her. [pg. 53] She tells WL there is land . WL is ready to by the available land, but this fact doesn’t change his perception of O-Lan . O-Lan’s suggestions are never recognized as a merit, but always taking for granted. 42 Chapter 7 [p. 62] Once more, we see that we only have access to WL’s consciousness. Meanwhile, we learn about another female character: his uncle’s wife. WL’s uncle is the antagonist , he represents most of the things that WL detests; he doesn’t work, he’s lazy, he doesn’t pay attention to the land, only cares of his wife for opium. The conflict between WL and his uncle is always present. His uncle can rely on WL’s respect of Confucian values. So, we have this other example of femininity which is completely different from O-Lan, whose status is much more active and dynamic. Here we find stereotypical features of femininity. Chapter 8 [pg. 72] When WL finally goes to visit the House of Hwang, in order to buy the land, we have an example of anthropological views. When WL goes there, he will learn about the system of concubinage and how it affects to Chinese society → till 1928, for the Great House, this idea was part of everyday life. WL feels blessed that his land is growing , but all of a sudden there’s a change. For a long time, there is no rain. This fact becomes a famine → all the people in the village are starving. [pg. 76] She makes the important decisions → to kill the ox to survive. In this specific situation, we have another example of OL’s brightness [pg. 78] His uncle believes that WL has some food somewhere hidden in his house and organizes a revolt against him together with the neighbours of the village, who are ready to steel 45 mass of people [“not be swept on”]. In these chapters there is a dichotomy → the mass → the rich of the town. The rich of the town  “But why should any give like this to the poor and who is that gives?” the man answered then, “it is the rich and the gentry of the town who do it, and some do it for a good deed for the future, that by saving lives they might get merit in heaven, and some do it for righteousness that men may speak well of them”. Nevertheless, it is a good deed whatever reason”, said Wang Lung, “and some do it out of a good heart”. And then seeing that the man did not answer him, he added in his own defence, “At least there are a few of these”. The question here is : is there anybody who does it out of a good heart? The man who answers WL gives a more pragmatic explanation. As if it said, the rich do it for some reason, they want people to speak well of them. Chapter 10: O-Lan  “Each of you take your bowls and hold them thus and cry out thus – “ and she took her empty bowl in her hand and held it out and called piteously, “A heart, good sir – a heart, good lady! Have a kind heart – a good deed for your life in heaven! The small cash – the copper coin you throw away – feed a starving child!” The little boys stared at her, and Wang Lung also. Where had she learned to cry thus? How much there was of this woman he did not know! She answered his look saying, “So I called when I was a child and so I was fed. In such a year as this I was sold a slave. She knows the priority. She teaches her sons how to bag. She understands that sometimes 46 people have to steal in order to survive. WL can’t tolerate this. He’s surprised but never elaborates on that. That’s his reaction of surprise. Then, the description stops, we only have OL’s answer (“So, I called…”). The fact that she remembers that will be instrumental talking about the issue of slavery. Wang Lung pulling a rickshaw  “Now there is a country lout for you, pigtail and all! “ he called out to the bystanders. “someone says come and he comes, and he never asks, this idiot born of idiots, “how much will you give me if I come!” know this, idiot, only white foreigners can be taken without argument! Their tempers are like quick lime, but when they say “come” you may come and trust them, for they are such fools they do not know the proper price of anything, but let the silver run out of their pockets like water”: and everyone listening, laughed. Here, we have some episodes of WL’s life in the city. He doesn’t want to bag; he refuses to do so. His approach as a countryman is highlighted all the time. He is perceived and perceives himself as a foreigner. Even the other rickshaw pullers make fun of him. WL is the laughingstock. This enables us to understand what is becoming from foreigner to member of the city. Labour  When he counted out all of his money in his hand he had only a penny above the rent of the rickshaw, and he went back to his hut in great bitterness, saying to himself that for labour of a day in a harvest field he had earned only one copper penny. 