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The Good Earth: Wang Lung's Character - Online Term Paper

The Good Earth: Wang Lung's Character



In the critically acclaimed novel The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck depicts a humble farmer and his obedient wife O-lan. The Nobel Prize winning classic, set in late eighteenth century China, begins with Wang Lung going to the "Great House of Hwang"(49) to collect the wife that was betrothed to him by his father. Wang Lung lived with his father, wife, and five children, one of whom is mentally retarded. Although Wang Lung supplied all the physical needs for his family and upheld all the family traditions, he showed a strong insensitivity through his extra marital affairs. The story continues to portray the trials and tribulations of their life in a time when a persons livelihood came from ...

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to be no more then slaves. In the early chapters of the novel when Wang Lung was poor, he gave O-lan four silver pieces so she may return to the House of Hwang in grand style. He also offered to pay five thousand silver pieces for her recovery after he discovered she had a "fire in her vitals"(170). He then spent the rest of her days by her death bed and bought her the best quality coffin. Furthermore, Wang Lung had a special relationship with his first daughter, Poor Fool, his mentally retarded offspring. Poor Fool did not speak and did nothing more then twiddle a piece of cloth in the sun. Although Wang Lung had servants and slaves, he personally took care of his daughter after O-lan died. He also yelled at his love Lotus when she called Poor Fool an idiot: Now I will not hear my children cursed, no and not by anyone...For he was most angry of all that Lotus dared to curse this child of his and call her idiot, and a load of fresh pain for the girl fell upon his heart, ...

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beauty and highlighted her extremely large features:
He saw for the first time that her hair was rough
and brown and unoiled that her face was flat and
coarse-skinned, and her features too large altogether
and without any sort of beauty or light. Her
eyebrows were scattered and her hairs too few, and
her lips too wide and her hands and feet were large
and spreading...I would have my wife look less
like a hind. And those feet of yours-.(169, 170)
This continuous battery of insults convinced O-lan that they lost the love they once shared. Furthermore, Wang Lung confiscated the two pearls O-lan saved from the south. O-lan wanted to have the pearls set in earrings to give their ...

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PAPER DETAILS
Added: 6/4/2008 06:10:50 AM
Category: Book Reports
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 1325
Pages: 5

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