The Good Earth Essay, Research Paper

I was in a complete shock after reading Pearl S. Buck & # 8217 ; s singular novel,

The Good Earth. It was slightly difficult non to halt what I was making

afterwards and seek to set myself in the characters & # 8217 ; places and visualise

everything that happened in the book. I was so taken by the secret plan that I

retrieve non desiring to set down the book boulder clay I knew what happened following

in one of the struggles in the narrative. Sing my reaction to it when I foremost

got the book and my reaction to it now, you would truly believe it & # 8217 ; s dry.

First of all I wasn & # 8217 ; t rather happy when I found out about the reading we had

to make and evidently non looking frontward to reading holding to squash it in

my feverish after school agenda. I remember when I was at the bookshop

and saw how midst of a book it was I thought to myself, & # 8220 ; Great & # 8230 ; here & # 8217 ; s

another long drilling book. & # 8221 ; But after reading it I finally proved myself

incorrect and found out it was good deserving reading it all the manner through the

last page. Pearl S. Buck did an outstanding occupation on the book & # 8217 ; s vivid

description of the characters, stressing the importance of Wang Lung & # 8217 ; s

land, and its sense of dramatic world.

The manner the characters are described in the book you can truly

image in your head who they are. It & # 8217 ; s really of import to be able to visualise

them because it helps you get to cognize them better as characters and have a

better apprehension of the book. One vivid description is O-lan & # 8217 ; s, Wang

Lung & # 8217 ; s married woman. & # 8220 ; Wang Lung turned to the adult female and looked at her for the

first clip. She had a square, honorable face, a short, wide olfactory organ with big

black anterior nariss, and her oral cavity was broad as a cut in her face. Her eyes were

little and of a dull black colour, and were filled with some unhappiness that was

non clearly expressed. It was a face that seemed habitually soundless and

unspeaking, as though it could non talk if it would. & # 8221 ; ( p.19 ) As I was

reading this I got the feeling that O-lan would be a faithful married woman to

Wang Lung and it turned out I was right. The fact that she wasn & # 8217 ; t beautiful

didn & # 8217 ; t affair at all. She served her household good. Another meaningful

description is Lotus & # 8217 ; , Wang Lung & # 8217 ; s first kept woman, which has an sarcasm to it if

you compare it to O-lan & # 8217 ; s. & # 8220 ; If one had told him there were little custodies like

these he would non hold believed it, hands so little and castanetss so all right and

fingers so pointed with long nails stained the colour of Nelumbo nucifera buds, deep and

rose-colored. And if one had told him that there could be pess like these, small pess

push into pink satin shoes no longer than a adult male & # 8217 ; s in-between finger, and

singing childishly over the bed & # 8217 ; s edge & # 8211 ; if anyone had told him he would

non hold believed it. & # 8221 ; ( p.181 ) This shows how delicate Lotus is physically

and you would likely believe she is nice and sort, but subsequently on in the

book you would happen out that her physical description doesn & # 8217 ; t fit her

personality at all. She is manipulative and greedy. She besides complains all the

clip. Comparing her to O-lan shows you that it & # 8217 ; s non beauty that counts but

it & # 8217 ; s what on the interior that matters to be able to cognize a good individual.

The importance of Wang lung & # 8217 ; s land slightly intrigued me. It & # 8217 ; s

hard to conceive of such love a adult male like Wang Lung has for his land. But this

same land was the 1 that fed them and made them rich. & # 8220 ; And his married woman, who

had been a

slave in the kitchens of that proud household, would be married woman to a

adult male who owned a piece of land that for coevalss had made the House of

Hwang great. & # 8221 ; ( p.53 ) This is an of import turning point in Wang Lung & # 8217 ; s life

because he eventually came with a end which helped him endeavor for a better

hereafter for him and his household. & # 8220 ; And once more the slow smiling spread over her

face, the smiling that ne’er lightened the obtuseness of her narrow black eyes,

and after a long clip she said, & # 8220 ; Last twelvemonth this clip I was slave in that

house. & # 8221 ; & # 8221 ; ( p.53 ) I was happy for O-lan at that minute because I knew that

her life would acquire a small better one time things worked out with the land they

would purchase. The land foreshadows their good luck which was non difficult to

predict. Another minute that shows Wang Lung & # 8217 ; s love for his land is when

they were hungering and he still wouldn & # 8217 ; t sell the land. & # 8220 ; They can non take the

land from me. The labour of my organic structure and the fruit of the Fieldss I have put into

that which can non be taken off. If I had the Ag, they would hold taken

it. If I had bought with the Ag to hive away it, they would hold taken it all. I

hold the land still, and it is mine. & # 8221 ; ( p.75 ) This shows his wisdom and

finding because he knows that the land would someday salvage them

from this calamity. Even at the terminal when Wang Lung was old and weak he

wouldn & # 8217 ; t allow his boies sell the land. & # 8220 ; No & # 8211 ; no & # 8211 ; we will ne’er sell the land & # 8211 ; It is

the terminal of the household & # 8211 ; when they begin to sell the land. Out of the land we

came and into it we must travel & # 8211 ; and if you will keep your land you can populate & # 8211 ; no

one can rob you of land. If you sell the land, it is the end. & # 8221 ; ( p.360 ) On this

transition Wang Lung tries to state his boies that the land is portion of their household

and it shows the strong household ties Wang Lung wants his household to hold

because he knows in his bosom that the land is everything that will adhere their

household together.

The book & # 8217 ; s sense of world is another good portion of the novel. It & # 8217 ; s

fundamentally about poorness and how they coped with it. Wang Lung and his

household were hungering for a piece. & # 8220 ; If one had asked Wang Lung, & # 8220 ; And how

are you fed through the fall? & # 8221 ; he would hold answered, & # 8221 ; I do non

cognize & # 8211 ; a small nutrient here and there. & # 8221 ; ( p.71 ) This peculiar transition from the

book is slightly huffy because we know that it truly happens in existent life

and it made me inquire how I would of all time last if I were in that state of affairs.

& # 8220 ; When he would hold put the hazelnut off for fuel, his married woman spoke out.

& # 8220 ; No & # 8211 ; make non blow them in firing. I remember when I was a kid in

Shantung when the old ages like this came, even the hazelnut we ground and ate. It

is better than grass. & # 8221 ; ( p.70-71 ) After reading this I realized how serious the

state of affairs was for them. I felt sorry and shocked at the same clip. At one

clip they had to kill their ox merely because they had nil else to eat. They

even ate grass and even that didn & # 8217 ; t last long. I think the adversity brings the

& # 8220 ; spice & # 8221 ; to the novel because it makes us chew over about what they would make

to acquire out of that state of affairs.

If person asked me for an interesting book that wouldn & # 8217 ; t tire

them, I woud decidedly recommed this one. I learned many things by

reading it. It gave me a better apprehension of Chinese life and the

intriguing inside informations kept me reading. This book made a permanent feeling

and I would ne’er bury it.