47 WL is an example of puritan American values. But this kind of approach is not rewarded during his story. He feels cheated, exploited, but he doesn’t know how to react. Confucian Values  And being of the older generation, he could not be reproved. When he saw that his hands were empty, he said merely, “I have ploughed, and I have sown seed and I have repeated harvest and thus have I filled my rice bowl. And I have beyond this begotten a son and son’s sons.” And with this he trusted like a child that now he could be fed, seeing that he had a son and grandsons. WL’s uncle is allowed to share WL’s wealthiness because of a familiar duty → that’s a Confucian value. But there’s somehow distorted by his uncle; it is something Buck talks about in his essay → Moral duty towards the old people. He knows that he cannot be reproved. Confucian values will be criticized by the revolutionary generation. We will find in the following chapters. We will perceive the gradual erosion of this values in his son’s life. Chapter 12: Foreigners in the city  He lived in the rich city as alien as a rat in a rich man’s house that is fed on scraps thrown away and hides here and there and is never a part of the real life of the house.  … Wang Lung and his wife and children were like foreigners in this southern city. It is true that the people who went about the streets had black hair and eyes as Wang Lung and his family had, and as all did in the country where Wang Lung was born, and it is true that if one listened to the language of these southerners it could be understood, if with difficulty. 50 There’s a young teacher who’s somebody that Wang lung perceives a “fellow”, a colleague.  “the dead man is yourselves”, proclaimed the young teacher, “and the murderous one who stabs you when you are dead and do not know it are the rich and the capitalists, who would stab you even after you are dead. You are poor and downtrodden, and it is because the rich seize everything.” Now that he has poor Wang Lung knew full well, but he had heretofore blamed it on a heaven that would not rain in its season. WL comes in contact with a new explanation for his poverty, not as a consequence of a natural phenomenon, there’s another explanation, it is this empty, the rich and the capital are the responsible of this poverty.  “Sir, is there any way whereby the rich who oppress us can make it rai so that I can work on the land?” at this the young man turned on him with scorn and replied, “now how ignorant you are, you who still wear you hair in a long tail! No one can make it rain when it will not, but what has this to do with us? If the rich would share with us what they have, rain or not would matter none, because we would all have money and food.” A great shout went up from those who listened , but Wang Lung turned away unsatisfied. All he wants is that the rich allow the rain to fall on his land. The spread of communism in China through a man’s consciousness. The regulation of normative information is extremely modern and complex → WL doesn’t understand what’s happening but we, who are reading, do understand it clearly. There is strange talk about 51  “Now am I truly tempted to sell the little slave and go north to the land”. But she, after listening, mused and said in her plain and unmoved way, “wait a few days. There is strange talk about.” Nevertheless, he went out no more in the daylight, but he sent the eldest lad to return the rikshaw to the place from where he hired it. When WL is abandoning all the efforts to become part of the city. He is scared, he’s ready to o back North. OL is slow, plain → his perceptions, but she knows best.  It was whispered everywhere that the enemy approached and all those who owned anything were afraid. But Wang Lung was not afraid, nor the dwellers in the huts, neither were they afraid. They did not know for one thing who this enemy was, nor had they anything to lose since even their lives were no great loss. If this enemy approached let him approach, seeing that nothing could be worse than it now was with them. But every man went on his own way and none spoke openly to any other. Chapter 13: Zero Focalization  Wang Lung living among these who laboured at feasting others, heard strange things of which he took little heed.  The narrator is omniscient  The perspective is not restricted  Internal focalization: Wang Lung as centre of consciousness. His subjective perspective filters all the information. We never know everything. The voice that is telling the story knows everything about him. A technique associated with middle-brow texts. 52 Middlebrow  By enabling this imaginative communion, middlebrow text facilitated the transgressing of boundaries and the bridging of difference throughout the work of sympathy. Readers learned about the world beyond themselves by emotionally entering into a universe somehow foreign to their own. The defenders of middlebrow understood this aesthetic as an alternative to the reigning modernist one, that in their eyes, produced primarily alienation, cynism and despair. It is a crucial term in understanding the gradual disappearance in PB’s reputation. A middlebrow text, is a text that relies on sympathy/empathy, stimulating the reader’s emotional reaction. It is perceived as the shadow , everything that is not related to the reigning modernist aesthetic. Modernist values → the fact that they were considered the best example, prevented PB from being appreciated after the 1940s. We find a use of more conventional way of writing; as a consequence, her novels have been associated to the term “middlebrow”. In the 1950s, the employ of the term implied an evaluation of this kind of work. The formal use → she did not use modern, easy recognizable technique, the 19th century traditional way of storytelling. What she does in TGE is describing a multigenerational novel, a family chronological novel, which is considered not modernist enough, but still traditional.  