Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) spent her formative years in China, while the Empress Dowager Cixi ruled for almost half a century, from 1861 to 1908. In many of her works, Buck describes Cixi as a smart stateswoman, thus contradicting traditional Western readings of the Empress, which have long portrayed Cixi as a tyrannical, vicious and incompetent ruler. Buck situates her novel God’s Men (1951) during the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901), the crucial event in the history of American imperialism in Asia. The novel revolves around two main characters, Clem Miller and William Lane, both raised in missionary families stationed in China at this time. These two protagonists mirror the ideological conflict between democratic idealism and racist imperialism which Buck detected at the heart of American society after WW2. This essay focuses on Buck’s transcultural critique as manifest in God’s Men, highlighting the political effects of her deployment of the conventions of the middlebrow sentimental novel.
Pearl Buck, cresciuta in Cina durante il regno di Cixi, offre in molte sue opere un’immagine dell’Imperatrice Vedova che ne confuta la visione, spesso caricaturale, diffusa in Occidente nella prima metà del Novecento. In God’s Men la scrittrice individua nella Rivolta dei Boxer un conflitto decisivo sia per Cixi sia per la storia dell’imperialismo statunitense. Al centro della narrazione troviamo Clem e William, figli di missionari e figure esemplari del conflitto ideologico che lacera la società americana del dopoguerra. Le vicende dei due protagonisti intersecano la storia dei primi decenni del Novecento in un romanzo in cui risultano evidenti le potenzialità progressiste presenti nei meccanismi consolatori dell’estetica middlebrow. Questo saggio analizza il lavoro di mediazione transculturale intrapreso da Buck in God’s Men e il suo impiego dei codici del romanzo sentimentale nell’offrire una visione della fine dell’Impero Celeste alternativa a quella elaborata dalla storiografia ufficiale.
(2020). La rivolta dei Boxer e le missioni americane in God's Men di Pearl S. Buck [journal article - articolo]. In INSCRIPTUM. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10446/182366
La rivolta dei Boxer e le missioni americane in God's Men di Pearl S. Buck
Gennero, Valeria
2020-01-01
Abstract
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) spent her formative years in China, while the Empress Dowager Cixi ruled for almost half a century, from 1861 to 1908. In many of her works, Buck describes Cixi as a smart stateswoman, thus contradicting traditional Western readings of the Empress, which have long portrayed Cixi as a tyrannical, vicious and incompetent ruler. Buck situates her novel God’s Men (1951) during the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901), the crucial event in the history of American imperialism in Asia. The novel revolves around two main characters, Clem Miller and William Lane, both raised in missionary families stationed in China at this time. These two protagonists mirror the ideological conflict between democratic idealism and racist imperialism which Buck detected at the heart of American society after WW2. This essay focuses on Buck’s transcultural critique as manifest in God’s Men, highlighting the political effects of her deployment of the conventions of the middlebrow sentimental novel.File | Dimensione del file | Formato | |
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