Few Themes Of The Good Earth example essay topic

In The Good Earth, which was published in 1931, Pearl S. Buck displays the cycle of human life through the story of a Chinese man named Wang-Lung. In this Pulitzer Prize winning novel, a Chinese man frees himself from the bonds of poverty and rises to wealth and lordship. The Good Earth won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932, the Howells Medal for Distinguished Fiction a few years later and also earned its author the Nobel Prize in literature in 1938. Pearl S. Buck is one of the most successful Chinese fiction authors. "Of the more than 250 Western novelists who have used China as a backdrop, she is quantitatively and qualitatively the most outstanding... ". states one critic. The Good Earth is an excellent example of Pearl S. Buck's style and is one of the greatest foreign novels in American Literature because of its style, tone, and descriptive narratives.

Pearl S. Buck was raised as a missionary child in China. China is an agricultural country in which four fifths of the population was poor, oppressed, peasant farmers. Her compassion for them gave her a starting point for her writing career. She started with the characters of Wang-Lung and O-Lan and then expanded.

When she began writing The Good Earth, she admitted, "there was no plot or plan. Only the man and the woman and their children... ". The style of The Good Earth reflects ancient Chinese narrative sagas as well as soft prose of the King James Version of the Bible. She claimed that her style was Chinese rather then biblical because they were originally recorded in a Chinese narrative form and then later translated into English. However, her style involves the old-fashioned archaic quality of expression.

The style, which is generally slow paced, provokes a stateliness and seriousness. The novel is characterized by simplicity, concreteness, parallelism, and repetition. The sentences are often lengthy but then break into shorter, choppy segments of thought. It follows the simplicity of the Chinese saga, which gains some poetical merit, yet is never imbalanced with the exotic prose of the Bible. The Good Earth abandons a dramatic form somewhat and takes on the form of an epic or saga story. It avoids subjectivity and moralizing of characters, but instead shows sympathy towards the characters.

The sincerity and the slow movement of the prose fit harmoniously with the epic-like qualities of the Chinese narration. Pearl S. Buck gives vividness to both characters and scenes by emphasizing the details appropriately and almost perfectly. Her descriptions of the customs, ceremonies, and rituals give the reader an excellent picture of Chinese life. These descriptions are never excessive or overdrawn, but essential to the story. They help the reader to see the reality of the story even though it takes place in a distant land. The descriptive passages, which help reinforce the mood and tone, often reflect Ernest Hemingway's works in the sense of illustrative details.

Though The Good Earth places strong emphasis on family, it studies the main characters more carefully. Pearl S. Buck's uses realism when portraying her characters. For example, Wang-Lung's strengths and weaknesses are carefully analyzed before the reader. It may appear to some that he is one-dimensional, however, he actually contains many human emotions such as timorous, stubbornness, tenderness, foolishness, and insensitivity.

All of Wang-Lung's attributes are true to life. Some critics view that Wang-Lung was coarse, but Pearl S. Buck replied by stating that he must be portrayed only as real, normal, and natural. Additionally, some professors believe that The Good Earth's style is naturalistic in many ways. She uses a documentary approach. She stresses factors of the environment and heredity.

She is overly accurate in her descriptions of the setting. She is descriptive in details. She concentrates on the lower class of citizens. All of these elements reflect the influence of Emile Zola; nevertheless her style is balanced and wholesome enough for appeal. The naturalism is that she records Chinese life frankly and factually, but does not distort it towards Naturalistic philosophy or style. Structurally, The Good Earth is written in chronological order, which unfolds at a fairly steady pace.

Though a few climaxes occur, they do not extend much higher over the other incidents in the story. The movement slows somewhat after the death of O-Lan. The Good Earth takes on an epic form rather then a dramatic form. Chinese scholars heavily criticized The Good Earth, saying that it displays a China that never was. Some criticized the character of Wang-Lung, while others said that she distorted China.

Professor Kiang Kang-Hu said that Pearl S. Buck's details were inaccurate as well as her knowledge of Chinese history. Although She was heavily criticized, some native Chinese defended her and insisted upon The Good Earth's accuracy. Some American critics believe that though "The Good Earth is not about America, it is 'American... ' " which explains its winning of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1932. It portrays a man who rises from a poor farmer to a nobleman because of his toil. It tells how his sons are spoiled because of the idleness in which they are raised, and how his great lordship falls because of the withdrawal from principals of honest labor. Therefore, in spite of its Chinese setting, many critics of The Good Earth say that it is just another American ethic-moral drama which exhibits the cycle of history which is generations rising to powers and others falling to insignificance.

