Wang Luhn

His moral ambiguity is heavily influenced by outside forces in his life that changes his view upon the world. The most excusable action in the eyes of the readers is when he commits a crime because his family is struggling in the southern city. Other citizens stricken by poverty tell Wang Lung that the riches do not belong to the wealthy, but to the poor. This conflicts with his belief that God determines one’s fate and way in life. Wang Lung goes against his morals and commits robbery because of his influence from others and the situation he was thrust into. This action determines Wang Lung’s wealthy future, but also symbolizes overcoming an obstacle, in this case, overcoming his internal conflict with his morals. The audience begins to notice the shift in Wang Lung’s character which will continue to develop negatively as his values are no longer intact.

In the book each of the Poh Poh’s are seen as old and wise but as well as have a deep sense of culture they are the heart of the home. Suk-Lung and Jung-Sum both had a relatively good relationship with their grandmother as they were cared for dearly”Suk-Lung and his illness. The concept of grandmother was seen throughout all three stories demonstrating their importance in Chinese culture as well as the characters lives.

At first Wang Lung and his family were fine, eating enough to keep them alive, but when he becomes so desperate to return home to his old life you see that his values change. From believing stealing wasn't right to stealing to get what he desired. The stolen jewels O-lan had, was the start of his prosperity in wealth. Slowly and slowly the richer Wang Lung gets, the more you see that he stops caring about his values and beliefs. He used to believe in hard work, doing everything on his own, but when his wealth gives him the possibility of getting people to do it for him, he changes, delegating to others what to do. Wang Lung for awhile becomes this whole other person, he doesn't care how much money he spends, he starts spending money buying things for Lotus his prostitute and even buying expensive clothes for himself. People start regarding him as a rich and important man. He forgets that not long ago he was a common person, who barely had enough money to eat and now with the wealth getting to him he starts to despise them. Enjoying the wealth and power, Wang Lung allows himself to buy land from the House of Hwang because he enjoys that it symbolizes wealth and power. After living most of his life unhappy at seventy years of age Wang Lung realizes that he wants to go back

In Pearl S. Buck’s novel, The Good Earth, the protagonist, Wang Lung, starts out as a very poor farmer in China. He marries a slave named O-lan and starts a family with her. Famine soon strikes the town and there is no food to be found anywhere. Wang Lung moves his family South in hopes of finding a job there. Eventually, a group of poor people raid the homes of the rich. Wang Lung and O-lan both join in, getting away with enough gold and valuables to get back to their land in the North. Wang Lung uses this stolen money to buy more land and hire laborers. He quickly becomes one of the richest men in his town. Wang Lung, however, does not know that with great wealth comes great responsibility. His wealth corrupts him and his moral judgements become blurred. Wang

However, their fortune is short-lived when bad omens rise because of Wang Lung’s insolent behavior towards his uncle’s family. Not only is their third child born a daughter, but a drought begins, preventing the land from cultivating and spreading both poverty and starvation through the North.

This book started with Wang Lung introducing himself and how his life is like. He lived with his father mostly because his father was really sick and Wang Lung had to take care of him. His father was a traditional and moral man. He did not approve many things that went on in the house. Later on, he went to the house of the Huang’s and got a slave to be his wife. Her name was O-Lan. O-Lan was a slave and she was treated really terribly most of her life, even when she married Wang Lung. Together they had 5 children: three boys and two girls, each with very different characteristics.

