（英语语言文学专业论文）从《大地三部曲》看赛珍珠的婚姻观.pdf

ii 摘摘 要要 赛珍珠在其代表作大地三部曲中，通过王氏家族三代人的婚姻展示了 20 世 纪初中国社会变革前后的新旧两种婚姻制度。本文试图从跨文化和女性主义的角度 来分析赛珍珠对中国不同婚姻模式的认识及其婚姻观形成的原因，以探询其作为一 个有着多元文化背景的作家对于不同文化的所持的立场和态度。 研究表明，赛珍珠对中国的传统婚姻制度持着一种宽容和理解的态度，致力于 向读者解释其在一定的历史时期存在的合理性和必要性。结合中国当时的现实情况， 赛珍珠也在大地三部曲中勾勒出了她理想中的新时代婚姻模式，特别是女性与 婚姻的关系。同时她也批评了某些自由婚姻对于传统的全盘抛弃。总之，赛珍珠在 对待新旧婚姻制度时，并没有一味的否定或赞扬，而是客观的指出了各自的优缺点。 这与她的多元文化背景和个人经历是紧密联系在一起的。 赛珍珠对待中国婚姻的态度也反映出了赛珍珠对于不同文化的态度。中国文化 对她多年的影响使她可以领略到一种古老文化的独特之处，并以友好宽容的态度来 审视；而作为一个美国人，她对中国的描绘更易让西方人接受，从而在一定程度上 扭转了西方对中国的偏见。此外，正是由于她的多元文化背景，使她能够自由的赞 扬传统文化的优点，而她在作品中结合自身经历所表现出来的对于理想婚姻的期望， 也为她日后的女性主义思想的成熟埋下了伏笔。 当然，赛珍珠的多元文化背景也会给她带来一些不可避免的文化误读和困难， 但她在其中所体现出来的宽容理解是尤其值得我们肯定和学习的。她为我们如何继 承和发扬我们民族的文化传统提供了很好的借鉴。 关键词关键词: 大地三部曲 传统婚姻 现代婚姻 多元文化 i abstract in the breakthrough novel the house of earth trilogy, pearl buck demonstrates the traditional and modern marital systems before and after chinas social reform through three generations of the house of wang. the paper aims to analyze pearl bucks concepts on different modes of marital systems and the formation of her concepts in order to explore her attitude towards different culture. the research indicates that pearl buck shows her tolerance and understanding upon chinese traditional marriage and dedicates to explaining its reasonable elements and the necessity of its existence under the specific historical circumstance. further, relating to the social reality of china in her age, pearl buck outlines her ideal modern marital mode, especially the relation between women and marriage. meanwhile, she also criticizes the total denial of tradition in some individualized marriage. in conclusion, pearl buck does not simply renounce or glorify traditional and modern marriages; instead she points out both their strong points and weak points in an objective manner. such a manner is tightly linked with her multicultural background and personal experience. pearl bucks attitude towards chinese marriage is a reflection of her attitude toward different cultures. over years of edification by chinese ancient culture enables pearl buck to appreciate its peculiarities and examine it in a friendly way; as an american, her picture of china is easier to be accepted by westerners, overturning the stereotype of china in the west. it is due to her multicultural background that she could feel more comfortable to compliment the merits in chinese traditional culture. moreover, her expectation on ideal modern marriage resulting from her own experience paves the road for the maturity of her feminist theories in her later life. pearl bucks multicultural background surely brings certain misread and difficulty in her writing. however, the spirit of cultural tolerance manifested in her works should be recognized and praised by us all. pearl buck has set up an excellent example for us when we are pondering over the inheritance and development of our ethical culture and tradition. keywords: the house of earth trilogy traditional marriage modern marriage multiculture 独创性声明独创性声明 本人声明所呈交的学位论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的研 究成果。尽我所知，除文中已经标明引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何其他个人或 集体已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究做出贡献的个人和集体，均已在 文中以明确方式标明。本人完全意识到，本声明的法律结果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日 学位论文版权使用授权书学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，即：学校有权 保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版，允许论文被查阅和借阅。 本人授权华中科技大学可以将本学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检 索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。 保密 ，在_ _年解密后适用本授权书。 不保密。 （请在以上方框内打“” ） 学位论文作者签名： 指导教师签名： 日期： 年 月 日 日期： 年 月 日 本论文属于 1 introduction marriage normally occupies an essential position in one society and culture. over a long period of time, marriage is defined as an indispensable procedure in human life. first it can establish a solid foundation for a family since in daily life family can be considered as a kind of economic group and mutual help team. next and more important, the significance of marriage lies on its social properties because marriage can expand new kindred with another family name, accordingly enhancing social foundation and stability. marriage usually is ratified by a society and its law; in return, it has to be charged with certain obligations and responsibilities in that given society. family united by marriage gradually becomes the organizer of social manufacture, the maintainer of social orders and the implementation unit of social moral. naturally marriage has to engender different patterns or goes through a series of reforms and adjustments in order to acclimatize itself to changed situation. its development is tightly bound with specific economic, social and historical reality. in this case, marriage certainly becomes an important subject for human society all through the ages and peoples ideas and judgment on marriage thus can represent a type of cultural values of one society. in the house of earth trilogy (hereinafter referred to as the trilogy), pearl bucks portrayal of chinese marriage modes could reflect her attitudes towards different cultures. through the novel, pearl buck let readers see her characters different attitudes towards two modes of marriage. as a matter of fact, their different attitudes, to some extent, disclose the respective characteristics of chinese and western marriage and pearl bucks own point of views and choices. the conflict between traditional marriage and modern marriage essentially manifests a type of cultural conflict between eastern and western civilization. therefore, the paper decides to explore pearl bucks ideological tendency on various marital modes in the trilogy. since her childhood, pearl buck had been deeply attracted by chinese culture and had great interests in observation on chinese marital system. she had seen all types of phenomena in chinese marriage during