Promotion and critique of American exceptionalism  Pearl Buck is describing everyday life in China, inserting elements of political critique. The middlebrow novel and political critique  In the pioneer saga, the family chronicle, and the multigenerational novel, the 55 to the literary production. Now we can understand the modernity of her approach, the controversies too. The novel in china was never considered art → in the western contexts, in the mid XX century the novel was acceptable, established as a form of art. What was literature in china ? it is something you recognize because it’s based on classical arbitrary rules. Why was the novel looked upon without much respect in China? Because was not considered “socially significant” → so, automatically was not considered art. This idea contributed to the fact that her books could be seen as this kind of production. This helps us approach American literature with the idea of China. The role of the storyteller → someone who enjoys telling stories to an audience. It’s a profession that has as its ultimate end the entertainment of the people. So, if the meaning, the true reason for telling stories id for entertaining, the plot becomes the most important element. Here, she was defining her own style, literary [slide]. This is very far from modernist writing which was popular in the 1930s and 40s. She was legitimizing her difference. For PB What counts as literature is not defined but its essential traits, intrinsic features of the work of art, but it’s defined by elements that are outside of the literary object itself. The things that you tell must be amusing and then , the characters should be defined by their own actions and words and not in the author’s explanations → so, in order to be a good novelist one must be natural, easy to understand. Here we have a reversal of modernist aesthetic. There’s an emphasis on the aesthetic of fragments. In Back we have a refusal of that aesthetic approach → fragments should be put together; she’s reassembling the fragments in her work. The other point that she makes is that Chinese novel are not made of a perfect mechanism, but the standards are different. There’s a form of cultural expression enjoyed by the people and there’s a mainstream cultural one commented and studied by the scholars. Her point is that perfect literature is now forgotten, has disappeared while the novels which she speaks about, those novels keep on being read, they are still alive, while the same cannot be said by the high literature She was already inviting us to pay attention to the contingent agents that defined literature as a point of reference, canonical. 56 In this lecture she also refers as “a storyteller in a village tent” (the reference in the 18th chapter). She wants to be that figure; all her efforts have the aim to involve people and use that amusement to enlarge their awareness of the experiences of others. This brings us back to Thompkins’s notion. The fact that she was there as an American writer and she kept on speaking and considering massively the Chinese approach was not well accepted → disrespectful towards American society. She focused on Chinese novel implying that the Chinese tradition was richer, more complex, so, the Americans should have learnt the complexity and beauty of the Chinese traditions. [recupera Prof. Rosso ] 30/10/2020 CH. 18th Olan and Beauty He sees for the first time that she’s not beautiful. But does he ever understand that OL is a very smart woman? No, he never actually realizes. “As if “ → the issue of beauty is linked to foot binding. OL ashamed of the way he treats her → the role of shame; she’s ashamed because he values the submissiveness throughout marriage. Here the notion of beauty, which was shared in Chinese culture is mentioned → the shape of women’s feet. There’s no judgement; even a so different notion of beauty from the western’s one is described only through WL’s perspective. OL is frightened, she does not react to her husband with anger, but only with fear; so, foot binding us introduced in this chapter and is the central concept which exceeds the expectations that the farmer WL would have of his wife. He knows that without the hard work he would never have achieved his richness → also because of O-Lan. He is aware but he still denies it. He’s never able to go beyond his initial assumptions. Now, he is an oriental landlord → relationship with silver. This is the chapter where everything changes. Shifting to producer to consumer → he begins to wear silk, introduces a concubine, he’ll buy opium, so we will have a metamorphosis. 