Throughout The Good Earth, by Pearl Buck, the land brings forth nourishing food and wealth as well as comfort to those who work it. Those who are not close with the land suffer immensely and are corrupted by their distance from the land. Distance from their land is usually because of money, which is overriding corrupting force. The corruption of money causes people to leave their land. This in turn causes further corruption because the nourishing land is not able to save the people from their obsession with money. Wang Lung starts off poor, but happy. While he is not satisfied with his place in life, especially compared to the seemingly mighty and rich House of Hwang, Wang Lung is pleased to have a wife, Olan. Olan helps him in the fields, in addition to all of her housework, and she bears him sons. With her help, Wang Lung becomes successful and rich. His displeasure in his place in life is evident with Olan; while he is pleased to have her as his wife, he is upset that he cannot afford to have a wife with bound feet. Although he is disappointed in Olan’s appearance, it does not truly affect him until he becomes rich, at which point he decides that she is too ugly and he must take another wife, against his father’s wishes. Wang Lung is happy when he works the land. The land brings him peace and keeps him sane through trying times. Wang Lung is happy while he is close with the land. He forgets all of his cares and troubles in the world while he works the land. The act of farming becomes therapeutic for Wang Lung, to the point that if insomnia sets in, he simply goes to the fields and works. As Wang Lung gains his wealth, through hard work of the land, he becomes increasingly dissatisfied. Whereas before Wang Lung is happy to h... ... middle of paper ... ...nds peace and comfort and is able to die easily. Wang Lung sons constantly bicker about money. They are corrupted by wealth; they care about nothing but their money and physical possessions. They care so much about money that they sell all of Wang Lung’s land after his death. Even though the land can still make more money for them and it is what brought them out of poverty and into a high status in life, they want nothing to do with the land. The corrupt sons live in the corruption of the city and sell the nourishing land. On a basic level the land nourishes their body, but on a more complex level the land nourished Wang Lung’s soul and brought him comfort as well as providing for his needs. Like the Hwang house, the Wang house will fall because it sold its land. No matter what hard times they went through, there is still the land, and no one could steal the land.
Liang's main interests consist of movies, stories, tap-dancing, and imitating Shirley Temple. Wong-Suk buys her expensive, beautiful ribbon one day for her second hand tap shoes and Poh-Poh helps her tie them into fancy flowers. -- This is where we learn a bunch about Poh-Poh's childhood. She was born in China and so it was already too bad that she had be born a girl child. But further more she was sort of disfigured. Her forehead was sloppy and mis-shapen and immediately everyone told her mother she was the ugliest baby ever. Her mother sold her to a wealthy family; where she was a servant. The concubine would beat her and their other servants with a rod-- as if they were oxen. Poh-Poh had to learn to do things quickly and flawlessly or she would be beaten. Her fingers would bleed because she was practicing tying these intricet(abc?) patterns. She of course grew out of her 'deformity' and was quite a pretty lady.
From the beginning of Wang Lung’s marriage to O-lan, she saved him time, money, and effort without complaint. She offered wisdom when asked and was smart in the ways of the world. During the famine, when the family went south in search of food, O-lan taught her children how to beg for food, “dug the small green weeds, dandelions, and shepherds purse that thrust up feeble new leaves”(p. 128). She raised her children prudently. She knew how to bind her daughter’s feet, and she gave them a better childhood than she had had. O-lan knew that the land was the only consistent thing in her life, so she willingly helped Wang Lung as he bought more and more land. O-lan knew her place in the family was as a wife and mother. As a wife, she fe...
