The Significance of the Earth in The Good Earth :: The Good Earth

  The Significance of the Earth in The Good Earth         And O-lan in the house was not idle. With her own hands she lashed the mats to the rafters and took earth from the fields and mixed it with water and mended the walls of the house, and she built again the oven and filled the holes in the floor that the rain had washed. in that respect can be no doubt that the symbol of earth in Bucks novel, The Good Earth, is one so potent that it permeates and binds the entire tale. It is presented repeatedly throughout the novel, either through gentle allusion or outright statement. None can dispute that the earth itself is a vital component in the livelihood of any farmer, consequently it is not surprising that the farmer Wang Lung places so much value into his lands however, there is a separate element of the earth that Pearl S. Buck brings forth in her tale about a farmers prosperous rise in feudal China, that element of regeneration and revitalization that is so apparent within this selected passage from the book.   many another(prenominal) times throughout the book did the earth pull Wang Lung through hardship and difficulty, and it was the one constant factor in his life, even as things changed--people dies, great houses fell, contend and famine raged, and inner turmoil plagued his very being. Throughout all of these obstacles the earth was always there, waiting for Wang Lung--whether as poor farmer or as blotto man of the village--to return to it, and draw from it those ever-present qualities of life and healing. The very words of the selected passage are pregnant with these qualities, as Wang Lung and his family, returning from the south to his land after a great and terrible period of famine, close those horrible years through the almost magical substance of the earth. It is symbolic how O-lan the wife, tending to the structure of the cultivated land house (a symbol itself in the Wang family) uses the earth from the fields to mend the walls of the house--thus the ailments of the house are healed by the richness of the land.