An Analysis of Wang Lung’s Character in The Good Earth as a Typical Farmer Image in China

Abstract Pearl Buck, who lived in China for almost 40 years, has formed an in-depth understanding of Chinese society and owned a spontaneous emotion toward Chinese people. With a meticulous and direct observation of Chinese farmers, she accurately grasped “earth” as the survival core and cultural root of Chinese farmers. In her masterpiece, The Good Earth, Pearl Buck brings authentic rural life and vivid images of farmer in China to western readers through her unique perspectives. The Good Earth not only changes distorted stereotype Chinese images in the westerners’ mind in 19th century, but also fully demonstrates various Chinese farmer’s characters. This thesis intends to analyze Wang Lung’s behavior and his hidden characters as a typical farmer in China. Through scrutinizing the text content, the author discovers that both merits of traditional Chinese farmer and backward thoughts under the feudal society are embodied in Wang Lung’s character. On the one hand, Wang Lung, industrious and frugal, simple and kind, has a keen attachment to earth. On the other hand, he is feudalistic, timid and conservative with a strong lust to women.

Key Words: The Good Earth Wang Lung image of farmer

Contents
I. Introduction 1 1.1. Summary of The Good Earth 1 1.2. The Significance of The Good Earth 2 1.3. Relevant Studies of The Good Earth 3
II. Wang Lung’s Merits as a Typical Chinese Farmer 4 2.1. The Attachment to Land 4 2.1.1. Strong Desire for Landowning 4 2.1.2. Happy Time of Farming in the Land 5 2.1.3. Repulse of Selling Land 5 2.2. Strong Sense of Family 6 2.2.1. Wang Lung’s Filial Piety to His Father 6 2.2.2. Wang Lung’s Obligation to His Uncle 7 2.2.3. Arrangement to Sons’ Career and Spouse 7 2.3. Benevolence 8 2.3.1. Care for His Fool Daughter 8 2.3.2. Compassion for Pear Blossom 8 2.4. Diligence and Thrift 9
III. Wang Lung’s Weaknesses as a Typical Chinese Farmer 9 3.1. Superstition and Feudalism 9 3.2. Innate Timidity 10 3.3. Lust for Women 10 3.4. Hidden Evil Nature 11
Conclusion 12
References 13

I. Introduction

Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) is one of the most prolific and renowned American writers for her vivid novels about China. Her best representative work, The Good Earth, which is a complex moral life folktales that draws heavily on Buck’s firsthand knowledge of Chinese culture, quickly gained an international reputation. In 1938, Pearl Buck became the first American woman writer who formally awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The citation read: "For rich and truly epic descriptions of Chinese peasant life, and masterpieces of biography." The Good Earth is authentic in wealth of detail and rare insight. Characters in this novel are embodied with both good and bad - but always credible human qualities. True to life, they are neither idealized nor intrinsically evil. (Cevasco, G A 1967:447)

1 1.1. Summary of The Good Earth

In The Good Earth, Pearl Buck tells of the life cycle of birth, marriage, work, struggle, and death in a Chinese family, a pilgrimage through life’s uncertainties in connection with China’s good earth. (Smylie 2004:543) The story begins with Wang Lung’s marriage with a slave named O-lan from House of Hwang. O-lan and Wang Lung are pleased with each other, although they exchange few words. Together, Wang Lung and O-lan cultivate a bountiful and profitable harvest from their land. O-lan becomes pregnant, and Wang Lung is overjoyed when their first child is a son. Meanwhile, the powerful Hwang family lives decadently—the husband is obsessed with women, and the wife is addicted with opium. Their gradual fall enables Wang Lung to purchase a piece of their fertile rice land. He enjoys another profitable harvest, and O-lan gives birth to another son. Unfortunately, before long, a terrible famine settles on the land. Wang Lung’s family is forced to flee to a southern city for their living. There, O-lan and the children beg while Wang Lung earns money by picking people in a rented rickshaw. Wang Lung begins to despair of ever making enough money to return to his land. The turning point is that Wang Lung and O-lan join a group of poor and desperate people to ransack a rich man’s home. Wang Lung robs a pile of gold coins and O-lan steals some jewels. With this new wealth, he moves the family back home and purchases more land from decayed House of Hwang. Wang Lung enjoys several years of profitable harvests and becomes a rich landlord. When a flood forces him to be idle, he begins to feel restless and bored. He finds fault with O-lan’s appearance and becomes obsessed with Lotus, a beautiful, delicate prostitute. Eventually, he purchases Lotus to be his concubine. When O-lan becomes terminally ill, Wang Lung regrets his cruel words and feels guilty to his wife. Eventually, Wang Lung rents the Hwangs’ house and moves into it with his family. After O-lan’s death, Wang Lung’s sons begin to rebel against working as farmers and do not want inherit the land. By the end of the novel, despite Wang’s dissent, his sons plan to sell the family land and divide the money among themselves.