“It was not easy to live in Shanghai” (Anyi 137). This line, echoed throughout Wang Anyi 's short piece “The Destination” is the glowing heartbeat of the story. A refrain filled with both longing and sadness, it hints at the many struggles faced by thousands upon thousands trying to get by in the city of Shanghai. One of these lost souls, the protagonist, Chen Xin, was one of the many youths taken from his family and sent to live the in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Ten years after the fact, Chen Xin views the repercussions of the Cultural Revolution internally and externally as he processes the changes that both he, and his hometown have over-gone in the past ten years. Devastatingly, he comes to the conclusion that there is no going back to the time of his childhood, and his fond memories of Shanghai exist solely in memory. This is in large part is due to the changes brought on by the Cultural Revolution. These effects of the Cultural Revolution are a central theme to the story; with repercussions seen on a cultural level, as well as a personal one.
The contrast Huong provides between the reality of Hang’s impoverished life and the beauty of the scenery that she experiences, emphasise the powerful effect the landscape has on her. When describing the first snowfall she ever observed, Hang noticed that the snowflakes “flood[ed] the earth with their icy whiteness,” this observation “pierc[ing her] soul like sorrow.” The scenery had such a moving effect on Hang, perhaps because she longed for the familiar sight of a Vietnamese landscape. Then recalling a time when her mother took her to a beach, the exquisiteness of the scene at dawn was equally emotionally poignant to Hang, not because she wished for a recognisable sight, but because it was such an extreme difference from the slum in Hanoi where she grew up. The sensory details of her childhood remain with Hang even years later, acting as a reminder of her humble beginnings even as she advances in life. The stench of “rancid urine” that permeated the walls of the slum and the hut where she and her mother lived, with its persistently leaky roof “patched together out of…rusty sheet metal” ; build a vivid picture of poverty. To then be exposed to the breathtaking vista of a natural landscape, having experienced the scarceness of beauty in the slums that is her home, causes distress in Hang.
The Death of Woman Wang, by Jonathan Spence is an educational historical novel of northeastern China during the seventeenth century. The author's focus was to enlighten a reader on the Chinese people, culture, and traditions. Spence's use of the provoking stories of the Chinese county T'an-ch'eng, in the province of Shantung, brings the reader directly into the course of Chinese history. The use of the sources available to Spence, such as the Local History of T'an-ch'eng, the scholar-official Huang Liu-hung's handbook and stories of the writer P'u Sung-Ling convey the reader directly into the lives of poor farmers, their workers and wives. The intriguing structure of The Death of Woman Wang consists on observing these people working on the land, their family structure, and their local conflicts.
...h he forgot it for many months together, when spring came each year he must go out on to the land." (Chapter 34, pg. 257) Wang Lung was not aware of his son's interest in selling the land though, and thus died contently. He wished he had done things differently with O-lan and probably would have been happier if he was still a pheasant but we all wish there were things we could have done differently. To Wang Lung the earth was good. He never saw the ending picture and how his faith in the earth wouldn't carry on because of his money hungry sons, but his love for the land ended with him, and peace in his heart.
This novel tells the story of Wang Lung. He is a man who rises from being a poor farmer to a very wealthy man because of his faith in the good earth. In the beginning of the story Wang Lung tries to see as little water as possible because he feels safest with his land under his feet. His family is very poor so he must feed his father corn gruel and tea.
O-lan was obviously a very bold and important woman in this novel yet never knew it. She would do what she was raised to do and try her best to make her husband happy. Through all her marriage, she helped Wang Lung to be one of the wealthiest men in his city. While O-lan endured many difficulties, she continued with her duties as wife through thick and thin. Whether it was her begging on the streets for food and money, or putting up with Lotus, her husband's concubine, O-lan remained a strong woman with good qualities until the day she died. While she usually had little to say, O-lan's impact on the Lung family is one that wont be forgotton. She accomplished all of her goals in life and fulfilled her marital duty in making Wang Lung very happy. Even after all this, O-lan still was a very modest woman.
This part is comprised of seven chapters, each about a different aspect of living in the country from what to do in your free time to its influence in American culture. In the first chapter titled “Country” Leopold describes the difference between “land” and “country”. Leopold states that land is, “where corn, gullies, and mortgages grow” while country knows “no mortgages, no alphabet agencies, no tobacco road”. According to Leopold “poor land may be rich country, and vice versa”. What Leopold means by land is the product that people value not based on by beauty but by location or natural resources, to Leopold country is more than location near the city or being able to farm but is about natural beauty and is valued by quality not by quantity, like land is.
