his house when there was a drought. This expresses how he starts to get the idea of becoming rich. “It was this word "money" which suddenly brought to Wang Lung's mind a piercing clarity. Money! Aye, and he needed that! And again, it came to him clearly, as a voice speaking, "Money—the child saved—the land!"(136-137). Wung Lung was living as a poor farmer with barely any money and then they had to move, and they had started becoming rich.
III. At the exposition of the novel Wang Lung is deferential, with the farm he has and marrying a slave. Over time his pride increases with his wealth. He is passionate and protective of his land. Wang is always outside taking care of his land. However, when his land becomes flooded and he is wealthy
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Wang also has a goal set to become wealthy. Throughout the novel Wang’s desire for the girl lotus and becoming wealthy. Also, Wang is the protagonist of The Good Earth, he begins his life as an impoverished farmer and marris O-lan who is a slave owned by the Hwang. He is increasingly drawn to the Hwang lifestyle of how wealthy they are. Sometimes he is brave and pragmatic generally caring and gentle. His one unwavering characteristic is his love of and appreciation for the land. To better demonstrate “Then Wang Lung turned to the women and looked at her for the first time. She had a square, honest face, a short, broad nose with large black nostrils, and her mouth was wide as a gash in her face” (18). This expresses how he is passionate about the women. “’Now I am truly tempted to sell the little slave and go north to the land’” (128). Wang lung at one point was about to sell his daughter into slavery but eventually didn’t. Wung lang is a Dynamic character because we see how he changes through the book. He goes through a change through the novel. At the exposition of the story he is a peasant farmer that takes care of his farm. Because he is poor he can’t imagine desiring more for himself than he needs. He
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...
Most critiques of The Good Earth are preoccupied with the authentic quality of the novel, and while the Western critiques praise it as a novel based on facts, the Chinese hold a different view. Kang Younghill, a Chinese man, in reference to the image Pearl Buck created of China, stated that "it is discouraging to find that the novel works toward confusion, not clarification" (Kang 368). This statement illuminates Kang's feelings that the details, which Buck had presented as factual in the novel, were contrary to the actual life of the Chinese. Yet researches have shown that Buck was rightly informed and presented her information correctly. One detail that she paid special attention to was the family structure within the rural Chinese family, which she presented in the form of the Wang Lung household. The family structure demonstrated by Buck is not restricted to the Wang Lung family, but was a part of every rural Chinese home in the early 1900s. Every member's experiences within the family structure are determined by the role and expectations placed on them by the society, and Buck was careful to include these experiences in Wang Lung's family.
When his wife, O-lan sees this drastic change, she is horrified and rebukes her husband, telling him he “cut off his life”. O-lan’s criticism leaves Wang Lung regretful about his decision to cut his hair. Buck emphasizes the mutation of the symbol of hair in this passage, as Wang Lung’s hair no longer represents his loyalty to tradition, but rather his yearning to be modernized. O-lan emphasizes Wang Lung’s conversion to modernism when she exclaims that he “cut off his life”, which indicates that Wang Lung is ditching his traditional lifestyle by modernizing his hair. While Wang Lung does assimilate more to modern culture, he does experience guilt, realizing that he is being controlled by Lotus. Wang Lung’s regret proves that while his hair represents mostly modernism, it also of a bit of traditionalism. Therefore, Buck utilizes hair to highlight Wang Lung’s shift in
...ok, p. 251). Brook also uses characters from various stories in Li Le’s commonplace book, Miscellaneous Notes on Things Seen and Heard to contrast the wistful remembrances of Zhang Tao and Gu Yanwu (Brook, p. 254). What Brook determines from Li Le’s account is crucial, “…However thoroughly commerce had replaced paternalism and deference with wage relationship, or however well some individuals managed to step over social barriers and move up the social ladder…the class system of overlordship and deference that held the Chinese world together at the beginning of the Ming was still there at the end” (Brook, p. 260). This ultimately produces Brook’s analysis, “Without commercial networks, many gentry would not have survived the dynastic transition” (Brook, p. 262). This conclusion reveals the ultimate disparity between the ideology of the Ming gentry and the reality.
