Wealth is a powerful thing; so powerful that it can instantly and completely change the mindset of someone. In the book, The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, Wang Lung is a poor and humble man who becomes what he never thought he would become, a rich man. As money became less of a priority, so did everything else that mattered to him before.
Growing up a farmer, land is always something that is important to Wang Lung. Upon realizing that he is now capable of buying all the land he needs, Wang Lung decides to buy land from the Hwang house. Wang Lung is very satisfied with the riches his land brings him. He continues to use all of his silver to buy land, even as it is not necessary. Soon all of his money is gone and spent on land that is useless in the drought that sends Wang Lung into a financial wreck. Wang thinks he’s in the clear when it comes to money, but it is anything but clear as his family slowly becomes a blur. It is not until he is forced to kill his ox for food that Wang Lung realizes his entire family is in terrible state of poverty and hunger. Wang Lung is absolutely devastated having found that poverty would not have been an issue if it
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had not been for all his careless spending on land. One cannot choose who they will marry in China at the time that this story takes place.
Wang’s father tells him that he will get an ugly woman if he wants her to help him in the fields. Nevertheless, Wang Lung learns to love his wife, O-lan. After becoming the rich man everyone comes to know, Wang Lung becomes disinterested by the shops he had always visited as a poor man. He begins to explore and finds a teahouse where there are beautiful women he thought only existed in dreams. He goes home and realizes how dissatisfied he is with the way O-lan looks. Wang Lung thinks he deserves a more beautiful woman now that he is a rich man. O-lan is a great wife and both were happy and relied on each other. She is very dear to Wang Lung but this quickly changes as soon as Wang becomes wealthy and this, sadly, is not a
coincidence. As an underprivileged man, Wang Lung never gave education much thought. After striking rich, he decides he wants his sons to become great scholars so he can have something else to brag about. Years later, his eldest son asks Wang Lung if he can move down south to continue learning. Wang Lung suddenly becomes infuriated with his son’s eagerness to learn; forgetting that it was his own idea in the first place. Wang Lung prohibits his son from moving away from his house and both begin to quarrel. Wang seems to have forgotten that his son’s education would probably provoke him to continue learning and at the time only wanted something else to spend his money on. Aside from blurring his morals, Wang Lung’s wealth seems to blur his senses as well. All Wang Lung wants is to not have to worry about money, but as the worry is erased, many new worries are brought up. What first started out as being his morals and priorities turned to things of little importance. The hardships that Wang goes through throughout the story really shows how wealth is very manipulative and can go downhill faster than it will go up.
Feng Meng-long’s story, “Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger,” authentically represents how money is valued between Du Tenth and Li Jia. The classic story brings forth how tradition and family values are upheld in the highest honor. The young master Li Jia, who is the son of a prominent local official, embarks on a journey to the Ming capitol of Nanjing with the intention of taking exams. During his travels he meets the beautiful courtesan named Du Tenth who is bound to her madam in a house of ill fame in what is known as the pleasure district. Li Jia, being an immature and unmotivated by any type of responsibility, finds himself splurging all of his travel funds on pleasures with the beautiful Du Tenth. The couple find themselves to have fallen in love with one other. Du Tenth proves to be a very smart and loyal character. She cleverly devises a plan to escape her bind to her madam and leave to be with her love. When the couple make their departure, they go on their journey to their new life together as husband and wife. Du Tenth continues to prove how smart she is by showing time and time again to Li Jia that she was very prepared for their future. The story tragically ends when the gullible Li Jia is tricked by the manipulating Sun Fu to trade his love, Du Tenth, for a thousand pieces of white silver.
Power and Money do not Substitute Love and as it denotes, it is a deep feeling expressed by Feng Menglong who was in love with a public figure prostitute at his tender ages. Sadly, Feng Menglong was incapable to bear the expense of repossessing his lover. Eventually, a great merchant repossessed his lover, and that marked the end of their relationship. Feng Menglong was extremely affected through distress and desperation because of the separation and he ultimately, decided to express his desolation through poems. This incidence changed his perception and the way he represents women roles in his stories. In deed, Feng Menglong, is among a small number of writers who portrayed female as being strong and intelligent. We see a different picture build around women by many authors who profoundly tried to ignore the important role played by them in the society. Feng Menglong regards woman as being bright and brave and their value should never be weighed against
One day an old man comes to join the family for supper-- he new Poh-Poh from Old China... the man is odd looking and Liang thinks him to be "the Monkey Man" from the ghost stories her grams is always telling. Regardless Liang and this man she comes to call Wong-Suk become great friends. They go to the movies together and get jeered at (I'm not sure if this is beacause 'Beauty and the Beast' or because they are Chinese); he tells her stories; and she dances for him.
