The Good Earth

1. The Good Earth Introductory Information

2. Background The Good Earth, published in 1931, was instrumental to changing Western attitudes toward the people of China In telling the story of ordinary believable Chinese people, Buck shattered the Western stereotype of the the Chinese as being cruel, backward, opium addicts.

3. The Author Pearl S. Buck grew up in China with her missionary parents With an evident sense of admiration and concern for the Chinese peasants, The Good Earth chronicles the life and struggles of the farmer Wang Lung and his family. The circumstances of Wang Lung's life reflect Buck's knowledge of the suffering of the Chinese people at the hands of abusive governments, bandits, landlords, floods, and famine.

4. Major Themes • The land is life. Man is connected to the land. • Wealth causes corruption. • Women are lesser beings- either decorative or workhorses. • Man is at the mercy of nature. • Poverty causes man to become savage.

5. Symbols • The House of Hwang • Olan’s pearls • Birds/Locusts • Footbinding • Red Beans • The Gods • The Land

6. Style Can Pearl S. Buck's writing be considered subjective or objective? Why? Give an example.

7. Style Objective: unemotional words that neither praise nor condemn. Concrete detailed descriptions Example: “Together this man and this woman stood before the gods of their fields. The woman watched the ends of the incense redden and turn grey” (16).

8. Cultural Significance In addition to historical events in China, the reader learns of Chinese customs pertaining to religion, marriage, death, male and female roles, birth, and family relations. Consider the many differences between Chinese cultural traditions and ours with regard to marriage or death.

9. Universality Stories that are universal can apply to any culture and time period-their essence transcends the region and time in which they are written. The author creates vivid scenes of what is universal in the human experience: marriage, child rearing, poverty, sickness, family quarreling, fatherly pride, and catastrophes of nature.

10. Literary Movements Realism: a literary movement that has at its core the depiction of life as it really is, with no attempt to hide or gloss over the problems, hardships, or ugliness of life. EX: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

11. Literary Movements Naturalism: a literary movement that began in the nineteenth century, which emphasized that man was as much a prisoner of instinct, environment, and heredity as animals; man has no free will in the theory of naturalism EX: The Call of the Wild