2 1.2. The Significance of The Good Earth

Pearl S. Buck’s influence rested essentially on the success of The Good Earth, which, more than any other single contemporary work, shaped an American image of China (Hunt, Michael H. 1977:33). The Good Earth shows vast and distinctive religious ideas, customs, mode of production, the family system as well as the disparity of life in the farming society of old China and comes to be a prescribed book for western readers to get a knowledge of peasant life in China, illustrating a lively and brand-new image of Chinese farmers. Although suffering from starvation, turmoil, locust plague and flood, Wang Lung, the main character of the novel, builds up his family with his diligence and wisdom. On the other hand, the novel also depicts farmers’ corruption after they became rich, which is a true portrayal of Chinese farmers. To some extent, almost every Chinese comes from a farmer family in old self-sufficient society. The reality and limitation of typical Chinese farmers’ characters are worthy of exploring.

3 1.3. Relevant Studies of The Good Earth

Since the publication of The Good Earth in 1931, it has witnessed a great controversy and received both praise and criticism. Early abroad critics on newspapers and magazines toward The Good Earth were mainly praiseful. They commented particularly upon the novel's Oriental quality. A critic from the London Times stated, "The Good Earth never fails to hold the attention, and conveys a convincing effect of presenting a true picture of Chinese life."[1] In China, Ye Gongchao approved Buck for having "faithfully portrayed" the lives of the people against their own background and in full possession of their own thoughts and emotions.[2] Jiang Kanghu complained that Buck’s writing in The Good Earth excessively emphasizes Chinese character and weakness in an inferior society. Some detail descriptions are untruthful.[3] Zhuang Xinzai praised Pearl Buck that "at least in part, she expressed the Chinese situation to the West in a realistic and objective attitude. Only at this point did we Chinese people who were in the process of national renaissance owe our gratitude to her."[4] In recent years, The Good Earth has been gaining popularity among Chinese scholars for its Chinese subject. Judging from an angle of social culture, Zhao Mei reaches a conclusion that the fundamental image of peasant in Buck’s writing is pitiful and admirable in spite of some descriptions of peasant’s weakness. (赵梅 1993) Gao Hong studies the novel from cross-culture perspective. He examines the foreign images and Buck’s images of Chinese and discovers that some self-righteous portraits in the text create deviation of the Chinese image.(高鸿 2005) Liu Jianbo discusses the symbol of earth through the theory of symbolism and finds that "Earth is both the hope of successive generations and the pursuit of individual life " (刘建波 2009) Liang Zhifang obtains a literary anthological view, finds its popularity is not only attributed to its Chinese theme, but to its universality and immutability of Chinese peasant life and rural China.(梁志芳 2011) In terms of character analysis, Wang Yan (王燕 2013) and You Zhixin(尤志心 2010) analyze Wang Lung’s character regard to his guilt and humanity respectively. Other scholars also inspect The Good Earth concerning perspectives of feminism, eco-criticism, post-colonial theory, etc. Although The Good Earth has been studied and researched by both domestic and overseas scholars for decades, a comprehensive study of Wang Lung is rare. This thesis intends to evaluate Wang Lung from different perspectives to obtain both merits and weaknesses of a typical farmer in China.

II. Wang Lung’s Merits as a Typical Chinese Farmer

1 2.1. The Attachment to Land

Wang Lung’s identity and motives are shaped above all by his relationship to the land. Victimized in turn by famine, flood, locusts, and bandits, he knows that only the land endures. (Hsu 1970:286) All difficulties he faced such as poverty and exile to another city, neither defeat him, nor eradicate his desire for land. Taking a panoramic view of the whole novel, we can easily find that Wang Lung’s attachment and passion to land are intense and ubiquitous.

2.1.1. Strong Desire for Landowning

In Wang Lung’s opinion, land is the root of life and the source of wealth. To him, land is one’s flesh and blood. Getting the news that House of Hwang wants to sell their land, Wang Lung immediately comes to a thought that he wants to buy their land. Although Hwang’s land is far away from where he lives, Wang Lung earnestly long for a piece of good land and decides to buy it right away. The small piece of Hwang’s land near the moat turns out a good harvest and brings Wang Lung a handful of silver. In spite of drought, Wang Lung hurries to buy another land adjoining the current one from House of Hwang. Once, some southern men talk of money and they would like to use the gold and the silver to eat and sleep, gamble and buy pretty women. Unlike these guys, Wang Lung cries out that he would buy land if he had the money. Accord with what he has said, Wang Lung does buy more land from House of Hwang after he gains gold during the robbery. In a word, Wang Lung’s determination of owning land is running through his whole life. He believes that only treasure like land can be safe.

