Free Essays - A Difference in Values in The Good Earth

1055 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The good earth synopsis

A Difference in Values
The House of Wang Lung rose in one generation from a family of poor farmers to a wealthy respected house in the novel The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. The dramatic change in social status causes the sons of Wang Lung to have different views and values from their father. His different treatment of each son also shapes each character. Although part of the same family the charachters demonstrate a difference in values. The father values the land, the youngest son values regognition, the middle son values wealth, and the eldest son values respect.
As a result of his impoverished upbringing, Wang Lung values the land more than anything else. His obsession with the land causes him to neglect his family. The youngest son receives no attention and Wang Lung's plan to have him work the land disturbs him and makes him feel like a peasant. He feels that he has to prove that he is as great as his brothers and leaves the family to join the army. The middle son watches as his inheritance passes from his father's hand into the hand of his eldest son, and complains that his share is always too small. He wants to save the families money. The eldest son receives more attention and is given more than the other two sons and wants to be respected as a great family.

The eldest son receives more attention and is given more than the other two sons and wants to be respected as a great family.
Wang Lung is proud of his first born son, Nung En, and gives him more than his other two sons. One example is when Wang Lung becomes distressed because he cannot read the contracts he is signing and does not want to sign a bad deal. He hopes that sending the elder son to school to learn how to read will solve this problem. The elder son is no longer needed in the fields, because Wang Lung can now afford men to work the land. However, he ignores sending his other children to school until later.
The eldest son's greatest desire is to have his family viewed as a great house. His wife, the daughter of the grain merchant Lui,
Boggs 2 grew up in a rich house, she is accustomed to wealth and respect from others, and contributes to her husband's desire. He takes Wang Lung's silver bit by bit to mend up the old House of Hwang.

Show More
Related

  • The Jade Peony Summary

    649 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wong-Suk had to leave for China and this devastated Liang due to their close relationship. Wong-Suk and Liang never saw each other again after that. In part two of the novel, it is narrated by “Jung Sum” but just referred to as Jung. Jung was abused as a child before he was adopted and put with Liang’s family. He gets interested in boxing. A lot of part two shows the Chinese-Canadian discrimination such as the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act. We can tell that the Great Depression is taking a toll on the families in Vancouver, the fact that the churches don’t have enough supplies and food to give to everyone. There was a lack of food and clothes for the people. The living standard wasn’t doing well either, their house was peeling paint and were not capable of maintaining warmth. Jung had a serious fight Frank after he had gotten drunk, but in the end, both parties were fine. Jung thinks that he is the moon, and Frank is the sun. Like Yin and Yang. At the end of part two, the reader is told that Jung is attracted to Frank or just men in general. In the third and final part of the book, we move onto the youngest child, “Sek Lung” or

    Read More

  • Free College Essays - Envy in A Separate Peace

    391 Words  | 1 Pages

    “People are often vain of their most criminal passions; but envy is one passion so mean and low that nobody will admit it” Francois de la Rochefoucauld(1613-1680), a French philosopher, once stated and that statement summarizes the undertone of A Separate Piece by John Knowles.  The story is set at a highly competitive boy’s school on the East Coast that sets the perfect stage to develop the storyline.  Gene’s insecurity, which led to jealousy of Finny, is the cause of the overall conflict.

    Read More

  • The Struggles of Liang Heng in Son of the Revolution

    1190 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Cultural Revolution in China was led by Mao Zedong, due to this Liang and many others faced overwhelming obstacles in many aspects of their life such as work, family and everyday encounters, if affected everyone’s families life and education, Liang lets us experience his everyday struggles during this era, where the government determined almost every aspect of life. The beginning of the book starts out with Liang’s typical life, which seems normal, he has a family which consists of three children, two older sisters and him the youngest, his two sister’s reside in Changsha 1. his father has an everyday occupation working as a journalist at a local newspaper. Things start to take a turn early in life for Liang Heng, his family politics were always questioned, the mistake made by one of his family members would impact his entire family and it would be something they would have to suffer through, it was impossible for them to live down such a sin.... ...