57 This chapter is also the end of this new articulation of American pioneer to a Chinese. Quian, Pearl buck as a cosmopolitan critic Here we will go back to the concept of canon. Buck was a cosmopolitan writer. Giles invites us to read Buck as a transnational writer, then. So, the story of American literature, its values and identity were developed in a context of patriotic empire building. That way of conceptualizing American culture is now under attack and has been for the past 30. Both essays emphasize that is no longer possible to interface the values of American with “innocence and freedom”. We have the transition from one of the most important American writers, to her progressive erasure from the history of American culture. The success of a patriotic project leads to the erasure a writer considered to cosmopolitan, too far from patriotic ideas as they were defined. So, this is why was so important to delegitimize PB. In this essay the critic offers a different perspective. What happens if, instead of considering a nationalistic approach we appreciate the cosmopolitan way that she uses? This perspective enables readers to go beyond stereotypical visions → we are able to also appreciate her role in the transformation of American studies. 05/11/2020 Jonathan Culler, Framing the Sign, 1988 He’s an important scholar in American studies. The notion of American literature that history literature is not a stable concept, not a list of works approaches that we can go back to and study and have some sort of essential predefined status and form, but it is part of the history of criticism → is a change that depends on what is canonized. Leslie Fielder, «Literature as an Institution», 1981 This is another crucial quote we must consider. The idea of traditional forms of artistic expression were considered substandard, middlebrow. This change began in the 2nd part 60  Individual Voices Conflict between Marxist critical expectations and modernist literary experiments. This is the point → Marxist criticism to obliterate individualism , encouraged a form of literary expression easy to understand. Despite the politicised dimension, individual voices where still there to claim their uniqueness and originality. Was P. Buck «Internationalizing American Nationalism» ? K. Leong writes here what she thinks Buck was doing. On the surface we note Buck constantly criticized nationalism, but maybe she was simply internationalizing that kind of attitude, but why, since it is a bit paradoxical? Is it true? Is she really romanticizing her experience in China? Does she believed that the fact that she was successful meant that everybody could do it? Those were here ideals, rooted in American individualism, the idea if you want it, you’ll get it, if you risk, you we’ll deserve. «A Missionary in reverse ?» Buck’s crusade against racism Was she that? Was she proclaiming the gospel of American democracy to her fellow citizens? So, this is what Margaret Mead, famous anthropologist said about PB. P, having lived in China, having heard from her mother who described America as heaven, she was shocked, so she felt that she had to proclaim the gospel of antiracism, the right to freedom for everybody. Does she ever describe American society as the ultimate value? can we find examples of this? So, Leong stresses the ambivalence of PB’s critique of American nationalism. In TCM we find these contradictions. She challenged American to fulfil their national ideas. After all she was ambivalent towards nationalism, because she was proud of being American. Do we agree with that, in the light of what we’ve read? Are we able to recognize these ambivalences? That’s the point of reading critical essays. There were always be two sides of an argument. 61 Junwei Yao, «Forum: New perspectives on P. S. Buck», 2018, pp. 66-72 He’s one of the main experts of PB, who did a huge work in China. What we find in this short essay contradicts the thesis expressed by Leong. So, here we have the perspective of China, now. She talks about democracy but he’s aware that Chinese democracy is structured in a different way compared to America. So, she thought that democracy was desirable, but it wasn’t advisable to copy the American form of democracy, but to develop the Chinese version of it. This point is made in the novels, but also in the essays PB published in the 1930s and 40s. • Yao: East and West: Are we different Here buck describes the problems that emerge in western mentality. So, are we different? her attempt is to say, we like to think that we are different. This is what Yao recognizes in Buck → emphasizing on intercultural dialogue. • Yao: Cultural Dialogism How are different cultural values described, different codes of female beauty, or polygamy? how does she present elements that cannot but be exotic? So, when she does it, is she appropriating another cultural or she’s describing in order to create a bridge and cultural exchange? We have this criticizing of her internationalism from the part of an American critic, while, on the other hand we have the critique of the recognition of her role, of the attention she paid describing respectfully another country from a Chinese one. Pearl S. Buck and the forgotten Holocaust of the Two-Ocean War Dragon Seed This is the other novel we are going to read. It is an interesting, well written novel, too. [only 8 Ch. to read] But first of all, we need to be aware of his historical context. This title refers to the events that took place in 1937 and