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Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth

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In the story “The Good Earth” by Pearl S Buck, the author uses O-Lan’s marriage as an example to show how women in the early 20th century was treated poorly and were unappreciated by others regardless of how important their role was in the family. From the moment O-Lan was married to Wang Lung until she died, she has served everyone in the family and cared for them without being appreciated. The morning right after getting married to Wang Lung, O-Lan started to do housework like bringing tea to her husband and his father. After bringing tea to the old man O-Lan returned to Wang Lung and said “I took no tea to the Old one-I did as you said-but to you I…” (Ch. 2, pg. 28). O-Lan obeyed her husband’s order without hesitation. In the early 20th century, “women were to be submissive and obedient to men.” (Wikipedia). O-Lan was obedient to Wang Lung and …show more content…

While O-Lan was getting ready to leave to Great House of Hwang after getting married, Old Mistress said “Obey him and bear him sons and yet more sons.” (Ch.1 pg.19) The Old Mistress knows that after getting married a woman’s task is to obey her husband and give birth to sons based on the tradition of how women in China should be back in 20th century, the Old Mistress is telling O-Lan her job as a wife which is to listen to her husband and birth him sons so he can be proud. O-Lan has only one thing she can be proud of which is bearing sons for Wang Lung. Wang Lung is only grateful for one thing from O-Lan which was bearing his sons, everything else she has done for him is not important because it was a part of her role as his wife and as a women. In conclusion, since women in China during the early 20th century has a role to fulfill in a family, O-Lan was not appreciated by everyone for all her hard work like caring for her family and bearing sons for Wang Lung because her family saw it as her role in the family and she was expected to do

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The novel The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck, takes place in the early 1900s, in pre-revolutionary China. In the novel, the main character, Wang-Lung, sustains his family and land through both favorable and difficult events. During this time period, men were always considered the superior to women and elders the superior to young people. Those who treated women as equal or did not practice filial piety were looked upon with disdain. Most Chinese people believed in Gods that watched over the land and punished dishonorable men.

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