The Good Earth

Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth captured my attention with it's history and poignant tale about the hard labor and life of Chinese farmers.
The setting of this book took place in Anhwei China,Wang Lung's birth place. It gradually works its way over to Kiangsu, where he and his family go to during the year of the famine. Wang Lung starts out being a middle class farmer. He was not poor, but nor was he rich. Father Lung, (Wang Lung's dad) arranged him a marriage with a slave from The Great House of Hwang. The Great House of Hwang was a house full of female slaves that can be sold to men in search of wives. His father did not let him have a pretty wife, in fear she has already been with too many men. Later on in this book, O-lan, his bought wife,born him a son and the perfect weather made his crops rich and very fertile, which brought in tons of money from the people that bought his produce. Wang Lung soon becomes rich from all the money he made. So rich in fact, he just stored the extra money he didn't need behind a hole in his wall. As Wang Lung becomes richer, he notices that O-lan is not fit to be his wife. He starts to become cruel and mean to O-lan and make fun of her ugly feet. Soon, Wang Lung took a beautiful mistress and O-lan became ill. As O-lan gets sicker, her children start to hate Wang Lung for the thougth we was mean and cruel to her, which led her to become ill. Wang Lung realizes his mistake and tries to change to make it up to O-lan. In the end, he regret that he ever took her for granted.
After reading this book, I learned that wealth is never more important than your family. Sure, wealth can buy you many things, but it can never buy you the love of your family or their lives. This would be my theme.
For my character, I chose O-lan. O-lan is sold by her parents during a famine to the great House of Hwang where she works as a kitchen slave until being given to Wang Lung. She is a dark, plain-looking, dull woman who rarely speaks. Although she is not beautiful, O-lan is extremely patient, hard working, resourceful, and faithful.
I recommend this book to people that like to learn about different cultures or the hard-labor of anciet chinese society back then. This book changed my out-look on my life. I realized how lucky I am for all the wonderful things I have.