'The Good Earth'

Paper Summary:

This paper takes a look at Pearl S. Buck's work, 'The Good Earth'. According to the paper, Buck's masterpiece won her the Pulitzer Prize and helped her to win the Nobel Prize in literature a few years later. Much of the acclaim came from her very delicate handling of the oppression of women in turn of the century China.

From the Paper:

"When the couple's third child is born, also a girl, it is during a time a famine, which was preceded by the birth of the first girl. This brings Wang Lung to suspect that girls are a bad omen. He discovers, however, evidence that O-lan killed the infant because it would have been too taxing on the family to feed it. Wang Lung leaves the body to be eaten by a starving dog: "He had scarcely put the burden down before a famished, wolfish dog hovered almost at once behind him . . . 'It is better as it is,' he muttered to himself, and for the first time was wholly filled with despair," (Buck 86). So although Wang Lung realizes that it is better that his baby girl is dead for the entire family, it still breaks his heart."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Buck, Pearl S. The Good Earth. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1933.

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