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A Rhetorical Analysis of Pearl Buck's the House Of GENDER, ECONOMIC AGENCY, AND SOCIAL CLASS: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF PEARL BUCK’S THE HOUSE OF EARTH TRILOGY THROUGH THE DRAMATISTIC PENTAD OF KENNETH BURKE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE TEXAS WOMAN’S UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, SPEECH, AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES BY NIMMY NAIR, BGS and MA DENTON, TEXAS DECEMBER 2018 Copyright © 2018 by Nimmy Nair DEDICATION To my grandfather, Joseph Chirayil Kurian, thank you for your unconditional love and unwavering faith in my abilities. You are dearly missed! To my children, Suzanne and Nathan, who inspire and motivate me. All my love! “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” Luke 21:19 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank Almighty God for giving me the courage, wisdom, and opportunity to undertake this doctoral study and persevere to complete it. I would like to thank my committee chair and mentor, Dr. Phyllis Bridges, for introducing me to this topic through her course in Nobel Prize winning literature. Her guidance and support throughout these years helped me produce this research study. I would like to thank Dr. Evelyn Curry and Dr. Alfred Guy Litton for serving on my committee and for their guidance to improve my dissertation. I am grateful to the faculty and students of the English, Speech, and Foreign Languages Department at Texas Woman’s University who created a rich learning and research environment that I benefitted from as a student and faculty member. In addition, I would like to thank the staff of Graduate School for their guidance regarding the dissertation and graduation requirements. I would also like to thank my dean and colleagues at Brookhaven College for their support and encouragement. Thank you for asking how I was doing and the motivational talks that helped me persevere at this task. Furthermore, I would like to thank my friends, especially Dr. Elaine Cho and Dr. Gregory Perrier, for keeping me motivated and always checking on my progress. I am also grateful to my family for their love, encouragement, and dedication to my success. I am grateful to my parents and parents-in-law, especially my mother, iii Marykutty J. Pullolil, for instilling in me the importance of education and hard work. I would like to thank my sister, Simi Pulikkiel, for listening and encouraging me. I want to thank my husband, Sean Babu, who has been my tower of strength and a constant source of humor and practical advice throughout this lengthy process. Finally, I want to express my love, admiration, and thanks to my children, Suzanne and Nathan, for their understanding and unconditional love while I worked on the dissertation. You fueled my determination to achieve this academic distinction; and, in turn, I hope it encourages both of you to pursue your own ambitions and goals. iv ABSTRACT NIMMY NAIR GENDER, ECONOMIC AGENCY, AND SOCIAL CLASS: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF PEARL BUCK’S THE HOUSE OF EARTH TRILOGY THROUGH THE DRAMATISTIC PENTAD OF KENNETH BURKE DECEMBER 2018 For over two hundred years, American impressions of the Chinese crystallized as a result of the accounts provided by travelers, Christian missionaries, and merchants. These accounts propagated misconceptions and stereotypes regarding China and the Chinese. American Nobel-prize winning writer Pearl S. Buck had lived in China for the first thirty-four years of her life, a period which gave her a unique perspective into the lives and practices of the Chinese (Conn, “What the Remarkable Legacy”). This study examines Pearl S. Buck’s The House of Earth trilogy in which she sought to showcase the real lives of the Chinese and their socio-economic realities. Twentieth-century rhetorician Kenneth Burke’s rhetorical theory of the dramatistic pentad, along with his theories of identification, mystery, hierarchy, and perfection, are applied to The Good Earth, Sons, and A House Divided to examine Buck’s rhetorical practices. This study examines the three novels of The House of Earth trilogy through the lens of gender, economic agency, and social class. The introductory chapter discusses the inception and evolution of American impressions of the Chinese and Pearl Buck’s concerns regarding the prevalent misconceptions in America regarding the Chinese and v their nation. Additionally, the chapter provides an overview of Kenneth Burke’s theory of dramatism and the five pentadic terms – act, agent, agency, scene, and purpose. Using the pentadic ratios in conjunction with Burke’s theories of identification, mystery, hierarchy, and perfection, the succeeding chapters reveal how specific female characters gain and lose agency in a patriarchal culture; how men and women establish relationships with each other to build or improve their economic agency; and, the issues of class and social mobility in late imperial and early modern China. The final chapter examines how Pearl Buck established identification with American readers through social issues such as gender, economic agency, and social class in order to bridge the divide between America and China. