The Good Earth

One Chinese custom that is explored in Pearl Buck's The Good Earth involves the symbolism behind the color red. When O-lan's first son is born, she asks Wang Lung for money so that she can buy him...

Wang Lung is a character that is characterized by two major changes over the course of the book. The first of these changes is physical. Wang Lung goes from a man of the most humble financial...

This is actually one of the more tragic events that occur in this book. After the birth of her latest child in this chapter, when Wang Lung goes into his wife's room to see how she is and how the...

In The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck uses several examples of symbolism. The pearls that O-lan places between her breasts, the House of Hwang, and Wang Lung's disabled daughter (the "fool") are all...

With its epic qualities, Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth traces the struggles, the passions, the desires, and rewards of Wang-Lung and his family during the Ch'ing Dynasty and after the Revolution...

In The Good Earth, the cycles of the earth run concomitant to human life; thus, there is a spiritual and moral connection to the land for Wang Lung. Indeed, the earth is "one's flesh and blood."...

Wang Lung's accumulation of wealth begins when he and Olan travel to the city to escape the famine sweeping across the land. In the city, both Wang Lung and Olan get caught up in a mob that loots...

O-lan is certainly a good person, to say the least. She is kind, considerate, self-sacrificing and hard working. To the best of my knowledge, there is not one incident in the novel that tells of...

The episode with the braid illustrates the changes that China was experiencing in the early twentieth century. Though Buck's hold on chronology seems to be somewhat unreliable, there's no doubt...

In Chapter One of Pearl S. Buck's novel The Good Earth, the reader is introduced to the antagonist, Wang Lung, and his father. Wang Lung is preparing to go collect his bride from the House of...

Religions that the main character pays homage to are Taoism and Buddhism; he is also found consulting a geomancer, who deals in superstitions. He visits temples when he is seeking wealth or...

After a still birth from her fourth pregnancy, for her fifth pregnancy, in chapter 17, O-Lan gives birth to twins. Wang-Lung's father declares, "An egg with a double yolk this time!" One is a boy...

In The Good Earth, Wang Lung does decide to move his family south when a drought takes over the land, but this happens earlier in the novel. In Chapter 29, Wang Lung and his family have already...

The answer to this question can be found in Chapter 5 which is when O-Lan begins to use some of the best lard and flour to make some special cakes. When Wang Lung asks her what she is doing, O-Lan...

Wang Lung's change in behavior, a reflection of his change in values, does not reflect well upon him; it shows that he has become corrupted by wealth. Once he acquires the money (through O-lan's...

In Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, the protagonist Wang Lung and his family are farmers who must rely on the earth for their survival. Wang Lung and his family had always been relatively poor and...

Wang Lung and the Hwang family are similar in that wealth destroyed their sense of morality and family values. The House of Hwang fell into ruin and bandits stole the money from the house. The...

At the beginning of Chapter 5, the family is preparing for New Year's celebrations. Because Wang Lung now has a store of disposable money, he goes to the shops and buys notions that he has never...

To prepare for the New Year, Wang Lung first goes into town to the candlemaker's shop and buys "squares of red paper on which were brushed in gilt ink the letter for happiness and some with the...

Wang Lung approaches the House of Hwang as naive to the world. Wang Lung is not wealthy and does not have much to his name. His initial approach to the House of Hwang is peppered with his own...

The word "lan" in Chinese refers to "orchid." So O-lan's name is likely a derivative of this idea (which would go along with Lotus and Pear Blossom referring to flowers). It is ironic here that...

The basis of O-lan's lifelong enmity for Cuckoo is that when they were both slaves in the House of Hwang, Cuckoo did not treat O-lan well (Chapters 20-22). Because of this, O-lan will not speak to...

In The Good Earth, the theme of the importance of family, especially respect for elders, is illustrated by Wang Lung’s relationship with his father. When we first meet Wang Lung, we discover that...

The setting in The Good Earth is not specifically named in the novel, but the reader does know that the story mainly takes place in rural China on Wang Lung's farm. The plot of land seems to have...

The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck, is set China and its protagonist is a poor farmer named Wang Lung. He wants a wife to do the household chores while he works in the fields; however, he is so poor...

Having gone from a poor farmer who eked a living from the earth to one who prospered, and then to a starving man who clung to that which had sustained him--his land--selling only part of it in...

When Wang Lung discovers Olan's stolen pearls and jewels, he makes her give all of them to him so he can buy more land. Even though he takes the jewels from her, Wang allows Olan to keep two of...

Wang Lung is a poor farmer in a Northern Chinese village, and the main character of The Good Earth. His father has arranged a marriage for him to Olan, one of the servants in the great house of...

One of the major ones, particularly significant given the title "The Good Earth," is the importance of land and the earth itself in people's lives. The earth is what nourishes Wang Lung and he...

In Chapter 5 of The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, Wang Lung declares, "Land is one's flesh and blood." Clearly, then, Wang Lung perceives land as that which sustains all life, for from the land he...

In Wang Lung's culture, when a person dies, his or her body is placed into a coffin bought by the family. The coffin is carefully sealed "according to custom", and a geomancer is consulted to...

When Wang Lung's first daughter is born, he realizes that she is mentally retarded and considers it a bad omen. He considers his family's situation and thinks that his daugher is not healthy...

To add to the above, the parcel of land is also a sign and a symbol for the economic system and class stratification of Wang Lung's community. As Wang Lung pays the agent for the parcel of land,...

Her name is O-Lan. She is the servant of a wealthy man in the village. Wang Lung does not know her when he marries her. His father has arranged the marriage. "With weddings costing as they do...

In The Good Earth, Wang Lung and his family have moved south to find food because their land has suffered in the drought. When they get south, Wang Lung takes a job as a rickshaw driver which...

In The Good Earth, Wang Lung and O-lan still manage to pack up their family and travel south even though they are really weak. The two realize that their land will not support them, so they feel...

Since The Good Earth is the chronicle of the life of a simple farmer and his struggles for the universal desires of all men; namely, survival, success, and contentment, it lends itself in its...

Just before Wang Lung and his family leave the city, O-lan manages to steal a heap of jewels from the room of a mansion. She hides them during the journey home, and only reveals them to her...

Before the famine, Wang Lung worships the local Earth deities who are in a temple built by his grandfather. The two god figures are clothed annually by all the villagers as part of the New Year...

Within the setting of Peal S. Buck's The Good Earth, the nineteenth century Chinese believed in the binding of women's feet; as a result of this binding of feet, women's "dainty" feet were only...

After enduring through the Great Famine, Wang Lung returns to his home and purchases land from the house of Hwang with money that a rich man in the city gave him, fearing for his life during a riot...

When times are hard and Wang Lung and his family are starving, his uncle comes to him with a deal. He had gone into town and made a deal with two men who wanted to buy property at a low cost...

After Wang Lung has brought his concubine Lotus home, he says to himself that "peace (is) in his house". The moment of perceived calm is soon disrupted, however, when his oldest son, petulant and...

One reviewer wrote of The Good Earth: Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck traces the whlo cycle of life: its terror, its passions, its ambition and rewards. Her brilliant novel--beloved by millions...

In The Good Earth, Wang Lung and O-lan do not fall on hard times through any fault of their own. The farmers in Wang Lung's area are greatly affected by drought, and they cannot sustain themselves...

Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck published The Good Earth in 1931. Since her parents were missionaries, she spent her childhood in China, where she experienced Chinese culture first-hand....