    Read More

  • Christ Figure In How To Read Literature Like A Professor

    1995 Words  | 4 Pages

    Youqing first makes considerable sacrifices for his family by caring for their lambs. In the novel, his father Fugui explains how the “family’s two lambs relied entirely upon Youqing to feed them. Doing such hard work at home took away from Youqing’s time, so he always had to run to school…One time it snowed but he still ran to school barefoot in the snow” (99-100). In his care of the lambs, Youqing makes a physical sacrifice by running barefoot through the snow. He also sacrifices his time and energy, which is particularly notable because he is just a ten-year-old child. Even Fugui notices and shows concern for his child when he notes, “he looked pathetic, being just that age when kids never want to get up” (98). Still, Youqing does what he knows is necessary for the survival of his family. At the same time, Fugui grows as a father by showing concern for his son’s

    Read More

  • O-Lan Thesis

    938 Words  | 2 Pages

    From the beginning of Wang Lung’s marriage to O-lan, she saved him time, money, and effort without complaint. She offered wisdom when asked and was smart in the ways of the world. During the famine, when the family went south in search of food, O-lan taught her children how to beg for food, “dug the small green weeds, dandelions, and shepherds purse that thrust up feeble new leaves”(p. 128). She raised her children prudently. She knew how to bind her daughter’s feet, and she gave them a better childhood than she had had. O-lan knew that the land was the only consistent thing in her life, so she willingly helped Wang Lung as he bought more and more land. O-lan knew her place in the family was as a wife and mother. As a wife, she fe...

    Read More

  • The Unforgetting Short Story

    1358 Words  | 3 Pages

    With the perception of a bright and new beginning they willingly forced themselves to forget about the “colors of the Beijing sky” and “what they no longer could bear hope for” (Chang 33, 29). Sacrificing their past life, they wanted to give their son Charles a life of fulfillment and opportunity in the land of dreams, America. Their Chinese culture and traditions were neglected in the corner of their basement and the American lifestyle was rapidly immersing the Hwangs family. With the pressure to learn and comprehend this new American culture, the relationship between father and son slowly became disconnected. Ming’s demand to forget his past and the pressure to absorb new cultural ways, took a toll on the relationship between him and his son causing it to drift and become almost non-

    Read More

  • The Good Earth Quotes

    1446 Words  | 3 Pages

    He uses the money to buy some seeds, a new ox and he is able to return back home. The greed starts to set in when Wang learns that his wife stole some jewels from when there the looting was happening. They talked it over and agreed to buy some more land leaving O-lan with two pearls. The good thing that has come out of Wang looting another person’s home helped him understand why others did so to him and led him to forgive them. He becomes so wealthy that he is able to buy Ching’s land and build enough rooms for him to live in and to also buy laborers. Wang buying laborers shows what wealth does to a once poor peasant man. He is not the one that cares for his land nor is he compassion about his land anymore. Wang hits the biggest turning point when he disrespects his wife and tells her that she is not fit to be a wife of a wealthy man. “Now anyone looking at you would say you were a wife of a common fellow and never of one who has land which he hires men to plow!” (Buck, 168). Wang then starts to “buy” more wives because that is what wealthy men do. In the end Wang ends up like the rest of the wealthy men the he never thought he would become. He got his own uncle’s family addicted to opium, wouldn’t give other refugees seeds without either having high interest or giving up some of their land. This was one of Buck’s main goal, to show the readers what happened to people when they were consumed by wealth and started to become

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal

    1280 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1932, after Franklin Delano Roosevelt accepted the Democratic nomination for presidency, running against Republican president, Herbert Hoover, he promised a “New Deal” to the American people. This New Deal’s sole purpose was to deal with the economic hardships caused by the Great Depression, as well as to help and improve the lives of the millions of Americans who had been affected. Roosevelt was swept into office in a landslide. In his inaugural address, Roosevelt brought a sense of hope to a vast majority of dispirited Americans, assuring them that they had “nothing to fear, but fear itself.” On March 5, 1933, just one day after his inauguration, Roosevelt began to implement his New Deal, beginning his focus on the failing banking

    Read More

  • Point of View in Alice Walker's Everyday Use

    1143 Words  | 3 Pages

    aspect of her personality remains completely foreign to her mother. the narrator, who describes it with an innocent wonder. In the Beginning of the story The mother speaks of Wangero's actions in the past. The. Even then she displayed an arrogance that isolated her mother.