are the events considered by historians the beginning of the II WW in the eastern front, when the Japanese army invaded China. But something of great importance happened in 1937 → the Japanese army captured Nanking, the capital of the Chinese republic. It was a massacre, now considered one of the most atrocious of the II WW, but nobody knew it in the west. Buck was in contact 62 with a number of correspondents that lived in Nanjing and so she was aware and reading Chinese papers, but nobody paid any attention to the eastern front in the USA. So, she decided to write a novel about between the conflict between the Japanese army and Chinese people during those years. She wanted Europeans and American to be aware of this cruel war. She wrote DS throughout 1941, first was published monthly in magazines, then the novel to be published in January 1942, one month after the Pearl Harbour attack, the American military base, were the USA declared war to Japan. It was a timely publication. So, when it was published it was immediately a huge success. It was admired by the public and also by the critics. Dragon Seed: the novel  The novel is centred upon a family of farmers in a small town a few miles from Nanking. Ling Tan, a man of almost sixty, is the family’s patriarch. He has survived unscathed through the revolts that shook China in he first decades of the twentieth century.  Two generations are set on a stage, one beside the other: a couple of old farmers, Ling Tang and Ling Sao and their five children. Together, they share the family home and work in the fields. In 1937, Ling Tan and his wife are almost sixty. They have grown up during the long reign of Empress Ci-Xi, from 1861 to 1908, and have resignedly witnessed the decades of political turmoil that ensued. Again, we have a limited perspective and can put together everything step by step by adding elements and perspectives. Dragon Seed sees Nationalism  The central section of the novel chronicles the six weeks of massacres that annihilated the civilian population. Instead, the final part describes the gradual setup of a Chinese Resistance, hindered by internal conflict between the Communists and 65 the description of female characters because the male characters will basically respond to the transformation of the female characters, who re the once that express the different souls, the transformation that social expectations concerning femininity were undergoing. So, they are the most interesting characters in the first section. Gender is a key category in the construction of this story → used by Pearl Buck to create a story with a propagandistic intention, she wanted western readers to be aware of what was going on in china, she started the china relief fund in order to support the Chinese resistance (food, weapons) in a practical way. She chooses to tackle two crucial issues together →nationalism and gender. It deals with aspects of contemporary history, that was not completely believed in the western. Unless the west realizes what really happen there will be no help for China. So, this novel starts as propaganda and ends as one of the most complex and powerful novels Buck ever published. But again, she is trying to have it both ways, she’s trying to write as an activist but also she’s trying to be faithful to her idea of literature, that she learned from the Chinese tradition, and that she considered to be as valuable as the techniques embraced by the avant-garde. 06/11/2020 White Washing An important concept to consider is the one of White Washing → instrument of cultural appropriation; it is clearly detectable in movies. It was crucial in creating movies out of the novels. White characters where employed to play Chinese roles because they started from the assumption that nobody would be interested to go and see Chinese people on the screen .This choice was made to guarantee the success of the movie. In 1944 Dragon Seed was an extremely successful movie where the feminine role was played by Catherine Hepburn, again emerges the notion of cultural appropriation. What do those casting choices tell us ? Events leading to the II WW in the Pacific  Japanese invasion of Manchuria  Began on 18 September 1931 66 As the story again is seen through the characters only, they are not aware of the whole situation, they only know what’s happening in their circumscribed realities. The development of the war in china is not something they are familiar with. Even though they read the paper once or twice a month, that’s all they know. What we know about the history of china and japan is described in the novel without making explicit reference. But we know it started with the invasion of Manchuria then the Japanese forces and the events described in the novel take place in a specific time and place, which is Nanking→ now considered the forgotten holocaust because the massacres were not known by historians. What happened here in 1937? Nanking Massacre 1937  Nanjing massacre, conventional Nanking Massacre, also called Rape of Nanjing, (December 1937- January 1938), mass killing and ravaging of Chinese citizens and capitulated soldiers by soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army after its seizure of Nanjing, China, on December 13, 1937, during the Sino- Japanese War that preceded WW II.  