The novel, The Good Earth, written by Pearl S. Buck, takes place in China, in the 1920s, and tells the story of a Chinese farmer named Wang Lung and his journey from rags to riches. O-lan’s difficult childhood taught her many useful life lessons. O-lan’s personality and these life lessons together, give her immeasurable value to Wang Lung and his family. Simply put, O-lan had a rough childhood. During O-lan’s childhood, her parents sold her as a slave to the House of Hwang. O-lan became a very skilled cook over the course of her childhood because she worked in the kitchen at the House of Hwang. As a child, O-lan also became a skilled beggar, she learned where to beg and who to beg to. When her family fell on tough times during the drought, she taught her children the skills she picked up as a child. These skills that O-lan learns while enslaved, reveals O-lan’s heavy reliance on her past. O-lan’s slavery did not end after she got married, her slavery continues on, into her marriage. “At night he knew the soft firmness of her body. But in the day her clothes, her plain blue cotton coat, …show more content…
After O-lan’s death, everything seems to fall apart. O-lan made Wang Lung rich, but Wang Lung refused to acknowledge this fact until after O-lan died. “All through the long months of winter she lay dying and upon her bed, and for the first time Wang Lung and his children knew what she had been in the house, and how she made comfort for them all and they had not known it” (Buck 254). Although he treated her poorly, O-lan became a ‘good luck charm’ for Wang Lung. After O-lan’s death, Wang Lung soon realizes that O-lan serves almost as much importance in his life as the land. When Wang Lung’s daughter-in-law gave birth to his grandson, his family completely freaked out. Wang Lung remembers how O-lan gave birth, quiet and alone. Wang Lung and his family soon take for granted all of the things O-lan did the went
O-lan is an experienced beggar. This skill was used in a critical time. The family was forced to face many adversities during the drought. Wang-Lung and O-lan reluctantly decided to move to a southern city to escape starvation. O-lan used her childhood begging talents to assist the family in surviving the dilemmas of the city. She knew who to plead to, where to beg, and most importantly, taught the other children to beg.
Since his time as a young man, Wang Lung dreams of earning the power and wealth that the House of Hwang possesses, and with his dedicated work towards caring for his land, he is able to reach their level of power after returning from the South, all while retaining to traditional values regarding the land. In his older years, his name becomes associated with the concept of the House of Hwang, even before purchasing the residence, and is regarded as “Wang The Rich Man” or “Wang The Big Man” (Page 309) once he rises to the status of a wealthy
Wang Lung needs a wife so saves up the little money he has and buys a woman who is a slave named O-lan. O-lan is sold to Wang Lung so she can take care of the home, cooking and bear children. Wang Lung is disappointed when he first sees O-lan because she does not have bound feet which was a desirable quality at that time but he does enjoy when O-lan has the food ready when he comes in a night from the land. Wang Lung is very proud when O-lan makes cakes that no one else in the village knows how to makes and when his family comes to feast for the new year at their house.
In her work, “This is Our World,” Dorothy Allison shares her perspective of how she views the world as we know it. She has a very vivid past with searing memories of her childhood. She lives her life – her reality – because of the past, despite how much she wishes it never happened. She finds little restitution in her writings, but she continues with them to “provoke more questions” (Allison 158) and makes the readers “think about what [they] rarely want to think about at all” (158).
Throughout the narrative Le Guin discusses how Omelas is a utopian city where people pursuit happy lives. The author is aware that the idea of happiness is guilty of innocence that leads to pain. However, she believes these people are
In the novel Wild Swans author Jung Chang gives the reader a glimpse of China’s history through the eyes of her family throughout the span of three generations. She guides the reader by giving insight to the history of China through her grandmother, continuing with the mother and ending with hers experiences . Although these three women lived through different generations in China, they all felt and experienced pain and it is captured in their stories. These three women sought to move ahead in life and to follow their hearts. Jung Chang guides us through the difficult times that took place before the leadership of Mao and throughout his regime a time when China left behind its traditional values and was forced to take on a new way of life.
"And O-lan in the house was not idle. With her own hands she lashed the mats to the rafters and took earth from the fields and mixed it with water and mended the walls of the house, and she built again the oven and filled the holes in the floor that the rain had washed."