2.1.2. Happy Time of Farming in the Land

Farming is an indispensable part of Wang Lung’s daily life. No matter as a poor farmer or as a rich landlord, it seems to Wang Lung that the happiest time in his life is to labor in the land and then gain a bumper harvest. As a poor farmer at first, Wang Lung works over the clods in the field and cultivates his wheat day after day. Each labor in the land contributes to Wang Lung’s affection with land. He is pleasant with the fragrance of soil and accustoms to the feel of the hoe hard in his hand. Under the sunshine, he can not only eat a meal in the field, but also have a sweet sleep in the furrow. When Wang Lung returns to his hometown from the southern city, he is too impatient to wait to get back to his land. With new hoes, plow and ox, he spends most hours sweating in the land in spite of tiredness. The good warmth of his own land against his flesh makes Wang Lung relieved and satisfied.

2.1.3. Repulse of Selling Land

When the drought makes the land barren and scarce harvest, a heavy famine breaks out. A flock of distraught villagers rush to Wang’s house and rob of his few store of food. At that time, he consoles himself that his land can not be taken away, which shows his simple content to still have land. When his uncle comes with some opportunists, Wang Lung agrees to sell all other things except for his land. His strong protest against selling the land reflects his deep attachment to land. "I shall never sell the land!" he shrieked at them. "Bit by bit I will dig up the fields and feed the earth itself to the children and when they die I will bury them in the land, and I and my wife and my old father, even he, we will die on the land that has given us birth!" (GE p.67) As Wang Lung is at his death’s door, he tells to his sons again that if they sell the land, it is the end. Wang Lung can compromise with his sons on all other things, but not the land. To him, separation between the land and farmer is definitely catastrophic. Many examples in the novel indicate that Wang Lung’s destiny is closely connected to the land, and his keen love to the land is throughout all his life. In old China, owing to the subsistence economy of rural area, the significance of land for farmers is self-evident. Therefore, Wang Lung’s attachment to land is exactly accord with typical Chinese farmers.

2 2.2. Strong Sense of Family

Sense of family develop mainly out of Chinese customs and their religion of ancestor worship. Wang Lung’s obedience to his father’s arrangement, compliance to his uncle’s unreasonable request and concern to his children’s career and spouse, all of which reveal Wang Lung’s strong sense of family as a traditional farmer.

2.2.1. Wang Lung’s Filial Piety to His Father

In China, filial piety is considered the basis of virtue and the origin of culture, and it is the main concern of The Good Earth as well. At the beginning of the novel, father’s dominated position in the family can be found immediately as Wang Lung is obliged to satisfy his father’s demand over time. He had lit it every morning since his mother died six years before. He had lit the fire, boiled water, and poured the water into a bowl and taken it in to the room where his father sat upon his bed. (GE p.16) When the whole family is suffering a famine, first consideration that occurs to Wang Lung’s mind is his father’s need for food instead of his wife or himself. "It is all I can spare and I have first my old father to consider , even if I had no children." (GE p.58) Therefore, the old man fares better than anyone in the family, even the children have to starve with empty bellies, because Wang Lung gives most remaining food to his father. In front of father, Wang Lung expresses respect, shows support and displays courtesy. Priorities of concerning his father appear many times in the novel. Filial piety, to some extent, is a common merit in Chinese people, let alone a character of Chinese simple farmers.

2 2.2.2. Wang Lung’s Obligation to His Uncle

The old Chinese doctrine requires Wang Lung should not only take good care of his own parents, but also be responsible for other relatives such as his father’s brother---his uncle. Wang Lung does not want to be bothered by villager’s reproach that he is lack of morals and filial conduct. Unwilling as he is, Wang Lung has to give his silver to his greedy uncle. Replied Wang Lung with bitterness. "It is cutting my flesh out to give to him and for nothing except that we are of a blood."(GE p.53) After Wang Lung is of great prosperity, his conscienceless uncle comes to his home again for free accommodation and food. Wang Lung could do nothing but receive his uncle’s family, for it is a shame for a rich man to reject his own father’s brother and son. In fact, Wang Lung is angry to spare extra money to his lazy uncle, but he still need to welcome his relatives with smiles due to family ties.