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION ............................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................ iii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. v Chapter I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS OF THE CHINESE AND INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON PEARL S. BUCK AND KENNETH BURKE ........................................................................ 1 II. WOMAN IS NOT THE MOON: THE RHETORIC OF GENDER IN THE GOOD EARTH, SONS, AND A HOUSE DIVIDED ....................... 15 III. THE RHETORIC OF ECONOMIC AGENCY IN THE HOUSE OF EARTH TRILOGY .................................................................................... 70 IV. THE RHETORIC OF SOCIAL CLASS IN THE HOUSE OF EARTH TRILOGY ............................................................................................... 110 V. THE HUMAN BRIDGE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST: PEARL BUCK’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO LITERATURE AND SOCIETY THROUGH THE HOUSE OF EARTH TRILOGY ............................... 161 WORKS CITED ..................................................................................................... 167 vii CHAPTER I THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS OF THE CHINESE AND INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON PEARL S. BUCK AND KENNETH BURKE In his 1958 research study Scratches on Our Mind: American Images of China and India, Harold Isaacs observed, “Like China’s great rivers, flooding and receding and shifting their courses to the sea, American images of the Chinese have travelled a long and changing way…” (63). American impressions regarding China developed as the result of domestic and international factors. An early factor was that the “great transcontinental railroads were being built” during the post-Civil War years which called for an extensive labor force (Conn, Pearl S. Buck 31). The need drew Chinese immigrants to America where they were initially accepted; however, as the immigrants attempted to find employment in other sectors, discontent grew across the country. By the late nineteenth century, economic discontent against the Chinese immigrants led to political and cultural actions that marginalized and stereotyped this population. In 1882, political opposition against Chinese immigration led to “The first Chinese exclusion act, which suspended immigration for ten years, was passed…it was extended for another ten years in 1892, through the Geary Act, and for another ten in 1902” (31). 1 Paralleling the imposition of these laws was the typecasting of Chinese nationals in society: Newspaper cartoons, an innovation of the 1890s, quickly began pandering to the national Sinophobia; daily and Sunday strips were filled with the slanted eyes, long queues, and robes of burlesque characters who muttered in pidgin English as they schemed, soliloquized, and eventually came to some bad end or other. (Conn, Pearl S. Buck 31) The exclusion of the Chinese was not peculiar to American society. As a sixteen-year old, Pearl Buck lived in Shanghai for a year to attend the Jewell School. During her sojourn in the city, she came across “Chinese of mixed blood, miserable blue-eyed citizens who belonged nowhere;” and, at a foreign park in Shanghai, she observed signage that read “NO CHINESE, NO DOGS” (Stirling 22). In addition, American opinions were also shaped through literature and motion pictures. American poet Bret Harte’s famous poem “The Heathen Chinese,” published in 1870, was popular; but as Harte himself later admitted, it “may have been the worst poem that anyone ever wrote” (Conn, Pearl S. Buck 2). The poem showcased two common Chinese stereotypes, the “sly comic hero” Ah Sin and Confucius who was well known to Americans, but “only as the author of a number of silly aphorisms” (2). Along with literature, by the end of the nineteenth century, American impressions of the Chinese were also groomed through the fast-growing medium of motion pictures that reinforced stereotypical Chinese characters. American films tended to portray the Chinese as 2 “ludicrous, clownish people, the salacious seducers of white women and heartless murderers of innocent Christians” (Haddad). Even into the 1930s, “films such as The Yellow Menace, The Red Lantern, The Exploits of Elaine
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