Chinese Women In The Good Earth

In the book, The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, the Chinese characters from the 20th century are very different from women in the U.S. today. An example of a typical chinese character is O-lan. She is a loyal and hardworking wife to Wang Lung. Prior to become a wife the Wang Lung, she was a slave for the House of Hwang. Slaves were very common to 20th century China. Nowadays, there are no longer slaves and it is not legal. This is just one of the reasons why the roles of chinese women are of so much more distinct from American women in the 21st century. Another common 20th century chinese woman is Lotus, who is a prostitute. Most Americans today believe that prostitution is very discriminating and offending for women. But back in the early 20th

century, it was viewed just as normal as any other job. The roles of these 2 women differ quite a lot from American women today.
O-Lan is a skilled cook, since she has worked in kitchens as a slave. She prepares a deliciously cooked meal when she arrives at Wang Lung's house. Wang Lung asks questions of how she has learned all these skills, and she replies, “I have been kitchen slave since I went into the House of Hwang. There were meats at every meal.”(Buck 22) This quote shows how hard it was to even survive as a Chinese woman. Throughout the book she also says, “I was sold. I was sold to a great house so that my parents could return to their home. And would you sell the child, therefore? If it were only I, she would be killed before she was sold,,,the slave of slaves was I! But a dead girl brings nothing. I would sell this girl for you—to take you back to the land.”(Buck 83) The reason why she says this is because she knows the struggle of being a slave as a young girl and does not want her daughter to go through the same ordeal. O-Lan would have her dead rather than her be a slave.