The Good Earth Summary

Pearl S. Buck

1. Introduction

Pearl S. Buck is an American writer, human and women’s rights activist. After having been born for four months, she was taken to China by her parents and then spent her childhood, teenager and youth in Zhenjiang for more than 18 years. Pearl S. Buck has lived in China for 40 years, so she called Chinese “ the first language” and regarded Zhenjiang as the hometown in China. She wrote a book The Good Earth describing the life of Chinese farmers, and relying on this book she won Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1932 and Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938. In 1934, Pearl S. Buck left China and returned back to the United States. Although living in America, she still positively took part in some human and women’s rights

Buck lived in China from her early age, so she was not only familiar with China but also loved China, especially Chinese farmers. In her numerous novels, there are many deblockedions about those disasters of countryside in old China and those excellent qualities, such as diligence, fortitude and perseverance, within Chinese farmers. In the opinion of Pearl S. Buck, only through paying attention to those normal working people who occupied the majority of the whole population of a country can get the true meaning of national culture. After publishing in 1931, her notable novel, The Good Earth, became a bestseller and then caused overwhelming responses in America. This novel depicts a Chinese farmer and his wife as a slave win the earth and the rights of survival through their efforts, which is a backward way of farmers to get wealth in old China. By describing the life the whole family of Wang Long, The Good Earth introduces the actually rural life of China and the representative images of Chinese farmers to foreign counties. The huge success of this novel is mainly due to the theme of novel that can induce general interests and the excellent artistic techniques that the writer used to demonstrate the story line and