The Good Earth
...ung and his wife toiled in the fields everyday to ensure a good harvest. Although Wang Lung has great respect for the land, when nature works against his will and there is a drought, he curses the land because his family is forced to move south in order to survive. They arrive in the southern city with nothing, yet Wang Lungs still holds true to his morals. For example, rather than begging or stealing, he rents a rickshaw and totes people around the city in order to make a few coins for food. Much to his disapproval, however, O-lan and the children beg for money and even resort to stealing a piece of meat in order to survive. Wang Lung scolds and beats his wife for begging and stealing and teaching the children to do the same. He refuses to eat the stolen meat. Once Wang Lung believes he has enough money to return home, he becomes anxious to get back to the land. “We go back to the land tomorrow”(140), he says as he shows his true determination to get back to his life with the land. Their lives make a swift transformation when Wang Lung discovers that O-lan had stolen a bag of jewels during an uprising in the city. The jewels symbolize a transition between Wang Lung’s life as a poor farmer and his new life as a wealthy aristocrat. They allow him to become prosperous as he uses them to buy 200 acres of land from the House of Hwang. His wealth changes him completely as he becomes less troubled about the land and O-lan and more concerned about transient and material wealth. As Wang Lung’s capital rises so does his prestige and he takes great satisfaction in being compared to the Great Lord of the House of Hwang. Additionally, he even buys the House of Hwang and refines it to be his own in order to continually be regarded as a great lord. As Wang Lung continues to spend lavishly on material possessions he pays less heed to the land because he feels it is more prestigious to be named a great lord than a peasant farmer. Also similar to one of the Great Lord’s acts, Wang Lung takes a concubine, named Lotus, into his house. This makes him more disrespectful of O-lan because he feels she i...