The Good Earth英语文学赏析论文.doc

The Good EarthAbstract: "The good earth" is the work of Pearl Sydenstricker Buck who is an American writer and she stayed at China several years.And the story happened in Qing dynasty of China. To understand the story,we review the history of that pried.After the overthrow of the Ching Dynasty of the Manchus in 1911 by Sun Yat-sen and other dedicated intellectuals who envisioned a united and democratic nation, developments did not go quite as well as the leaders had hoped."By the late 1920s,China was torn by civil strife from Canton to Peking, from the India border to the Amur River on the border of Russia. The lot of the Chinese peasant was not very good. Most of them were tenant farmers, working the land for the rich landowners, who may have owned thousands of acres (as does Wang Lung at the end of The Good Earth).But here and there were small, independent farmers working their own plots, as does Wang Lung at the beginning of the novel. These small farmers were constantly at the prey of marauding bandits such as Wang Lung's uncle and the "red beards." They were also at the mercy of the grain merchants since they could not read or write; hence, the importance for Wang Lung to have his oldest son learn to read and write. Essentially, however, most of the farmers were left alone, for even the war lords had to eat. The farmer was thus protected to some extent by the same needs which plagued him and his family. " -from google The main person in the story are O-lan and Wang Lung.O-lan is a servant girl in a big family.The story begins with Wang Lung,a poor peasant,married O-lan from the house of Hwang.The couple worked hard, and they get some wealth.Then they had a son born and began to buy land .Then it has a terrible drought,they begin to escape to a big southern city.There O-lan became the pillar of the family and obtained some jewelry by accident,so they have to return to their own land. After they got back,they buy more and more land,and the climate is good for the crop,they have a very good harvest,and eventually bought the house of Hwang.After they get rich, Wang Lung is not satisfied with the looking of O-lan.He started to squander,bought a prostitute home as his concubine,and maltreated O-lan.At last O-lan died with illness and sadness before Wang Lung realize how important her role in the family.Wang Lung finally returned to his earthen house,and rediscovered joy and satisfaction by laboring on his own soil. O-lan gets through four pregnancies for their family's survival. Then she gets very thin. She is often half-starved, she has done so much for the family. But when they get rich,Wang Lung don't like her any more,and don't care her.The story compare the poor Wang Lung and the rich one tell us many principle.And the story represented ancient agricultural Chinese society.It tell many typical phenomenon.Key words: good earth ,ChinaIntroduction:1、 About the author: Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 March 6, 1973) also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu (Chinese: 賽珍珠; pinyin: Sài Zhnzh), was an American writer who spent most of her time until 1934 in China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best-selling fiction book in the U.S. in 1931 and 1932, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces." She was born in the United States during her parents' year of home leave from China. She was taken to China when she was three months old. As a precocious child, she asked many questions and read everything that came within her reach.Pearl was encouraged by her mother to write every week, and later decided to become a novelist. She grew up with Chinese customs and traditions, even having a Chinese governess. Later she said that as a child, she simultaneously belonged to two worlds-an American missionary world and a Chinese world. This explains her wish as a novelist to encourage intercultural understanding among different peoples. During the time Pearl was growing up in China, the country was restless and violent, and hatred against foreigners culminated in the Boxer Uprising of 1900. During the fearful time, Pearl and the rest of her family, except for her father, went to live in Shanghai. During adolescence, Pearl was sent to a nearby missions school for girls. Pearl wanted to attend college in the United States, and attended Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Virginia, a Christian institution. Finding encouragement and academic stimulation at Randolph-Macon, Pearl adapted well to her collegiate life, but continually felt like an outsider because she embraced a culture that Americans found alien. She studied Philosophy, and teacher assisted Psychology for a year after graduating.2、About the story: The novel begins on the day of Wang Lung's marriage. The woman he will be getting as his wife has been a slave since being a young girl at the great House of Hwang. Wang Lung, a humble, poor peasant farmer, goes to the great house to get his woman. O-lan is plain looking, dull, and slow, but she is hard working, thrifty, and resourceful. One day, she tells Wang Lung that she is with child, and later gives birth to a boy by herself. Winter comes, and Wang Lung is ready because of the good harvest he has had. There is a surplus of silver that he hides in a hole in his bedroom. The New Year comes, and on the second day, O-lan visits the House of Hwang with the first born baby. The great house is not as prosperous as it has been before, and Wang Lung decides to buy some of their land with the extra silver he has hidden in his hole. Spring comes, and O-lan is again with child, giving birth to another boy. Again, Wang Lung's harvests are good, and he hides more silver in the hole. Wang Lung's own status in the village grows as a result of his prosperity. On the seventh year, there is a flood, and the fields are filled with water. Wang Lung becomes idle, not having anything to do on his land. He goes to a great teahouse to pass time, and is tempted to visit a beautiful girl named Lotus with whom he becomes enchanted. O-lan work very hard and She is often half-starved she gets very thin.With the time going she got in sick.Wang Lung notices that O-lan is constantly in pain. The doctor comes to the house, and tells him that O-lan is very sick and will die. When the New Year approaches, however, O-lan regains enough strength to train her daughter-in-law to prepare food. O-lan tells Wang Lung that she wishes to see her son married before she dies. The eldest son is called from the city, and the ceremony is held. At the end of the day, O-lan dies, and not long after, Wang Lung's old father also dies. When Wang Lung is so old he does not even know what his own family is doing, and he learns that he now has eleven grandsons and eight granddaughters. But the one thing that never leaves Wang Lung is his love for the land, for the good earth: "He had gone away from it and he had set up his house in a town and he was rich. But his roots were in his land." As he feels death drawing near, he asks his eldest son to get him a coffin and bring it to the earthen house where he will move and end his days where he was born. Taking Pear Blossom, his fool, and a few servants, he returns to the good earth which brought about the establishment of the House of Wang. Once when the eldest and second son come for a visit, he overhears them talking of selling the land and he firmly resists such talk: "Out of the land we came and into it we must go and if you will hold your land you can live no one can rob you of land." Consequently, from our first glimpse of Wang Lung on his wedding day, when he felt as one with the good earth and through all his trials, he hung onto his land to the very end; Wang Lung has constantly emphasized his alliance with the "good earth."3、4、 待添加的隐藏文字内容1The characterWang 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 illnessOld 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.Conclusion: In the early part of the novel, when Wang Lung is poor, he is content. He lives close to the land, which provides him with all that he needs. He lives the way he has always done. He is humble, honest, and loves nothing more than working in his fields. The first few years of his life with O-lan are simple and relatively untroubled. As long as the land produces, they have no wants that cannot be met. They are hard-working, self-reliant, and thrifty. But this changes when famine comes to the land. Wang Lung is forced to leave his land and go south to the city to find work and earn money to feed his family. He feels that he is a stranger in the city, but he holds on to his values, rebuking and striking his son when he discovers that the son has been stealing. But then, because he is so desperate to return to his land, he compromises his own values by stealing from a man as a mob sweeps through one of the houses of the wealthy. It is this stolen money that provides the basis for his prosperity. The richer Wang Lung becomes, the more he compromises the values he has always lived by. He is no longer so hard-working, and he does not work directly on the land, but delegates the work to others. For a while, he becomes idle and starts to indulge in vices that would not have occurred to him when he was a simple farmer. He spends money lavishly on the prostitute Lotus and becomes vain about his own appearance, buying fashionable new clothes. He even forces his wife to hand over the pearls he had earlier allowed her to keep. Reference:1 A journey in English Literature .朱坤领2 google