Pearl S. Buck’s

THE GOOD EARTH

SLIDES REPRESENTED BYQuratul Ain Kazmi BSCS 3rd Semester

I Am An Aquarian..Innovative and capturing the beautiful world..

Pearl Buck (1892-1973) was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia. For her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces, she had given a noble prize in literature in 1938.

Wang LungO-LanWang Lung’s first sonWang lung’s fatherWang lung’s uncleson of Wang Lung’s unclewife of Wang Lung’s uncleWang Lung’s first sonWang Lung’s second son and third sonChingLotusCukoo

characters

Wang Lung He begins life as a poor farmer and maintains a fierce attachment to the land. However, he is also extremely ambitious and envies the material success of the wealthy Hwangs. He is increasingly drawn to the Hwangs’ decadent lifestyle.

O-Lan

A woman sold to the wealthy Hwang family as a slave when she was ten years old. After she marries Wang Lung, she achieves a respectable position as the mother of three sons. She is a strong, hardworking, resourceful woman and a devoted wife. Still, she is continually marginalized by Wang Lung, and she is eventually replaced in his affections.

Cuckoo A slave who worked

in the House of Hwang at the same

time as O-lan. Cuckoo was beautiful in her

youth, so the Old Master took her as his concubine while O-lan worked as a kitchen slave. Arrogant and bad-tempered, she

insulted and berated O-lan constantly.

Wang Lung’s Uncle

A cunning scoundrel and thief. Wang Lung’s uncle is the younger brother of Wang Lung’s father. Because the uncle is a member of the older generation, Wang Lung must show him respect and give him support in difficult times, despite his despicable nature.

The Story starts with the Wang

Lung’s wedding.

Wang Lung is a poor young peasant who lives in an earthen brick house with his father. His father has arranged for him to marry a slave girl named O-lan from the great family of the House of Hwang.

After Wang Lung brings his quiet but diligent new wife home, she works side by side with him in the fields until their first child is born

They are delighted with their son, and at the New Year O-lan dresses him up and proudly takes him to the House of Hwang to show him off. Their son is

most beautiful among all babies in the village. And Wang Lung feels proud at him.

But soon Wang Lung encounters Difficulties Wang Lung sells his furniture for a bit of silver to take his family south, though he refuses to sell his land. They ride a fire wagon to a southern city, where they live in a make shift hut on the street.

In the southern city, Wang Lung perceives the extraordinary wealth of westerner sand Chinese aristocrats and capitalists, and he is interested in the revolutionaries protests of the oppression of the poThere follow seven years of prosperity, during which the sons grow and begin school .a third son is born with a twin sister and the harvest is so plentiful.

Bored with his plain and coarse wife , he ventures into a tea shop in town operated by a man from the south where the rich and idle spend their time drinking, gambling, and visiting prostitutes . There he begins an affair with Lotus, a beautiful but manipulatively demanding courtesan whom he desires obsessively.

O-lan is deeply hurt and angry, which makes Wang Lung defensively guilty and cold with her

Family affairs continue to have ups and downs. O-lan’s sickness finally overpowers her, and Wang Lung’s tender solicitousness to her on her death bed cannot fully compensate for the insults she received when Lotus moved into the house.

She is content to die only after her first son’s marriage is consummated, so she can expect a grandson.

Finally, Wang Lung returns to the earth house of his land to die. Material prosperity has brought him superficial social satisfaction, but only his land can provide peace and security. Even his final days are troubled, when overhears his two older sons planning to sell the land as soon as he dies.

His eldest son persuades him to buy the old estate of the House of Hwang in to both as a means of moving out from the place where the disgraceful uncle and his wife live, and as a symbol of Wang Lungs elevated social position.

THEME The story tells us that how a family can rise from poverty to a position of wealth. Their were two distinct classes of people; the rich and the poor. This is a story of a person who is a poor man and knows nothing besides the value of land. As a man pours his energies into his land he reaps great benefits-survival and self-respect.

The story tells that the only thing that can truly save China is the honest toil of her people who must be allowed to claim the rewards of their efforts without oppression.

IMPACT

The story tells that the only thing that can truly save China is the honest toil of her people who must be allowed to claim the rewards of their efforts without oppression.

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