It appealed to the Pulitzer judges because of the effects of the depression in the 1930's. First, it's setting of distant China provided an escape for a fatigued American public. The extravagant descriptions of poverty helped ease the pain from the hard times of American economy. Its moral content also interested many. Some related the cycles of The Good Earth to the American economy. For instance, in the novel, the Hwang dynasty demolished because of lack of management and laziness.

Likewise the downfall of America in 1929 and the depression in the 1930's came about from the extravagant spending and laziness of American public in the 1920's. The protagonist Wang shows that thrift, hard work, and dignity lead to softness and moral corruption, which in turn leads back to poverty. The Good Earth suggests that if any man would just work hard and maintain money management that he could become successful. Its vivid and compassionate portrait of poverty enraged some into protest of social injustice, while to others it provided the satisfaction of its "rags-to-riches" tail. Other critics believe that The Good Earth represents the downfall of Confucian China. They say that the author believes that Wang Lung's social and economical value was only important because of the land, defending the Confucian idea that everything flows upward from the land.

Pearl S. Buck creates her protagonist as the epitome of a farmer. He cannot break away from poverty and prosper. Then he gains capital during the revolutionary raids of the great palaces. In keeping with Confucian philosophy, he uses his newly acquired money to purchase land and amass more wealth. He becomes very successful; however, his sons become lazy, rebellious, and extravagant. They concede the virtues of their father, symbolizing the death of Confucianism in China.

From the point of view of these critics, Wang Lung's joy could not be determined by social change. To find his joy, which is to be himself and to find the meaning of life, he had to return to the land and also his old way of life. Therefore, some critics believe that one underlying theme of The Good Earth is that one can only find happiness from his past. These critical analyses are proper because The Good Earth does contain all those elements mentioned.

It is very realistic. It is very naturalistic. It flows smoothly and it does contain epic-like qualities. The major theme of The Good Earth is clear -- the earth is good. Pearl S. Buck gives emphasis to the fact that all good things come from the earth. She stresses that any man can gain wealth and success from the land, if they manage it shrewdly.

In the novel, Wang farms the land diligently and it produces for him. He uses profit to buy more land, until he has amassed enough assets to become wealthy. Pearl S. Buck wants the reader to realize that his wealth came from his respect of the earth. She wants the reader to love and revere mother earth. Most of the other themes are more obvious and generalized, which would explain their appeal to public -- they are easy to understand. One critic says, "The Good Earth is a childishly simple book in which good and evil are neatly labeled".

She masks these universal themes behind the veil of a charming Chinese setting. A few themes of The Good Earth include love of land, rich and honest poor, marital conflicts, joy of birth, sorrow of old age, tragedy of death, disagreement between generations, nosy relatives, suffering of poverty, pride of a father in his sons, catastrophe of nature, and the bonds of friendship. In Pearl S. Buck's later novels, she distinctly identifies her characters as either good or bad, but in The Good Earth, she mixes elements of both. Using this technique and dramatizing the "ebb and flow" of time, she is able to easily present these themes. The theme of the love of earth is Wang-Lung's love for his land.

The theme of the cyclic movement of the declining rich and the honest poor come from the story of the rise of Wang-Lung counterpoised by the fall of the Hwang dynasty. Marital conflict is shown when Wang-Lung becomes lustful and takes a second wife, pear blossom. The misunderstandings between generations are illustrated through Wang-Lung and his sons, who do not share his positive view of the earth. All of these themes embody universal human emotion. Though the setting is Chinese, the story is not. It is a common story of the struggle of mankind and their necessity of the earth for survival.

It represents the cycle of mankind, one generation at a time, from past, to present, to future. Its fame comes from its ability to present universal human bonds, which all people, not just Chinese, can relate to. In her theme, Pearl S. Buck affirms life and man's aspirations. The tone of the novel is practical and serious, appropriately suitable to the book.

Pearl S. Buck uses Wang-Lung and his story to project a serious message that all people need the earth. Though it contains a few flaws, The Good Earth is an excellent work of Literature because of its healthy blend of style: from the Chinese epic to Biblical prose, from realism to romanticism, from naturalism to Victorian. Its universal themes appeal to audiences of all types. Its simplicity blends harmoniously with its descriptive narrations.

The Good Earth is an outstanding piece of literature because of its diverse style, serious tone, and long, exotic descriptions.