The Good Life :: Essays Papers

The Good LifeIn The Good Earth, by Pearl S, Wang Lung the main character is a poor peasant who buys a wife and moves up in the social ladder during the peasants revolution. This story displays umpteen major ideas of ancient Chinese culture, such as the social order, the give-and-take of wo hands, and the role of the family in everyday life. At the beginning of the movie the hobby quote appears on the screen The soul of a great area is expressed in the life of its humblest people. In this simple story of a Chinese farmer may be found something of the soul of mainland China. Its humility, its courage, its copious heritage from the past and its vast promise for the future. This means that an empires greatness force out also be measured by the life of its poorest people, and from this you can regulate its character and where the empire is going. The Good Earth is an accurate reproduction of China during the Song and Tang Dynasties. The role of the family was completely represented in twain the film and the book. The oldest male in the family is always greatly complimentsed with filial piety. Filial piety was the the idea that elders should be respected and the older you were the wiser you were. In the beginning, Wang Lung bought an ugly slave for a wife because his wise father told him to. Wang Lungs respect for his father somewhat diminishes as his wealth increases and because of this he buys a sulfur wife for his own pleasure. This shows that the Chinese society was predisposed against women and they were a drop off to the family.The Good Earth shows the treatment, or mistreatment, of women accurately. O-Lan was do by badly by todays standards, alone Wang Lung was kind to her compared many other husbands back then. Women in China were treated as slaves, they often worked in the fields, kept the house, and cared for the children. If a couple had a girl as a first child then there was a good chance that she would be killed because only men could atta in good money. Some women had their feet bound to keep them small, this was thought to be attractive. If a womans feet were bound then she could not be a slave or even walk properly on retarded feet. Rich men sometimes had two wives, one they bought for slave work and the other for beauty.