...ate her experiences and values into the novel while writing it, exemplifying the characteristics of curiosity, independence and rebelliousness that she feels are important in the conformist society of China. Only through curiosity can people learn of the political oppression so craftily utilized by the government. The Chinese must show independence to stand out from the average citizen “being brainwashed” (Wang, Personal Interview) by nationalistic pride. These individuals must be rebellious, in order to join the revolution desperately needed to break through the masquerade the Chinese dictatorship hides behind; a revolution to fight for freedom and democracy. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson`s ideals, being yourself means not conforming to a world filled with dictators, oppression and lies. These are the people who have achieved the greatest accomplishment.
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.
Feng Meng-long’s story, “Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger,” authentically represents how money is valued between Du Tenth and Li Jia. The classic story brings forth how tradition and family values are upheld in the highest honor. The young master Li Jia, who is the son of a prominent local official, embarks on a journey to the Ming capitol of Nanjing with the intention of taking exams. During his travels he meets the beautiful courtesan named Du Tenth who is bound to her madam in a house of ill fame in what is known as the pleasure district. Li Jia, being an immature and unmotivated by any type of responsibility, finds himself splurging all of his travel funds on pleasures with the beautiful Du Tenth. The couple find themselves to have fallen in love with one other. Du Tenth proves to be a very smart and loyal character. She cleverly devises a plan to escape her bind to her madam and leave to be with her love. When the couple make their departure, they go on their journey to their new life together as husband and wife. Du Tenth continues to prove how smart she is by showing time and time again to Li Jia that she was very prepared for their future. The story tragically ends when the gullible Li Jia is tricked by the manipulating Sun Fu to trade his love, Du Tenth, for a thousand pieces of white silver.
Throughout The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, Wang Lung accumulates wealth and becomes rich and successful. Although this seems positive, it is not completely the case. Wang Lung showed that good fortune comes at a price. Wealth can bring families apart.
The protagonist of the story is Jing-mei. She is a flat character who turns out to be dynamic. Throughout her life, she has been very stubborn about accepting her identity. An example of this is when she explains, "I was 15 and had a vigorously denied that I had any Chinese whatsoever under my skin" (857). She shows her dynamic characteristic at the end of the story when she finally does accept her heritage.
Xuanzang had a hard childhood in China, which shaped him into the man he became. Both his mother and father died, leaving him orphaned with
While alienation from the land is associated with decadence and corruption, O-lan shows us that the farther we get from the Earth, the farther we get from the center. For example, Wang Lung has an intimate relationship with the Earth because he produces his harvest through his own labor. In contrast,the local Hwang family is estranged from the Earth because their wealth and harvests are produced by hired labor. It suggests Wang Lung reverence for nature is responsible for his inner goodness. This is also seen through a series of events such as Wang Lung’s rags to riches, rural to city, and routine to the unexpected
However, when returning to the land Wang Lung’s character changes and ironically becomes someone he originally was not (Santosa 131). Wang Lung questions his wife’s beauty, becomes materialistic and possessive over his lands (Santosa 134). Spencer states when he “embraces wealth and materialism he loses his moral bearings” (129). From being perceived as a poor farmer, Wang Lung is “literally able to boss his former boss” (Spencer 129). The land has become his own meaning of wealth and negatively impacts his well-being (Santosa
Most people in the book are somehow influenced by the feudal rules. Although from the earliest age of China, people were living under the feudal society, that kind of feudal thoughts are actually aggravated during Min and Qing Dynasty. The book criticizes the feudal system through the two main characters, Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu. Since Baoyu is the grandson of the most important person at Jia’s family, who in charge of Jia’s family, Baoyu was born with a high expectation. He grows up under the care of a group of naive maid, which has influenced him being more wild and free.
Paul A. Doyle, a literary critic, remarks that Buck's stories were improbable and simplistic (Chauhan, 1994, 120). He later adds: "In structure, The Good Earth uses a chronological form which proceeds at a fairly regular pace. Buck's stories take the epic rather than dramatic form, that is to say, they are chronological narratives of a piece of life, seen from one point of view, straightforward, without devices; they have no complex plots, formed of many strands skillfully twisted, but belong to the single-strand type, with the family, however, rather than the individual as a unit (Buck 35). As Wang Lung and his father begin this family strand, one by one characters are introduced from Wang's viewpoint. In regards to women in his society, he objectively portrays them for what they are worth. In spite of his smooth surface, the novel shows a complicated feminism. On the one hand, the woman's situation is clearly, almost gruesomely, presented: Chinese village society is patriarchal, oppressive, and stultifying to women (Hayford, 1994, 25). The clearest illustration of this occurs through O-lan, the wife of Wang Lung.