Also as his life goes on, he meets a girl named Lotus and he does things with her, and Wang Lung changes himself for her. In chapter 19, on page 184 Wang Lung buys new clothes and shaves off his hair above his forehead that he was growing out. Awhile later Wang Lung's uncle comes with his family. They find out on page 195 that Wang Lung has a thing going on with Lotus, In the book, Wang Lung’s Uncle’s wife said, “ The thing is complete, The woman who is

“Now if the water had receded...Wang Lung would never have gone again to the great tea shop.”. “[He] might have forgotten the pointed face on the scroll.” (Buck 176) The waters not receding lead Wang to lust, this idleness lead to lust, and his lust lead to trouble at his home. The biggest problem, however, that Wang Lung contends with comes in chapter 13 when they have to live in the south. “Not food enough to feed savage hunger and not cloths enough to cover bone.”. “Wang Lung lived in the foundations of poverty.” (Buck 113). This was his biggest challenge because no food, no clothes, and horrible poverty as he had not previously known. In conclusion Wang Lung has faced dire hardships, but none compare to his time in the

“Now Wang Lung had chosen a good place in his fields under a date tree upon a hill to set the graves, and Ching had the graves dug and ready and a wall of earth made about the graves, and there was space within the walls for the body of Wang Lung and for each of his sons and their wives, and there was space for sons' sons, also. This land Wang Lung did not begrudge, even though it was high land and good for wheat, because it was a sign of the establishment of his family upon their own land. Dead and alive they would rest upon their own land” (267). Again the novel compares the earth to human life. Very much like the seasons the lives of humans are always cyclical. After the death of O-Lan and Ching there will be another set of people in Wang Lung’s family and this will go on for generations much like the seasons of the

The death of woman Wang is written by Jonathan D. Spence, a famous scholar of East Asian studies. This book is focus on the early days of Qing dynasty, when Qing dynasty had only been established for about 20 years, the government, even though the whole society, are in their infancies. The author discusses issues of a small county in northeastern China ---T’an-ch’eng, which is in the province of Shantung. The genre of this book is difficult to be identified; it consists of a component of fiction, since the author describes a large number of stories; as well as a component of historical reconstruction, since the author introduces the county’s environment and events according to reliable

Wang Lung and O-lan had a very close connection to their land. He builds this connection to earth of how the earth has done everything for him. And once his life is over he will be part of the earth and he will provide for the next generation.

His parents were very kind to him. Some people would say they were too kind to Wang. When Wang was seven, he loved to steal, but his parents didn’t care. By the time he was ten, he was stealing from the palace. All his parents would say was “Good job” or “Nice”. They didn’t really care about what he did. Wang wanted to make his parents proud.

Wang Lung says that to his eldest son, to explain to him that the land is extreamily imperative, not to mention that if it wasn’t for the land he would still be the son of a simple peasant. One of the biggest themes in Pearl’s Buck novel is the man’s relationship to the earth, and the power that land has over men. Wang Lung as a farmer had a intimate relationship with the land, considering that he used to produce his own harvests through his own xtough labor, and that was the way he could afford to take care of his family. While the Hwang Family didn’t care much about the land, they hired their own labor and wasted money easily. Pearl uses Wang Lung and his family to verify the traditional Chinese Cultures from the early twentieth century, which were critical times for China’s political fate.

Wang Lung himself was not exempt from these same sins as seen in his sons, however. Throughout his life he had two constant forces working within him, not unlike the traditional concept of yin and yang. Yin and yang is believed to be in everything and is the essence of all naturally occurring things. They are opposite but cannot exist without each other, so the struggle is to find the perfect balance. Like with Wang Lung, when he only has the land and his earthen house but no wealth or the misfortune of a drought, he suffers. He cannot feed his family and cannot live. But when there is too much

Wang Lung is specific is not able to do anything with the thought that O-lan will die, and he has finally understood the importance of O-lan. Not only that he is also able to understand the place that O-ln had in his life, because he got his land because of her, he became rich because of her, but now that money won’t be able to save her life. That thought is making him feel guilty everyday. Also when O-lan continuously told that “she was not pretty” because her feet were not bounded, made him feel more guilty. The house is a mess without O-lan because no one is able to cook the food correctly, into the fish, the house chores, nothing, not even when they hire a slave it is not the same when she was there. Even Wang Lung told that the house without her is like a bunch of beasts under the same