The number of Chinese killed in the massacre has been subject to much debate, with most estimates ranging from 100.000 to more than 300.000. This massacre was characterized by mass killing and widespread use of rape of Chinese women. 2nd Sino- Japanese War  Following a victory in Shanghai during the Sino- Japanese War, the Japanese turned their attention towards Nanking. Fearful of losing them in battle, Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek ordered the removal of nearly all official Chinese troops from the city, leaving it defended by untrained auxiliary troops. Chiang also ordered the city 67 held at any cost and forbade the official evacuation of its citizens. Many ignored this order and fled, but the rest were left to the mercy of the approaching enemy. The city had to be defended, so what happened that all the European ran away, many Chinese ignored the order, and the others remains were defeated, together with the destruction of the city of Nanking. The Forgotten Holocaust  The destruction of Nanking – which had been the capital of nationalist Chinese from 1928 to 1937 – was ordered by Matsui Iwane, commanding general of the Japanese Central China Front Army that captured the city.  Over the next several weeks, Japanese soldiers carried out Matsui’s orders, perpetrating numerous mass executions and tens of thousands of rapes. The army looted and burned the surrounding towns and the city, destroying more than a third of the buildings. In 1940 the Japanese made Nanjing the capital of their Chinese puppet government headed by Wang Ching-Wei ( Wang Jingwei).  Shortly, after the end of World War II, Matsui and Tani Hisao, a lieutenant general who had personally participated in acts of murder and rape, were found guilty of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and were executed. A voice against imperialism  After 1938 Buck persistently attacked the denial of imperialism that innervated the discourse of American exceptionalism and demanded that race gender relations be understood within the context of Western Colonization. 70 as we read. When he admits that he cannot read the reaction is full of scorn, they make fun of him, he gets angry and leaves. He decides to look for help to his brother-in- law, a merchant who lives and works in the city and visits him to ask for advice. While he is there. He learns foreign goods and foreign people in China → the presence of foreigners emerges very quickly. Reference to students who are preaching night and day against the buying and selling of foreign goods→ nationalist feelings. A new notion of patriotism emerges in china in the 1930s, we can put together elements that define this clash of china and Japan, but also a pride of Chinese students that are reacting towards China by foreign western and eastern powers. our awareness of the political situation grows thanks to small details chapter after chapter. The point of tis first part has to do with the role of books, literature. The debates we are dealing with became part of the narrative. Her ethe character of Wu Lien is presented (brother- in-low). It is him who explains Lao Er that they are books for every need. The pleasure that you make from books depends on the kind of reasons and need you have for reading them. Lao Er tells him he’s looking for a boof for his wife, but he cannot tell one book from another. There are different kinds of books and WL having to make a choice decides to ask his wife. Related to this, there were comments that insinuated that Buck was writing a kind of feminine fiction. Buck is doing a very clever choice of having WL asking his wife, pondering the matter for a moment → what would a woman like to read? People loved to hear stories so, some man tried to make living out of it. They would stop, they would pause at a certain point and pass around a basket for pennies asking his audience to pay for entertainment. This reminds us of the debates about the idea of writing for the entertainment for people → the goal of a story well told, the people wanting to know more, willing to pay in order to know how the story ends. And this comes from a woman who cannot read, but as the gift is for Jade, WL asks his wife. PB has this character asking for a female point of view. This reference to Shui Hu Chuan, a novel from the Chinese tradition. PB spent 4 years translating this novel translating the title → “All men are brothers”. She was so popular that it became a best seller. She thought this novel proved the modernity and the strength of the Chinese tradition. She was so taken as a cultural mediator, she wanted to spread the awareness of the beauty and the complexity of Chinese literature that she decided to make the translation herself. There were other translations, but the English languages sounded archaic, weak, so she wanted to stress the 71 energy of a tradition that she perceived as vital. She would also state that the so-called novelty of America and European experimental writing was actually not new at all, because that approach, the ability to describe life in all of her