her long stay in china. the evidence can be found in her autobiography my several worlds. at the same time, although pearl buck had lived in china for about forty years, she grew up in a typical american family and led a life in 2 an american style, the american cultural elements would be sure to interfere her interpretation when she was telling a chinese story. therefore, pearl buck must have gained a very peculiar and unique attitude towards chinese marital system and further chinese culture. pearl buck living in an age in which modern sweetheart marriage began to replace the traditional one. pearl buck, as daughter, wife and female writer, standing in two worlds surely noticed the change of marital pattern. besides, marriage was playing a crucial role throughout pearl bucks life. her childhood and adulthood were greatly influenced by the marriages of her relatives and her own. the unhappy marriage of her mothers, the failure of her brothers and finally her first marriage led her to think over what the ideal marriage was. thats another reason why the paper would like to discuss pearl buck from the angle of marriage. when dealing with the subject of marriage in pearl bucks chinese novels, most of criticisms are mainly focus on her works like pavilion of women or east wind: west wind whose themes are mainly dedicated to women and marriage. there are comparatively fewer comments specializing on her masterpiece the trilogy, which helps her to win the novel prize. the trilogy in fact presents us a panorama of the transformation of marriage pattern in a changing society. whats more, no matter what subject matter has been talked about, most of the research only focuses on the first episode the good earth which is the most famous one, and meanwhile its two sequels sons and a house divided are neglected in most cases or they are not fully analyzed. however, the trilogy is an integrated whole and the story goes through three generations of the house of wang, presenting us all types of marriages, both traditional and modern in china. hence, this paper aims to discuss the marriages described in all three episodes in order to give a whole picture of pearl bucks views on marriage. the paper will apply the approaches of cross-cultural communication and feminism to help demonstrate the theme. culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning. this definition includes not only patterns of behavior but also patterns of thought (shared meanings that the members of a society attach to various phenomena, natural and intellectual, including religion and 3 ideologies), artifacts (tools, pottery, house, machines, works of art), and the culturally transmitted skills and techniques used to make the artifacts (bates). nothing in our life is free from the cultural influence. literature has inseparable relations with culture. the literary work of one writer can reflect the cultural background and political tendency of the writer, and also the particular historical and social environment the writer stands in. that is to say, different cultural background would produce different literary work. cross-cultural communication is communication between people whose cultural perceptions and symbol systems are distinct enough to alter the communication event. generally speaking, cross-cultural communication and intercultural communication are regarded as the same. however, gudykunst and kim differentiate them in the preface to intercultural communication theory. they apply different definitions to them, maintaining that the former is a kind of interaction between people from different culture and the latter is a comparison of some phenomena across cultures. since the paper wants to discuss how two cultures interact with each other in pearl bucks novels about china, which emphasizes on interaction, the author hereby prefers to adopt the term cross-cultural communication. in the research of feminine experience, feminism criticism breaks the limitation of text analysis and pays its attention to the life of woman writers in order to explore the relationship between women writers life and their text. women writers, especially of those in their earlier age, tend to be more concentrated on themselves and the world around them, and their works, in most cases, are their personal experience and individual feelings. the exploration of the relation between the life of woman writers and the text, especially the relation between woman writers and their characters in novels, will help people to have a better understanding of self-awareness and sensibilities of woman writers (wang xianpei). pearl buck herself was practitioner of modern marriage, and moreover her own experience concerning marriage was quite unusual during that age. a lot of description on modern marriage in the trilogy was very similar to her personal experience. her special stories in two cultural environments contributed a lot to the formation of her modern marital and feminist viewpoints. 4 chapter one literature review before beginning the discussion on the trilogy, let us have a survey of some research on pearl buck and her works. since this paper aims to elaborate pearl bucks views on marriage in the trilogy from the perspectives of cross-cultural study and feminism, the author mainly reviews the research concerning these two aspects. there is a lot of research in the field of cross-cultural study. after the first episode of the trilogy came out in 1931, the work attracted opponents and proponents both in the united states and in china. when the united states was stricken by the most serious economic depression in the history, the spirits of perseverance, hard working and the piety to the earth were most cherished by the american in great depression. the novel was praised for the rich and truly epic description of peasant life (hallstrom). wagenknecht commented