Earth Pearl S. Buck\'s Masterpiece,

¶ … Earth

Pearl S. Buck's masterpiece, the Good Earth, won her the Pulitzer Prize and helped her to win the Nobel Prize in literature a few years later. Much of the acclaim came from her very delicate handling of the oppression of women in turn of the century China. Overall, Buck depicts many of the most devastating ways in which women were exploited or used as commodities in Chinese culture, but she does so without the apparent agenda to pass judgment upon the entire society. Buck's point-of-view is deliberately objective. She focuses most centrally upon the individual characters within the novel, and not, necessarily, the social practices which routinely impel them to act in certain ways. Of course, the issues of bound feet, baby boys vs. baby girls, slavery, and beauty are all addressed within the Good Earth; yet Buck's fundamental aim to is to show how human beings, within such a foreign social structure, think, act and believe. Ultimately, her objective portrayal of the theme of male domination over females is one of the major reasons why her writing is still studied to this day.

In the very first chapter of the Good Earth we are introduced to two of the main themes of female oppression that the book will subsequently deal with. The first is associated with the contrast between the wealthy and the poor in rural China; this is the contrast between Wang Lung and the Hwang family. Since Wang Lung is so poor, his father is forced to beg the Hwangs to spare a slave to be his bride (Buck 5). This introduces the reader to the very limited freedoms that women in turn of the century China possessed. Although neither Wang nor O-lan had met before, it is O-lan's status as a women that means she can be bought and sold in and out of slavery without any concern for her own wishes.

Despite Wang Lung's poverty, he is still able to choose, to some extent, when and from what stock of women he will be married; he insists that his bride should not be completely unattractive, though not so attractive that her virginity will be in question. His father explains why he cannot be married to a pretty woman: "We must have a woman who will tend the house and bear children as she works in the fields, and will a pretty woman do these things? She will be forever thinking about clothes to go with her face!" (Buck 11). In this way, women are looked upon as commodities even by the most lowly peasants. They must consider how such a woman will contribute to their household, and judge them upon all applicable criteria.

The second major theme that the fist chapter introduces is that of bound feet. When Wang Lung firsts meets O-lan he is disappointed that her feet are not bound. In his culture, this is a sign of femininity, as well as one of servitude: "He saw in an instant's disappointment that her feet were not bound. But he this he could not dwell upon," (Buck 21). This feature of O-lan will continually grate upon Wang Lung throughout the novel, and cause O-lan to feel deeply ashamed of herself (Buck 303). In this way, Buck does not openly come out against the practice of binding women's feet; she only illustrates the immense pull the cultural practice has upon individuals within her story. This approach emphasizes that the ways in which Wang Lung and O-lan feel about bound feet are inconsequential to the overall social framework of China. Instead, their feelings are profoundly influenced by this social framework.

Also within this social framework, the birth of female babies is, to the family, a source of burden. Essentially, this is because a girl's role in the family is only to be raised, fed, and then given away to another family in marriage. This, ultimately, causes the family to lose wealth; whereas if a boy was born, an extra hand in the fields could be promised, and the acquisition of an extra woman in the home could also be promised when it came time for him to marry. Accordingly, Wang Lung is overjoyed when he learns that his first child is a son, and he and O-lan attempt to fool any contemptuous spirits into thinking that the child is an undesirable girl: "What a foolish thing he was doing, walking like this under an open sky, with a beautiful man child for any evil spirit passing by chance through the air to see!... 'What a pity our child is a female whom no one could want and covered with small pox as well! Let us pray it must die,'" (Buck 54). This is why, when their second child is born a female O-lan says, "It is over once more. It is only a slave this time -- not worth mentioning," (Buck 67). This birth suggests to Wang Lung that he is beginning to be cursed by bad luck (Buck 68).

When the couple's third child is born, also a girl, it is during a time a famine, which was preceded by the birth of the first girl. This brings Wang Lung to suspect that girls are a bad omen. He discovers, however, evidence that O-lan killed the infant because it would have been too taxing on the family to feed it. Wang Lung leaves the body to be eaten by a starving dog: "He had scarcely put the burden down before a famished, wolfish dog hovered almost at once behind him... 'It is better as it is,' he muttered to himself, and for the first time was wholly filled with despair," (Buck 86). So although Wang Lung realizes that it is better that his baby girl is dead for the entire family, it still breaks his heart.

It is also during the famine that Buck reveals more about the practice of selling daughters into slavery. Since food and money are so scarce for all of the families, many men end up selling their daughters into slavery in order to provide enough money to rebuild their lives once times get better. In chapter 15 when Wang Lung returns to the farm, for instance, he discovers that his uncle sold all of his female cousins off into marriage (Buck 57).