    Read More

  • Factory Girls Leslie Chang Analysis

    1366 Words  | 3 Pages

    She started working at seventeen years old to support her family. In her situation, the necessity of supporting her family is very significant in her life. In Chinese tradition, parents do not expect anything from their sons and daughters, but the sense of respect towards the hard work that Chinese parents do for their kids is a must for successful men and women to support their parents with their free-will. These people are grateful that their parents gave them existence—creating opportunities for searching for ethical values that will help them succeed.

    Read More

  • Paradise Of The Blind Literary Analysis

    1464 Words  | 3 Pages

    As Hang embarks on a thought filled journey of her past her recognition of particular situations are seen to be evaluated by herself. Her perspectives of the world around her are constantly being changed and developed throughout the novel. This revelation into maturity for Hang defines her indefinite naivety, to her wise realist nature as a young woman. Hang experiences the pain and loss of childhood innocence to rise to the ultimate development as a woman. For example, Hang states, “I was torn, but the idea of going back to our empty house made me anxious.” (43 Huong) When Hang was about eight years old, already her

    Read More

  • The Good Earth in relation to food and culture

    1933 Words  | 4 Pages

    When O-lan’s and Wang Lung’s first child is born they dye eggs red and distribute them to the village to shown their first born is a male. After a year of good rains Wang Lung begins to amass a good fortune so he hides the money that they make so people will not try to borrow it. Again, the produce from the year is good, and Wang Lung is able to hide more silver. He buy land from the great house in town and it is very fruitful, yielding more harvest than his own land. Now everyone in the village knows that Wang Lung is the owner of a piece of the Hwang land. His status rises in the village.

    Read More

  • The New Deal

    1012 Words  | 3 Pages

    As Franklin D. Roosevelt commented: "But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." The New Deal was a plan that was consecrated during the mid-20th Century by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in order to ordain financial reform, direct relief and economic provision. These dispositions were able to constitute our modern foundation of our true economic stability and financial reformation, despite our nation’s current financial status due to our later United States presidents. The New Deal has been depicted as a vital approach to the nation’s economic crisis of the 1930's. Roosevelt postulated that this conceptional volition would be able to mediatize the nation from depression to a pecuniary state of tranquility. The reform that included such ideas set to address the struggles of ethnic minorities, liberal ideas and renowned labor unions caused a bitter controversy between Republicans and Democrats that lasted from 1938 to 1964. Hence, at the birth of The New Deal, the Supreme Court ruled in Wickard V. Filburn that the Commerce Clause met the standard for majority of federal regulations to allow The New Deal as “constitutional”. Those three main components of The New Deal, formally known as relief, reform and recovery; were intended to create a political alignment which encompassed new empowered labor unions, industrialization and new liberal ideas.

    Read More

  • The Good Earth Quotes

    486 Words  | 1 Pages

    During this time he also started going to the tea shops often, and he ended up buying Lotus. Since Wang Lung was so rich he himself did not need to go out and work on the land as much, and that is when the relationship weakened. Wang Lung started to grow old and he moved his family into the Great House of Hwang. At this point both of his sons were great scholars and did not wish to work on the land, so Wang Lung had saved his youngest son for that job. A couple years later, his youngest son came up to him and said that he did not want to work on the land. That is when Wang Lung realized that none of his children would work on his land, and he was very upset. After a while, Wang Lung had become very old and his time of death was near. He often had slaves take him up to his land, and that is where he spent his final days. One day he heard his sons talking of selling the land, and he was heartbroken for his land was everything to him. That is when his relationship with the land was strongest, because he knew he was going to lose

    Read More

  • Reflection On Cognition And Aging

    1103 Words  | 3 Pages

    Another interesting part of our discussion was related to the preference of inviting more the mother than the father to live with their children. I wondered why was that the case, and I came up with two possible explanations. First, usually, fathers in their younger years are more focused on bringing financial stability to home than to develop a rich and solid relationship with their children. Second, it may be possible that mothers result being more helpful to their adult children, regarding housekeeping and children’s care. These assumptions are based on traditional family roles performed by who are today our grandparents’

    Read More

More about Free Essays - A Difference in Values in The Good Earth

Open Document