Family Depicted in Pearl Buck\'s

¶ … Family Depicted in Pearl Buck's

The Good Earth

Pearl Buck's novel, the Good Earth, illustrates many notions about Chinese culture through Wang Lung and his relationship with his family. From the time that he is married until the time that he realizes he is dying, Wang Lung demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of familial ties. Wang Lung treats his wife and his children differently over the years and this treatment can be seen as the result of the culture in which he was raised.

Wang Lung's emotions toward his wife change over time. Early in the novel, Wang Lung is somewhat nervous around O-Lan and wonders if she is pleased with him. As he watches her after they are newlyweds, he "desired suddenly that she should like him as her husband" (Buck 19). As the years pass, he sees her "only as he saw the table or his chair or a tree in the court" (173). However, when she is dying, he realizes for the first time "what she had been in the house, and how she made comfort for them all and they had not known it" (184). His changing attitude toward her illustrates how he matures over the years and comes to appreciate what she has meant to him.

Wang Lung's relationship with his sons represents how he likes to exert control in his household. For example, when his oldest son approaches him about going south to attend school, Wang Lung refuses this request, telling him that he has "learning enough for these parts" (170). After Wang Lung removes him from his house, he is "relieved" (177) and begins to think immediately about his other son and how he will take him out of school early and train him early so he will not be effected by the "wildness of young manhood" (177). Wang Lung did not like the fact that his sons might have minds of their own. Here we see how Wang Lung likes to control different aspects of his household, including his children.

Wang Lung's relationship with his daughters represents how individuals can have different attitudes toward men and women. Women are generally very quiet and they are treated more like objects as they are traded and sold for marriage. One of the most powerful scenes in the novel occurs after O-Lan kills her daughter just after giving birth to her. Wang Lung realizes that O-Lan killed the child and after he removes the dead baby from his house, he realizes O-Lan was right and thinks, "It is better as it is" (59). Here we see how he realizes O-Lan was right. At the end of the novel, he asks Pear Blossom to poison his "poor fool" (253) of a daughter because there is no hope for her having a decent future. Here we see how women are seen and treated very different in Chinese culture.