Where does Wang Lung fit into this picture? He is a poor man who knows
Ove is a grumpy old man fought with his beautiful wife Sonja, before she died. He never truly understands where anyone else is coming from. Sonja’s friends always questioned why she was marry such a miserable man. Ove soon realizes that if he wanted to
Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s This Earth of Mankind is an allegorical novel describing the growth of protagonist Minke during the pre-awakening of colonized Java. Set in 1898 during the period of imperial Dutch domination over all aspects of Javan life, the novel provides a clear image of the political and social struggles of a subjugated people through the point of view of a maturing youth. Using several of his novel’s major characters as allegorical symbols for the various stages of awareness the citizens of Java have of Indonesia’s awakening as a modern nation, Toer weaves together an image of the rise of an idyllic post-colonial Indonesia with modern views of Enlightenment ideals.
When I interviewed Omaima about her life, I first asked her to describe her the place she lived in when she was young. The way she expressed her memories about the place was interesting. She was happy and excited talking about her best memories in Rod el Farag, a city in Cairo. She remembers this place as the best experienced time in her life. She expressed how these times as she had the best childhood times. Describing her neighborhood, she focused on her home, and how small it was with the amount of people living in it. The house contained ten children living in a very small house, a father, a mother, and a grandfather. The relationship of the family wasn’t contained only inside the house, but around the neighborhood, since the neighborhood
A universal story is one that can be related to and appreciated by any single person on any part of the globe, regardless of age, race, or cultural background. Universal stories usually contains a theme or lesson that is not limited to the time period during which the novel takes place, but can be applied to any time period, because the lesson is ageless. Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth is a novel in which the theme can relate to almost anyone, regardless of circumstance or environment. The events of the story, however, relate to almost no one in the current time, because it is a story which takes place in pre-revolutionary China, during a time when life was completely different than the way it is today. When thinking about the characters, the events, and the entire story of The Good Earth, it seems completely foreign. It is the story of Chinese peasants. They struggle with famine, drought, flood, and locusts. These are hardships that are completely unknown to modern people. The incredible thing about Buck’s novel is that even though it seems that these concepts would be entirely out of the readers grasp, they are reasonable to the reader while reading. Suddenly they become familiar and almost second nature to the reader, because Buck writes it in a simplistic way so that the reader is drawn into this life, and all of the feelings and thoughts of the simple Wang Lung. For this reason, most readers are in fact able to relate to the story, and its universal nature. The themes in this story can be applied throughout time but the modern person cannot.
I was in a complete daze after reading Pearl S. Buck’s remarkable novel, The Good Earth. It was somewhat hard not to stop what I was doing afterwards and try to put myself in the characters’ shoes and visualize everything that happened in the book. I was so taken by the plot that I remember not wanting to put down the book till I knew what happened next in one of the conflicts in the story. Considering my reaction to it when I first got the book and my reaction to it now, you would really think it’s ironic. First of all I wasn’t quite happy when I found out about the reading we had to do and obviously not looking forward to reading having to squeeze it in my hectic after school schedule. I remember when I was at the bookstore and saw how thick of a book it was I thought to myself, “Great...here’s another long boring book.” But after reading it I eventually proved myself wrong and found out it was well worth reading it all the way through the last page. Pearl S. Buck did an outstanding job on the book’s vivid description of the characters, emphasizing the importance of Wang Lung’s land, and its sense of dramatic reality.
The Messenger of the Lord: The Prophetic Ministry of Ellen G. White was written by Herbert Edgar Douglass and published in 1988. Herbert E. Douglass is a Seventh-day Adventist Theologian who wrote commentaries for five books and also serves on the staff that edited, the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary. Douglass’ book is a comprehensive treatment of how Ellen White’s prophetic gift functioned in her life and ministry. This book was written with two purpose in mind: (1) to provide Seventh-day Adventist with a fresh look at the life and witness of Ellen G. White, and (2) to provide the resource material for college and seminary courses on the gift of the prophecy, especially as manifested in the life and ministry of this inspired messenger of God.
Wang Lung even showed ignorance toward his father in the beginning scene. On Wang Lung’s marriage day, he ridiculed his own mother, and was belittling his aged father. But when Wang Lung had kids of his own, he became the older generation. Once his sons were fully grown up, they were accustomed to the life of money and wealth, so there was a disconnect between Wang Lung and his sons. His sons were born into a life where they did not have to work, but Wang Lung had to work his whole life to earn all the land he possessed. This disconnect was seen when Wang Lung’s third son did not want to work on the farm, and wanted to pursue a career in the military. The son did not appreciate how much Wang Lung had sacrificed for him, and he was willing to go after a career where he might end up killed. Also, when the elder son was arranging the marriage of the second oldest son, there was a divide between the two generations. Wang Lung did not receive any additional luxuries during his wedding day, but the elder brother was spending so much money on luxuries for the second oldest son’s wedding day. Also, in the final sequence, when Wang Lung is near his death bed, the two sons are plotting on selling the land. This is a huge sign of disrespect