The Good Earth Summative Essay

In the novel, The Good Earth, Pearl Buck shows how a few wrong choices can change your life–for the better or the worse. For Wang Lung, these changes were for the better, but everyone else saw it as the worst. All of the choices he has made would affect him in the future, but by then, it would be too late. The main character, Wang Lung, was once a strong man, with a prosperous life ahead of him, and he ruined it by making poor choices that he would regret and being never pleased with what he had.

Wang Lung was a poor man, with good morals and true values. O-lan, his new wife, had a place in his heart. "Moving together in a perfect rhythm, without a word, hour after hour, he fell into a union with her that took the pain from his labor." Pg. 29 He became close to O-lan, and knew what it’s like to feel secure and to feel loved. He took care of his father’s every need and opened up his heart to him; children were blessed to Wang, and he would love them forever. These ethics helped to keep him grounded, and helped him lead a successful life.

Buying a wife is the one of the first decisions that turns Wang Lung’s life around. Instead of treating women as people as they are now, in this time in China, women were treated as property. Wang Lung started having feelings toward his wife, and immediately thought he was doing something wrong, because no other men in his town loved their wives for who they were. “And then he was ashamed of his own curiosity and of his interest in her. She was, after all, only a woman.” Pg. 29 It’s hard to believe that women were treated in this way, but it was considered adequate at this time.

Moving to the south was supposed to be better for Wang’s family, but he was selfish and thinking of only himself, and not starving when he left his home. This caused him to make decisions he might regret. Robbing a rich man in a great house displays one of these decisions. “It was this word ‘money’ which suddenly brought to Wang Lung’s mind a piercing clarity. Money! Aye, and he needed that!” Pg. 139 Within one moment, all of the once satisfying things in Wang’s life were flushed away, and money was all that mattered. When it comes down to the moment, who you are inside will emerge, breaking through all of the lies and covers hiding your true self.

One of the last things that changed Wang Lung was buying Lotus. Lotus was bought purely for Wang’s satisfaction. "So these two women took their place in his house: Lotus for his toy and his pleasure and to satisfy his delight in beauty and in smallness and in the joy of her pure sex, and O-lan for his woman of work and the mother who had borne his sons and who kept his house and fed him and his father and his children." Pg. 216 Wang Lung showed his egocentric side in this part of the novel, when the only person he thought about while buying Lotus was himself. No family members had a say in when she came, why she came, or if she came. Bringing another woman into the town, into the house, and into his family’s lives proved just how bold Wang Lung had become.

The House of Hwang—these words come with such a distinct background—brings back memories of harsh times and evil people. Wang once hated these people and wanted to prove that he could live his life just as well as they could. Though, when he struck rich, all these ideas, hopes, and dreams weren’t as hard to achieve as they used to be, so Wang had more time on his hands. “So not because of his son and not because of his uncle’s son he dreamed that he could live in the House of Hwang, which was to him forever the great house.” Pg. 291 P2

All these events changed Wang Lung’s life greatly, and made him a different person. Once with true values and morals, Wang Lung was a good man who took care of his wife, took care of his children, and took care of his land. Still caring for his land, he decided to return and die a slow death on the farm where he was born, for one who was born in the land must die in the land. "And the old man let his scanty tears dry upon his cheeks and they made salty stains there. And he stooped and took up a handful of the soil and he held it and he muttered, 'If you sell the land, it is the end.'" Pg. 360

Wang Lung was once a man with strong beliefs who was true to himself and his family. Money went and changed it all. Wang longed to live the fancy life and did anything to get where he wanted to be, even if it meant knocking down others in his way. Wang Lung was never pleased with what he had and made decisions he would regret, ruining the path of his prosperous life.