NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck was born on June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia. She was born while her parents, Absalom and Caroline Sydenstricker, were on a leave from their mission in China. She was the fourth child in her family and was one of only three of the Sydenstricker's children who reached adulthood (Conn 1). After three months in the United States, Buck returned to China with her parents.
Buck would spend a great portion of her life in China and would use her knowledge and her personal experiences to write great novels. Some of these novels, such as her most famous, The Good Earth, focused on Chinese customs and on the Chinese way of life (Lutz 113). Buck was raised in her home. Her parents hired Chinese tutors to educate her. She was very familiar with the Bible, traditional Chinese sagas and author, Charles Dickens.
Buck was amazed at Dickens phenomenal writing techniques. She was very impressed with the method Dickens used in developing his characters. Later she would use Dickens techniques to develop her own characters. (113). A greatest influence on Buck was her strong mother, Caroline. Caroline constantly encouraged Pearl to do her best in school. She often had Pearl do outside writings along with those required for her schoolwork.
Her mother convinced her to submit her works to be published. Thanks to Caroline, the world was able to catch a small glimpse of a soon to be great American writer in The Shanghai Mercury. (Conn 1). Buck led an exciting life too. In 1900 Buck and her family had to flee for their lives. They fled because of the Boxer Rebellion, a time in China when many white families were murdered.
She spent a year in Shanghai away from the Boxer Rebellion as a refugee. The Bucks had to flee for their lives once again in 1926. A neighbor of the Bucks hid them from danger and then after an American and British warship arrived, they were rescued and brought to Shanghai. Another incident took place when a group of Chinese people surrounded the Bucks house. Absalom, Bucks father, was away on a work trip, and only the girls were at home. Caroline confronted the Chinese and she was so nice and persuasive that the Chinese people left the Bucks alone.
Buck remembered this great strength of her mother and copied it into her character, O-lan, from The Good Earth. O-lan used this strength when she told the robbers to spare her family the most necessary tools (Litz 113). Buck returned to her home country, the United States, to attend college. She went to school at Randolph-Macon Womans College. Here, Buck excelled greatly in her writing. She wrote numerous poems and stories.
Buck was even involved in a class play. As a junior in college, she was elected president of her class. She accomplished much in her collegiate career and was recognized for her great writing talent when she was awarded two literary awards in her senior year of college (Conn 2). She returned to China when her mother became very ill.
She nursed her mother back to health. While in China, she married her first of two husbands, John Lossing Buck. The newly weds established a home in the town of Nanking, located in northern China. While in Nanking, Buck obtained a lot of information about Chinese people and culture that she later used in The Good Earth and many other books that were based on China or the Chinese.
Lossing was involved with agriculture. Buck would accompany him to his work, just like O-lan went out into the fields and helped Wang Lung do his work, and doing so, became very familiar with the lifestyles of poor Chinese farmers. She incorporated this knowledge into some characters of her books. The best example can be seen in Wang Lung, from The Good Earth.
Buck made him a poor farmer who worked hard all his life and loved the land until he met his death (Litz 114). Buck and Lossing had one child, whom they named Carol. Unfortunately, their child was mentally retarded and this would be the last child Buck would have due to a tumor that prevented her having children (Buck, The Gifts 9). Buck used this very painful experience in her book, The Good Earth, when O-lan developed a cancerous tumor that eventually killed her. She also portrayed her child as the Fool in the book, The Good Earth.
Buck brought her child to the United States to try and receive medical treatment. While in the United States, she earned her M. A. in English at Cornell University. She became a teacher for a short while and she had many articles of hers printed in the newspapers (Litz 114). Buck then decided to return to China.
At this time she had her first novel, East Wind: West Wind, published. This book was actually the combination of two short stories. She demonstrated to the world of what she was capable of portraying, her unbelievable realism with the Chinese way of life. She put in everything she could remember, such as customs, way of life and attitude, from her experiences in China.
She was able to have a very clear setting, from actually living in China for more than half of her life. (114). Then she wrote this book her most famous book, The Good Earth. The Good Earth was built up by the imagination out of the memories of a child who had lived and thought in the Chinese pattern without losing detachment of her Western perspective. (Bloom 581) These memories allowed Buck to use great details and make her work seem more like nonfiction rather than fiction. This story is about a poor farmer, Wang Lung, his wife, O-lan, and the rest of their family struggling for survival. Buck put an extraordinary effort into this book.
