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The Good Earth

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The Good Earth
sally
Response paper
02/28/13
Mrs. Mclung

“The Good Earth”

This novel written by Pearl S. Buck, was published in 1931, endures today as a classic novel of Peasant farm life in china during the first quarter of the twentieth century. This story is mainly about a farmer who wanted to become wealthy and live the great life. What he desired and came true. The women in Chinese culture were quite different in the sense that they had to have their feet bound. Man usually liked their spouse to have their feet bound so they have small feet. I found this quit unusual because it was difficult and very painful for girls to have their feet bound and I have never seen any other culture have such cruelty done to women. Wang Lung was just a farmer, who lived with his father in a tiny home in a village. Wang Lung wanted to get married and have a family and also become wealthy and provide everything he can for his family. He wanted someone to do the work that he was doing now, like work in the fields, and get water for his father every morning, so he can rest and work as much. So he married women named Olan who was a servant from the Wang house. The house where they gave women away to find husband and het married and work for them. O-lan gave Wang Lung everything she had and was willing to work herself to the bone for his pleasure, but he still wasn’t satisfied of what she had to offer. O-lan was hard working honest, loyal, smart a good mother, and in her own way I think she loved Wang Lung more than he had ever knew, she wanted him to be happy with their life and she had absolutely no hidden agendas. But, Wang Lung wasn’t too happy with O-lan. His

greatest disappointment with O-lan was that her feet weren’t bound that was an important thing in Wang Lung’s eyes about women. Wang Lung wanted to have his children with O-lan. So then O-lan had given birth to three sons and two daughters. Everything

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