Resumo de The Good Earth

The Good Earth
Biography of the Author
Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker was born on June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Her parents, Absalom and Caroline Sydenstricker, were Southern Presbyterian missionaries, stationed in China. Pearl was the fourth of seven children (and one of only three who would survive to adulthood). She was born when her parents were near the end of a furlough in the United States; when she was three months old, she was taken back to China, where she spent most of the first forty years of her life. The Sydenstrickers lived in Chinkiang (Zhenjiang), in Kiangsu (Jiangsu) province, then a small city lying at the junction of the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal. Pearl's father spent months away from home, itinerating in the Chinese countryside in search of Christian converts; Pearl's mother ministered to Chinese women in a small dispensary she established.

From childhood, Pearl spoke both English and Chinese. She was taught principally by her mother and by a Chinese tutor, Mr. Kung. In 1900, during the Boxer Uprising, Caroline and the children evacuated to Shanghai, where they spent several anxious months waiting for word of Absalom's fate. Later that year, the family returned to the US for another home leave. In 1910, Pearl enrolled in Randolph-Macon Woman's College, in Lynchburg, Virginia, from which she graduated in 1914. Although she had intended to remain in the US, she returned to China shortly after graduation when she received word that her mother was gravely ill. In 1915, she met a young Cornell graduate, an gricultural economist named John Lossing Buck. They married in 1917, and immediately moved to Nanhsuchou (Nanxuzhou) in rural Anhwei (Anhui) province. In this impoverished community, Pearl Buck gathered the material that she would later use in The Good Earth and other stories of China.

Characters
Wang Lung: Wang Lung is a poor peasant farmer whose love for the land sustains him through the difficult times of his life. After marrying a slave from a great house, he gradually rises from a poor, humble, country farmer to a wealthy, respected, landowning patriarch of a great family. He multiplies his fortunes through the help of his loyal wife, O-lan, and his faith in the good earth.

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. She gives birth to three sons and three girls, and five children survive. She knows that Wang Lung can never love her, but is extremely loyal to him. After having worked all her life for Wang Lung and the family, O-lan dies from an incurable illness.

Old Man (Wang Lung's father): Wang Lung's father comes from a family of farmers, and has worked on the land for most of his life before bequeathing it to Wang Lung. He is an old man who becomes increasingly feeble with age, spending most of his time eating and sleeping. He dies soon after O-lan dies.

Ching: Ching is Wang Lung's nearest neighbor who, with Wang Lung's rising fortunes, comes to live with him, and becomes his steward, overseeing various matters of the field and the workers. Ching is a small, timid man who rarely speaks. The famine destroys his family, but he spends the rest of his life serving Wang Lung like an extremely faithful dog. After Ching dies, Wang Lung can no longer bear to go out to his land by himself.

Eldest son of Wang Lung (Nung En): He is Wang Lung's first born. During adolescence, he is lustful, troublesome, and moody like a young lord of a great house. He is sent to school to be educated, and eventually goes south to become a scholar. Later, he returns to marry a town-born maid who is the daughter of a grain dealer. As an adult, he is highlys of the status and the wealth of his family in town. He is also very extravagant, and scornful of the common people. Later, he becomes an official among the rich men in town, and gets himself a second wife.

Second Son of Wang Lung (Nung Wen): Even as a child, the second son is different from his older sibling. Sharp and thrifty, he is apprenticed to the grain merchant Liu after school. Later, the second son becomes a clerk of the grain shop, comes to manage Wang Lung's finances, and marries a village maid. He and his haughty older brother do not get along as a result of various differences. Later, the second son sets up a grain market of his own.

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