She incorporated love, excitement, death and everything else. She makes the reader appreciate the characters. The reader feels for O-lan when Wang brought in a concubine named Lotus Flower. This novel set the stage for Bucks amazing literary career. The Good Earth was so well written and contained such realism that it captured the world.
Bucks own life in China was greatly demonstrated when she wrote this book. She put characteristics of people she knew into the characters of the book (581). Much of the world grasped this book as one that depicted the Chinese life correctly. However, people that were not fond of this book were the Chinese government and some other Chinese people. They thought that the book portrayed a negative attitude toward the Chinese. For instance, having premarital sex was a disgrace in the Chinese culture and the Chinese insisted that this as well as robbers and thievery had been removed from China many years before Buck wrote her book (Litz 116).
After writing The Good Earth, Buck received worldwide recognition. With her ability to create extreme realness in her books, she was destined to become a world wide literary figure. In 1936, The Good Earth won Buck a Pulitzer Prize and a Howells Metal. This book spent almost two years on Best Sellers lists, which is an amazing feet (Conn 2). Buck loved her parents deeply.
She wrote two biographies about them. The Exile, a biography of her mother Caroline, and Fighting Angel which was the biography of her father, Absalom. These two dedicated works of her along with The Good Earth were the main reasons that she won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1938 (Bloom 578). Buck put lots of devotion and hard work into her novels about China. Out of all the novels she has written, her books depicting the Chinese are considered her best by many people. People say this because of the realism reflected in her characters.
A literary critic Malcom Cowley stated: Mrs. Buck has spent so many years in China, has studied the language so well, has lived on such terms of friendship with the people She has a truly extraordinary gift for presenting 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 the background is strange and topsy-turvy. She seems to know China so well that she no longer judges it even from the standpoint of the native Chinesewhoever he may but rather from the standpoint of a particular class, the one that includes the liberal, three quarters Westernized scholars who deplore the graft and cruelty of the present government but nevertheless keep their heads on their shoulders and hold their noses, and support General Chiang Kaishek because they are afraid of what would happen if he were over thrown (Contemporary 1). In 1934, Buck moved back to the United States never to return to China. In the United States she was out of bad situations in China and she was also closer to Richard Walsh. Walsh was the head of Bucks publishing company and they developed a relationship together.
In 1935, both Walsh and Buck received divorces from their first spouses. In that same year, the two were married. Back in the United States, Buck put her daughter into an institution in Pennsylvania. Walsh and Buck adopted six other children (Conn 2). Buck became involved in numerous organizations and she founded her own organization.
Buck and Walsh founded the East and West Association (2). This association is to help the understanding of Culture between the Asia and the Western world. She also became very active in Civil Rights and Womens Rights. She delivered many speeches at receptions and she wrote many essays sharing her views and opinions on these topics.
She also established Welcome House in 1949. Welcome House is an organization that helps find homes for Asian and other children of mixed races. She also established the Pearl S. Buck foundation in 1964.
This foundation provides sponsorship to children in some Asian countries (3). Buck also wrote books to enlighten people about China. Her book, China As I See It, was all about her view of China. (Buck, China as I see it 1). Pearl Buck had a tremendous literary career.
It came to an end in March of 1973 as she dies at the age of eighty. The world lost an outstanding author and a great humanitarian. She dedicated her life to teaching the East about the West. The way she described her characters perfectly shall never be matched.
No author will ever be able to grasp the way of the Chinese as she did. Pearl S. Buck was truly one of Americas greatest writers. Bibliography: Works Cited Bloom, Harold. Twentieth Century American Literature. Pearl S.
Buck. New York. Chelsea House of Publishers, 1985. Buck, Pearl. China As I See It.
New York. The John Day Company, 1970. Buck, Pearl. The Gifts They Bring. New York. The John Day Company, 1965.
Conn, Peter. Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, 1892 - 1973. 11 August 1999. 6 September 1999. web Contemporary Authors Online. Pearl S (sydenstricker) Buck. Infotrac Magazine Collection.
The Gale Group, 1999. Litz, A. Walton, ed. American Writers. Pearl S. Buck.
New York. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981.
Free research essays on topics related to: boxer rebellion, wrote this book, good earth, pearl s buck, wang lung
Research essay sample on Pearl S Buck Wrote This Book
