In the course of everyone's life, ups and downs inevitably occurs. In Pearl S. Buck’s novel, The Good Earth, we observe as Wang Lung’s life rises up and becomes a wealthy and humble man. Wang Lung is a poor orphan farmer and he works his way up to becoming a wealthy, humble, and successful older man. This novel provides scenes that represents the meaning and tragedy of life. A devastating occurrence in The Good Earth is when Olan makes a final decision to kill her newborn daughter immediately after the birth. I have come to a conclusion that Olan decides to choke her daughter to death because Wang Lung and Olan could not afford to feed another mouth during this time of famine. “Male or female, it mattered nothing to him now- there was only another mouth coming which must be fed.”(86) In the novel, Wang Lung ponders about what would he would end up doing to feed this child, not …show more content…
As tragic as this event is, it happens to everyone and it is something each and every person has to cope with. On the other hand, an event more on the merrier side in this novel is the birth of Wang Lung and Olan’s first child, who happens to be a baby boy. This is a significant event that represents the thrill and ecstasy a child brings along to the parents life. “He went up and for the moment there were no words in his mouth.” (39) All of this excitement and delight causes Wang Lung to be speechless. “His heart crowded up into his breast and he leaned over the child to look at
Shen Fu was a Chinese writer and art dealer who lived during the Qing Dynasty. He had a very strong love for his wife Chen Yun and she is the inspiration for his book “Six Records of a Floating Life”, which vividly describes their life and love together. Shen Fu discusses the happiness that he found in marriage to his cousin Yun, in his first chapter, “Joys of the Wedding Chamber”. He then goes into detail, and is even reminiscent, about enjoying the little things and his experiences with them in the second part of his book, “Pleasure of Leisure”. Next Shen Fu talks about the adversities that he and Yun have to experience, in their sometimes-trying
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.
From that first day of kindergarten fraught with mothers scraping their loving sons and daughters from the safety of their legs, to those tearful partings between lovers, siblings, and friends as careers, family, and extenuating circumstances fling you two on opposite ends of the state, the country, or the globe, separation is an opportunity at growth often masked with considerable pain and hardship. In Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, the Narrator must face a great number of conflicts, from alienation to avarice; the numerous trials and tribulations he faces are troubles difficult to face alone, but chief among them is a conflict he must fight alone: dependency. In this passage, the Narrator must face the mutilated mountain ridge torn apart by recent storms with Luo, whose daily journey to the Little Seamstress’ village has grabbed his attention. Soon we realize there’s more to this journey than Luo’s supposedly excessive fear of heights and come to see that their camaraderie is a crutch the Narrator depends on. Through his experience on that ridge, his attempt at separation and autonomy reveals itself to be no more than a boomerang careening away from dependency on Luo and looping back again.
“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
The historical classic, “The Good Earth”, revolves around the life of Wang Lung, introducing the average Chinese farmer on his wedding day to the slave O-lan. Together, the newly married couple care for Wang Lung’s father and farm the land, prospering from the fruits of their labor. Their early life continues to bring great fortune when they are able to purchase land from the House of Hwang, who O-lan served, and when their first two children are born sons.
Even though “The Good Earth” and Things Fall Apart” are set in different cultures and at different periods of time, both books have many similarities with difference being caused mostly by the main character’s beliefs and personality. We will start off looking at the similarities. In the beginning of both books we see the protagonist goals which is basically to achieve greater wealth (especially for Okonkwo). Wang Lung is starting to accumulate land from the House of Hwang which in return gives him more land to farm on. He buys land because he sees it as the most important object in his life. Okonkwo is also trying to get more land and crops to increase his status in clan. As you can see everything is going well for the two, but then disaster struck for them. China has a drought which destroyed harvesting crops for farmers. Unfortunately farming is Wang Lung’s source of income. He also gets raided by his uncle and loses a good portion of property, because he refused to give up his land. Wang
Despite the multiple decisions that Wang Lung chooses to make, the reader still observes that Wang Lung is a human. This makes it possible to understand Wang Lung’s faults are just him being humanly imperfect. Even if Wang Lung had generated more sound resolutions, perfection would still be unattainable by him. A quote from Liza M. Wiemer states, “For whatever it’s worth, I believe we’re born imperfect, and perfection, whatever that may be, is unattainable by us mere humans.” Wang Lung is comparable to all other mere humans in the idea that no one is perfect and all people make mistakes.
“The Good Earth” book describes the life of a Chinese farmer, Wang Lung, and the struggles he goes through during his life. In the beginning of the book, he marries a young slave named Olan. She is a devoted, selfless, hardworking wife. In my mind, she is the most admirable character in the novel.
All the land was dry and Wang Lung could only rely on 1 piece of land. O-lan’s milk “dried up” and Wang Lung had to sell all of his grain right away, but he was still determined. Then came a hug drought with everyone fighting to survive. Then came a day when Wang Lung’s uncle came to ask for food, but was sent empty handed since Wang Lung couldn’t spare any food. After this his uncle “turned against him” and told all of the villagers that Wang Lung had lots of food, but was keeping it to himself.
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
Pearl S. Buck’s character, Wang Lung, in her novel, The Good Earth, is one who acts and thinks immorally. His morally ambiguous nature is evident through many incidents involving himself and his family, which mirrors the theme of complicated situations brees irrationality and immoral decisions.these desperate and newly found situations in Twentieth Century China allows the audience to easily sympathize with Wang Lung when in current society, many of his thoughts and actions would create an immense hatred for his complex
Olan is introduced into the novel when Wang Lung purchases her to become his wife. Olan takes care of Wang Lung and his father. She prepares food for them and does the chores around the house that need to be done. It is obviously shown that “day after day she did one thing after another,
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
Both worked hard and bought a great amount of land so they could increase their fortune. To manage all that wealth Wang Lung had to be smart and never forget about his traditional values. Wang Lung was held in his wants and desires as he wasted all his family’s savings to buy more land. By this time in the novel Wang Lung was being a terrible example for his kids. He would make terrible decisions economically speaking, which could lead to very complex and bad situations. Speaking about bad situations the famine in the ancient china begun. "Hunger makes thief of any man." ( Page. 122) The quote above makes it clear that becoming a wealthy man didn’t change Wang Lung completely; he still obtained very important values. With those traditional values in mind he could understand that during the famine it was hard to survive and this could lead to various
Social standards and beliefs has always been a weakness of humanity. It all differ, depending on the country or cultural background that they were brought up in. In Funny Boy, Arjie faces a lot of complications living up to his father’s standards and beliefs. During his time growing up, his father have always deemed him to be “funny” or peculiar. This created an invisible gap between them that Arjie could not seem to grasp.