3 2.2.3. Arrangement to Sons’ Career and Spouse

Arranged career and selected spouse are major models during Wang Lung’s time in China. Besides, the young is supposed to follow the elder’s orders without question. Wang Lung has three sons, he plans that one is a scholar and one a merchant and one a farmer. Therefore, he dispatches his eldest son to south, sends his second son to be an apprentice in the grain market and attempts to teach his youngest son do farming. He is content that three sons have different careers and they can help each other. It is a norm of society at Wang Lung’s time to match a marriage of property by elders. Choosing a spouse is a responsibility of parents rather than children themselves. In the novel, Wang Lung selects his sons’ wives through the help of Cuckoo. His sons do not see their spouses before marriage.

3 2.3. Benevolence

The Chinese have placed the term “benevolence” at the head of their list of the Five Constant Virtues. There is a great variety of forms in which there is certain to be abundant scope for the exercise of benevolence. (Smith 2011:188) This highly praised characteristic is evinced in Wang Lung’s attitude toward his fool daughter and a slave girl named Pear Blossom.

2.3.1. Care for His Fool Daughter

When Wang Lung is forced to subsist his life in the southern city, more than one time, he is tempted to sell his fool daughter to gain silver so as to go back to the land. However, each time when Wang Lung thinks of abandoning his little girl, bitter tears come into his eyes. He does not sell her after all. Fool daughter’s innocent smile melts Wang Lung’s heart, at that time, Wang Lung decides to take good care of this fool girl. He does not allow anyone to curse his poor fool including his beloved concubine Lotus. He plays with his fool and buys candies for his fool. As Wang Lung grows older, he still concerns about his fool’s fate. He is comforted until Pear Blossom promises to take good care of this fool.

2.3.2. Compassion for Pear Blossom

Pear Blossom is a pale slave that Wang Lung buys in a famine year when she is small and piteous and half- starved. As an inferior slave in the house, she should have obeyed master’s instruction. However, when Pear Blossom hears that she will be given to Wang Lung uncle’s son for pleasure, she cries out with fear and weeps sadly. Wang Lung has a soft heart and is made uncomfortable by Pear Blossom’s cries. Not caring to anger his cousin, he finally gives him an excuse that Pear Blossom has an incurable disease. Owing to Wang Lung’s compassion, Pear Blossom gets rid of a rude and irritable man.

4 2.4. Diligence and Thrift

Wang Lung, the typical representative of Chinese farmers, is hardworking and frugal. His diligence and thrift are conducive to his accumulation of big fortune and finally turn him into a rich lord. Wang Lung’s diligence can be mainly seen from his labor in land. At the poverty-stricken stage, Wang Lung goes out before sunrise and comes back after sunset every day. Instead of complaining the heat of broiling sun and the painstaking of hoeing, Wang Lung does his farming laboriously. In order to save time to do more work, he usually has meals in the field. Wang Lung’s life style and habits reveal his thrift. Wang Lung never wastes a drop of water, which can be read that he is quite cautious when bathing. In addition, Wang Lung does not, like many of the villagers, spend his money freely at gambling or on foods too delicate for them.

III. Wang Lung’s Weaknesses as a Typical Chinese Farmer

1 3.1. Superstition and Feudalism

As is known to all, in 1920s and 1930s, China witnesses great turmoil, tangled warfare, and the imperialism intrusion. Further, thousands of years of feudal thought is the main guideline for common people at that time. Under such circumstances, Wang Lung is quite superstitious and feudalistic, believing in the god and holding old-fashioned thoughts. Superstition of god prevails in old society that everyone wants to be blessed and protected by the gods, Wang Lung is without exception. Since Wang Lung is a farmer, he worships the earth gods in order to have a good weather for the crops. Each year at the New Year he buys red paper, cuts carefully and pastes new robes for the gods. When Wang Lung longs for a male grandchildren, he goes to the temple where Goddess of mercy dwells and burns incense. Ideas of preferring boys to girls is apparent and severe in traditional Chinese farmers’ concept. When O-lan is giving birth to their first child, Wang Lung first concerns whether it is a man child. In his mind, a son means a good fortune, while a girl is a symbol of evil. When he thinks that he is lucky enough to have such a beautiful man child, he hides the baby boy and refers to the child as an ugly girl because the evil spirit will not be interested in a mere girl.