aspects, deceived all elements that would emerge only in the XX century which was much more restrained. The puritan attitude, the philosophical aspects focused on religious issues rather than on references to the body, the sexuality, violent descriptions. They are all outside described, although they happen, and we all know they do. Buck is trying to show the Chinese literary tradition was rich and complex even in the XIV century. this is the book Lao Er buys at the market. PB build this chapter to make us think of the functional books, because Water Margin became one of the beloved books for the Chinese communists. They read the book of this band of outlaws that fight together and will eventually be pardoned by the emperor and fight for him against the enemies of china. So, in this XIV century stories PB detects it is being used as instrument of cultural political community in the XX century, so stories, novels, are a form of entertainment, they must please, but at the same time literature is not only about this. A novel that had been written 5 hundred years earlier, even Water Margin, could become a crucial instrument to create unity, a community, to spread ideas about the needs of the present cultures. Literature performs a cultural work. I this chapter it is as if a positive reading of the functions of middle brow aesthetic is offered, is a way of describing PB’s view of the novel of literature as an instrument. It is very far from the modernist notion “art for art’s sake”. This is an idea articulated modernist writers who emphasize the independence of external constraints, feeling of alienation towards conventional society → this is an idea PB is not interested in. This is particularly true in the case of Dragon Seed because it became also a political project, she wanted to tell the story of Nanking. She also uses this book to remind her readers of the needs that books respond to and the effects they have on readers. It is her way to responding to the debates about formal writing and that was clearly different from the form of writing praise in the 1930s. she’s questioning the notion of aesthetic values. The effect of literature on people is what should be first taken into account. Chapter III Here emerges a different conflict between the rural timeless road and the town, the city, a new world where everything seems to be changing all the time, where time is not cyclic 72 but linear, there’s an emphasis on progress. It is full of references to the passage of generations but the returning of the same values. We find expressions like: “the body of the earth”, “thick crust of the earth” → reference to his fathers before him, the passing of generations, they own belong the earth. Generations pass but things never change. We know what she thinks about, he’s now the focalizer. It seems that things never change. The small dragon of gold is connected the story of a man buying a concubine → a story similar to Wang Lung’s story. But here, the old wife the old wife behaves differently from O-Lan, she poisons the concubine. So, we have references we have come across in TGE, for instance, missionaries. The attitude towards these people who come teaching for the good of others it’s not really they are persuades they are doing good for this people, is only kindness, out of the persuasion, it was for his own soul, for something wrong he did not redeemed. the missionaries had little or no effect at all on the Chinese , because they were arrogant, they considered superior to the Chinese way of life → Buck here refers to the uselessness of foreign missions. What emerges in this chapter is the image of the foreign, who can be a missionary, who is doing penance of his soul, can be strange people on the other side of the earth. So here we have an example of the mechanism that when we talked about orientalism we described as othering, making some culture other than you are. The othering of difference is what orientalism wants us to be aware of. This happens when a ruling culture tends to project on other cultures as incompatible with its own ideal values. Here we have a fictional othering by Ling Tan. He’s trying to reverse his expectations, the things that he considers natural, he’s creating a fictional image of what is different from him and he protects elements that he perceives unnatural (“unreasonable, mad”). He’s associating foreigners to what is not natural. So how do foreigners look? how do they live? They are features; their lives are a projection of what is exotic, different. They complain that the foreigner on the other side of it has drained it. “this merry fashion” → ide of somebody who’s different. Not knowing any foreigner, they create an image of one. Buck is reversing American orientalism showing how this mechanism works when you associate certain values to people you don’t know anything about, so they become funny in a way, ridiculous, you pretend to grumble. This is a description of the way the construction of stereotypes works. So, there’s a stereotype created ad hoc for the purpose of othering difference. In this first part of the chapter we have access to Ling Tan’s meditations. Then in the second part we have access to the ones