Reconceptualizing the Other in Anchee Min’s Pearl of China

• 발행기관: 한국아메리카학회
• 저자명: Seul Ki Lee
• 간행물 정보: 『미국학논집』제53집 1호, 307~327쪽, 전체 21쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 기타인문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2021.05.31

영문 초록

Anchee Min is the Chinese-American author of Pearl of China (2010), a historical fiction novel that reinterprets the life and influence of Nobel Prize-winning writer Pearl Sydenstricker Buck through her relationship with a fictional best friend named Willow Yee. Reading the historical backdrop of twentieth century China and Pearl S. Buck’s unique position in it through the lens of Emmanuel Levinas’s theory of the self and the Other, I examine the development of Willow’s selfhood through her subsequent relationship with Pearl, and how this relationship influences her relationship to the systems in which she lives. This paper argues that Willow and Pearl’s ‘religious bond’ becomes their strength as they define themselves and maintain each other’s identities against the traditional patriarchy of Qing and Nationalist China, as well as the totalizing forces of communist China under Mao.

목차

I. Towards the Relationship of the Self and Other

II. Development of Willow’s Selfhood

III. Willow and Pearl’s Right to Speak

IV. The Bond of Religion and the Purely Political Being

V. Conclusion

Works Cited

키워드

religious bond ethical responsibility other Emmanuel Levinas Pearl of China