that pearl buck shocked western readers by describing chinese customs from the chinese point of view; her books offered thoughtful and provocative insights into some of the most challenging issues mankind has faced and continues to face. some famous native-born chinese scholars like lin yutang also defended the novels accuracy and praised the good earth for bringing out a better understanding of china and the chinese. at the same time, some other chinese writers denied the values of pearl bucks novels. even much stronger feeling against the good earth engendered. they argued that her description of china was not true. at first, lu hsuns criticism on the good earth set an example for the contemporaries. although lu hsun agreed that pearl bucks description of china was out of her good nature and had friendly intentions, he criticized that, viewing from her works, there was nothing more than the standpoint of an american female missionary. younghill kang, a scholar from northern korean, started an indignant discussion on pearl bucks distorted details about the life of chinese people. in the aspect of some traditions in chinese feudal family, he insisted that no man should become sexually involved with his own slave and that, if a father did such a thing, his sons would probably commit suicide because of the disgrace. he further maintained that no woman in china, not even a slave girl, would have premarital sexual experience. younghill kang also commented that pearl bucks emphasis on romantic love which reduced confucian 5 society to “a laughable pandemonium”. kiang kang-hu, professor of chinese studies at mcgill university, launched the most vehement attack upon pearl bucks novel. he criticized pearl buck since she described chinese people according to chinese traditional methods and intensified the “repulsive details”. he claimed that the people in pearl bucks china-theme novel could not be the representatives of chinese people. his comment was widely shared by many critics. they held a common opinion that pearl buck over-exaggerated the poverty of china and distorted the image of chinese people. pearl buck even had to start a debate with kiang kang-hu on the new york times in order to defend for her works. as a matter of fact, these fierce criticism and debates on pearl buck and her novels demonstrates the deep influence of different cultures on the scholars. they evaluated the trilogy according to their own cultural standard, political standpoint and the specific historical condition they understood. therefore it is useless for us to argue whose point of view is correct. of course, situation is changing now. instead of the critical, even a little bit chauvinistic reaction to pearl buck and her china-theme works, critics nowadays tend to take a more tolerant and positive attitude. they also start to investigate why as a foreign writer who positively write about china and chinese people she loved and the first american female nobel laureate, pearl buck had encountered so much criticism and unfair negligence. yao junwei explores the description of chinese people and culture in pearl bucks fictions and non-fictions, praising her great spirit of cultural relativism which elaborating china in the context of its specific environment. he further discusses the sources of pearl bucks cultural relativism, confirming her great role in the communication between different cultures. sun zongguang expounds the rich thoughts in pearl bucks early writing from the angel of understanding the chinese social personality. in his journal, he also holds that the trilogy exposes the stubbornness of old traditions and predicts the transcendence beyond the preceding generation by the new chinese people by observing the society and people pearl buck portrays, and the novel will help people understand pearl bucks expectations of a new china. gu jun mentions that due to pearl bucks love and enthusiasm towards china, she does not hold an absolute negative attitude towards chinese traditional culture. the attitude demonstrates that pearl buck does not measure 6 chinese issues with western criterion and takes the particularity of china into full consideration. it is delightful to see that present scholars, while pointing out some mistakes pearl buck had committed, are more inclined to focus on the beneficial significance in her novels. it is a progress in this research field in recent years. guo yingjian and hao suling studies pearl bucks multicultural identity or her identity as cultural marginalizer which resulted in her exclusion from the literary canon. this is also the reason for the rediscovery by the critic circle in the current pluralistic culture. wang jinxing and wang jianquan holds that since pearl buck did not totally recognized by both american and chinese, she was always seeking and rebuilding her cultural identity all her life: a merger and facilitator of the chinese and western cultures. this constitutes the strong mental motivation to her writing and practice in the communication between the two cultures. chen jing surveys pearl bucks biographies of parents by selecting the exile and fighting angel as historical background. the two biographies bear out the fact that american cultural elements functioned predominantly in pearl bucks background rather than chinese culture and american culture functioning equally in her. from the angle of discussing pearl bucks cultural identity, it can give scholars better perception of pearl bucks position in contemporary world literature. however, most of the research only studies it on a very general basis and does not introduce their conclusion based on the discussion on any of pearl bucks specific novels about china, or any aspects concerning chinese life described in her novels. therefore, the paper would like to focus on marital status in pearl bucks the trilogy to discover ho