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
The Good Earth
(1931)
 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
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_yw0K
pHI/AAAAAAAAAvg/w6DOqO9qGpU/s400/chinaamerica.jpg
 http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n26/n132022.j
pg
 http://hotcupofcoffee.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/cov
er-dragonseed.jpg
 http://www.orlok.com/cyberbil/pearl2/graphics/pport.jpg