2 3.2. Innate Timidity

Timidity and lack of confidence are common within some Chinese farmers. Wang Lung, an illiterate farmer born from a poor family, illustrates us a good example. First, Wang Lung is afraid of the rich. When he first enters the house of Hwang, he is very nervous. “although it was the first time he had ever been in a great family's house, he could remember nothing. With his face burning and his head bowed, he walked through court after court..."(GE p.15) In front of the old luxurious mistress, Wang Lung even dares not to say words. Second, Wang Lung fears bandits. With the approaching of drought, villagers flood into Wang Lung’s home and want to grab something, Wang Lung is extremely scared this moment. It is O-lan who stands up at that urgent time. Meanwhile, when Wang Lung knows his uncle is one of the Redbeards, he does not go to the court to reveal his uncle’s identity, for he worries that other robbers would kill him for revenge. Third, Wang Lung is afraid of soldiers. When his cousin lead an army force to station in the village, Wang Lung is in his horror but could do nothing about it. What he does is to meet their demands to the greatest extent. Generally speaking, Wang Lung is acting timidly before bigwigs and vicious power. It is without rebuke that a traditional farmer like him is short of this kind of courage.

3 3.3. Lust for Women

It seems a natural instinct of married men to pursue more beautiful women as long as they have extra energy and money. After Wang Lung becomes rich and idle, he begins to look at O-lan in a picky sight. He saw for the first time that her hair was rough and brown and unoiled and that her face was large and flat and coarse-skinned, and her features too large altogether and without any sort of beauty or light. Her eyebrows were scattered and the hairs too few, and her lips were too wide, and her hands and feet were large and spreading.(GE p.118) Driven by his unrest from idleness and wishing to escape from his dull wife, Wang Lung goes to the tea shop and falls in love with a prostitute, Lotus. Wang Lung tries every means to please Lotus and behaves rather eccentrically. He cuts off his braid which is a symbol of life in farmer’s eyes. He washes his body every day and never eats a stalk of garlic just because Lotus hates a dirty brown body and the smell of garlic. No longer appearing like a farmer, Wang Lung starts to wear fine clothes and black velvet shoes. Not minding how much cost he would pay, Wang Lung is becoming strongly obsessed with this pretty prostitute. He not only pays for his hours with the girl, but also buys exquisite jewels for her. Eventually, Wang Lung buys Lotus as his concubine in the house. His disloyalty toward O-lan shows that most farmers are fickle in affection and lust for better-looking women.

4 3.4. Hidden Evil Nature

According to Xun-zi, people are inherently evil. In most cases, Wang Lung is a honest and kind farmer. However, at some particular moments, his hidden evil nature shows up. Although Wang Lung is a man so softhearted that he could not kill an ox, he becomes a ferocious robber when he bursts into a rich lord’s room. He threatens the lord to give him the money in a harsh voice, or he will kill him. Being a robber may not be Wang Lung’s original intention, but poverty impels him to conduct evil behaviors. Only plundering enough money can he go back home. Another example is that when Wang Lung can not endure his uncle’s boundless desire and abhorrent haughtiness, he decides to chronically kill his uncle and his wife with opium. Certainly, it is not proper and moral to destroy relatives’ health. Nevertheless, it is the best way to keep them in Wang Lung’s house but make them harmless and undesiring. Making his uncle addict to opium brings Wang Lung the peace.

Conclusion

In old days, China is a country with a wide agricultural base. The amount of farmers accounts for the majority of the total population. They are the carriers of the long history of China, embodying both the Chinese traditional virtues and backwards. Having entering the era of industry and technology, farmers are gradually fading out of our sight. Exploring farmers' characters can remind us of our natural instincts as a Chinese inheritor. Wang Lung, the representative of typical Chinese farmers, has strong attachment of the land and devotes all his energy into cultivation of land. Through his hard laboring and sweating, he accumulates his wealth in his land. Moreover, as a son, Wang Lung puts the filial piety as his prior responsibility. Further, Wang Lung is of a soft heart and of great sympathy towards vulnerable groups. Making a general survey of Wang Lung’s life, he is dependable, industrious, frugal and simple. Still, these good qualities of previous farmer are deserving our admiration and using for reference. However, the semi colonial and the semi feudal history determines that Wang Lung also has some kinds of minor weaknesses. Feudalism and superstition slaughter his thoughts. Influencing by these backward social consciousness, some problems such as valuing the male child only, worship of God, lust for women, selfishness exist in Wang Lung. Nonetheless, we can’t regard radically those laggard behaviors and feudal thinking as a major part of Wang Lung’s spirits, and unilaterally deem that he is bad and hopeless. Generally, we need to avoid and prevent these slightly incompatible old behaviors.

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