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The main theme of The Good Earth is announced in its title: it is the good earth itself. ...
Pearl Buck witnessed a bloody revolution in China and had seen millions killed in a pro- communist revolution. Watching, listening, and even living out this drama helped Pearl Buck truly grasp the basis of Chinese politics and was often reflected in her writings. The Good Earth was a reflection of Pearl Buck’s own life, and the political and religious aspects of The Good Earth are accurately presented.
One aspect was the political position of women. As Buck writes, women are seen as very little, as slave, or chattel, and she was incensed at common practice called female infanticide. ... During a famine in The Good Earth, O-lan gives birth to a girl-child. ... As O-lan puts it in The Good Earth, “It [labor] is over once more. ... In The Good Earth, when the uncle uses custom to blackmail Wang Lung, Wang does what his political culture demands and gives him the money, saying, “ It is cutting out the flesh of my flesh to give to him and for nothing except that we are of blood. ... In The Genius that was China it says, “ Merchants were treated… as necessary parasites…”However, during the Tang Dynasty, in the religious Confucian social hierarchy, scholars were held in highest regard, with farmers right after them.
Approximate Word count = 1135
Approximate Pages = 4.5
(250 words per page double spaced)
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