I would like to point out that Wang Lung was never the most filial of men. Early in the novel, we saw him slip up once or twice. However, at a younger age, he felt guilty when this happened and was able to hold his tongue in most situations. Wang Lung’s uncle is able to exploit Wang Lung based on his filial piety. When the uncle, a lazy man who blames his struggles on an “evil destiny”, asks his nephew to borrow money, Wang Lung explodes, saying, “‘If I have a handful of silver it is because I work and my wife works, and we do not…[let our] fields grow to weeds and our children go half fed!’” (65). But right after he lets these words slip, he “[stands] sullen and unmovable” (66) because knows that his outburst is wrong. However, later in the novel, Wang Lungs lack of sense for filial piety grows evident as he becomes more arrogant. For example, when he is nearing the end of his life, Wang Lung asks without a second thought to be buried below his father but above his uncle and Ching. Asking to be buried above his uncle makes the statement that Wang Lung believes he is a greater man than his uncle. Before his rise through the ranks of society, Wang Lung would never have even considered being buried above his uncle, even though he always had a disliking for him. However, because of his power, he feels that he has the right to disrespect his
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.... ...
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...
It begins with a happy 9-year-old girl named Ling who lives in a hospital complex with her father, a very successful surgeon, and her mother, a well-known doctor. Her mother, known as Mrs. Chang, is very strict, always nagging Ling to act like a woman and to be perfect in almost every way. Ling believes it is because her mother never wanted to have a daughter. Father, on the other hand, Mr. Chang, spent much time with Ling, and got very close to her, teaching her reading and English lessons. He would
Throughout the book The Good Earth written by Pearl S. Buck, it shows the evolvement of the main character Wang Lung and how owning or not owning land in the 1920s is affected by peasants in China. It also shows the struggles of a peasant’s life, going through poverty and what happens when wealth enters their lives. Owning land as a peasant is an important aspect of their living style, simply because they live off of what they are able to grow that season. They depend on their land for resources to provide for themselves and family; and also selling crops or trading crops in order to make money. The peasants of China exemplify how important their crops and land are to them throughout the whole book by showing love and compassion for them; but,
Carnegie’s essay contains explanations of three common methods by which wealth is distributed and his own opinions on the effects of each. After reading the entire essay, readers can see his overall appeals to logos; having wealth does not make anyone rich, but using that wealth for the greater good does. He does not force his opinions onto the reader, but is effectively convincing of why his beliefs make sense. Andrew Carnegie’s simple explanations intertwined with small, but powerful appeals to ethos and pathos become incorporated into his overall appeal to logos in his definition of what it means for one to truly be rich.
Mulan is a young girl in China, who is trying to honor her family and ancestors by finding a husband. She was expects to be delicate, quiet, obedient, graceful, polite, and poised, none of which Mulan displayed. She showed up late to the meeting with the woman, “The Match Maker”, who picked whom Mulan would one day marry. Although they expect women in China to have a tiny waist, too small of a waist, which Mulan had, was no good. She would not be great at baring children. Mulan could not pour the tea right for the woman either. She missed the cup, spilling the tea on the table. She was not very graceful and upset “The Match Maker”, who believed Mulan would never honor her family. Mulan did not display the characteristics that the Chinese society expected a woman to have and was looked at as dishonorable to outsiders.
Wealth is an article by Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish American, showed his views on their social class during the Gilded Age, the late 19th century, discussing the “rich and poor.” Carnegie in fact was one of the wealthiest men because of his major success in the steel industry.
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.
This novel tells the story of Wang Lung. He is a man who rises from being a poor farmer to a very wealthy man because of his faith in the good earth. In the beginning of the story Wang Lung tries to see as little water as possible because he feels safest with his land under his feet. His family is very poor so he must feed his father corn gruel and tea.
An-Mei and her younger brother live with their grandmother (Popo), uncle, and aunt. There they are not allowed to bring up their mother, who has shamed the family by becoming the fourth wife to Wu Tsing after she was widowed by An-Mei’s father. It is not until An-Mei’s mother returns to tend to Popo that An-Mei is reunited with her mother. After Popo passes, An-Mei and her younger brother are brought to live with their mother at her new husband’s estate. An-Mei is in awe of the estate and its opulence and is excited for her new life with her mother, but that feeling quickly disappears. From her time there, An-Mei learns to be weary of others kindness; the second wife had tried to buy An-Mei’s gratitude with a fake pearl necklace. Then from
Money was a main factor in Wang Lung's attitude which changed completely many times because of his wealth. At the beginning of the story Wang Lung is a poor farmer who always thinks carefully about how he spends his money. As he was a poor farmer, Wang Lung was filled with fear when he first approaches the House of Hwang to collect O-Lan . On his second visit, Wang Lung is already prospering from his crops. This behavior is in contrast to the beginning of the plot, where he is reluctant to drink tea because it is expensive. When O-Lan asks Wang Lung if she should put tea leaves in his father's hot water, he would have liked to say, "`Certainly there must be tea leaves. Do you think we are beggars?'”. However, he does not want O-Lan to think that they are poor, so instead he makes an excuse, "`Tea? No no it makes my cough worse.'". These two incidents i...