During this time he also started going to the tea shops often, and he ended up buying Lotus. Since Wang Lung was so rich he himself did not need to go out and work on the land as much, and that is when the relationship weakened. Wang Lung started to grow old and he moved his family into the Great House of Hwang. At this point both of his sons were great scholars and did not wish to work on the land, so Wang Lung had saved his youngest son for that job. A couple years later, his youngest son came up to him and said that he did not want to work on the land. That is when Wang Lung realized that none of his children would work on his land, and he was very upset. After a while, Wang Lung had become very old and his time of death was near. He often had slaves take him up to his land, and that is where he spent his final days. One day he heard his sons talking of selling the land, and he was heartbroken for his land was everything to him. That is when his relationship with the land was strongest, because he knew he was going to lose
Owning land in China during the 1920’s was the symbol of someone’s wealth. Most of the Chinese peasants during this time were poor tenant farmers who worked for rich land owners. However, there were also some independent farmers who grew their own food for their families. The main character in the book, The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, was an independent farmer. His name was Wang Lung and he was a hard working farmer who made his living off his land. Wang was a very old fashioned man who lived off the crops he grew on his land. As Wang went through good and bad times in his life his values were ever-changing. Wang went from being an old fashioned farmer, to a thief, and then to a wealthy and conceited land owner. As Wang
After working as a local government official for nearly 20 years, Wang concluded that the unlimited annexation of land weakened the economy. In 1058 Wang Anshi traveled to the capital, Kaifeng, from his home province of Jiangxi to present what would be his most famous memorial to the Emperor Renzong (1023-1064)(For more information please check 宋仁宗 ). Wang’s “Ten Thousand Word Memorial” outlines his general political philosophy while giving a brief preview of the...
The author demonstrates how one can lose sight in life and become corrupt through focusing only on wealth, supremacy and materialistic possessions
Huong uses a circular writing style to portray the characterization of Hang. As the novel flows from Hang’s past memories to the present, her feelings are paralleled with the different events. This allows the reader to see Hang’s feelings towards her current situation. Because the reader is exposed to Hang’s feelings, her journey to find her self-purpose is
Wang Lung’s family is the source of his love, support, and drive to accomplish his dreams. Wang Lung’s opulence is reached with the help and support of Olan. Olan is hardworking and efficient, obedient to her husband’s every command, and never squanders money, for she “through all these years had followed him faithfully as a dog, and . . . when he was poor and labored in the fields himself she left her bed even after a child was born and came to help him in the harvest fields” (Buck 181). And, to help Wang Lung accumulate up wealth, she willingly gives up her precious bag of jewels to buy land with, mends and makes the family’s clothes instead of buying them, and repairs their home with her own hands and resources rather than hiring other people to do it. Additionally, Olan bears Wang Lung sons to continue his bloodline, never complains about having too much work, and never requests for a servant. Olan is an ideal and perfect wife, and without her resourcefulness and multitude of skills, Wang Lung is never able to end up with an expanding farming empire. The Wang family also respects their elders, and they treat them as superiors, for “‘in the Sacred Edicts it is commanded that a man is never to correct an elder’” (Buck 66). When the Wang family is starving, Wang Lung gives all the food they have to spare to his father so that “none could say in the hour of death he had forgotten his father” (Buck 82). And, even though Wang Lung despises his lethargic uncle, he still treats them courteously and allows his family to live in his house, because he knows it’s a “shame to a man when he has enough to spare to drive his own father’s brother and son from the house” (Buck 203). Furthermore, Wang Lung is a decent father, and exceptionally affectionate towards his innocent oldest daughter with the special, heartwarming smile. Even though