The Good Earth: Family Structure in Rural China :: Pearl Buck Good Earth Essays

Most critiques of The Good Earth are preoccupied with the authentic quality of the novel, and while the Western critiques praise it as a novel based on facts, the Chinese hold a different view. Kang Younghill, a Chinese man, in reference to the image Pearl dollar bill created of China, stated that it is discouraging to find that the novel works toward confusion, not clarification (Kang 368). This statement illuminates Kangs feelings that the details, which file had presented as factual in the novel, were contrary to the actual sprightliness of the Chinese. Yet researches have shown that Buck was rightly informed and presented her information correctly. One detail that she paid special attention to was the family structure within the rural Chinese family, which she presented in the form of the Wang Lung household. The family structure demonstrated by Buck is not restricted to the Wang Lung family, but was a part of every rural Chinese radical in the early 1900s. Every members experiences within the family structure are determined by the role and expectations placed on them by the society, and Buck was careful to entangle these experiences in Wang Lungs family. According to the World Book Encyclopedia, in rural China, persons live in large family units, and it was ideal that five generations live under the same roof. evening so, most peasants live in nuclear families, and the extended family can only be afforded by the wealthy. (China family life 483) This was perhaps one of the reasons why Buck transported Wang Lung from a peasant to a great landlord, so she could establish an extended family structure that was ideal to all Chinese families. When Wang Lung was just married he lived in a somewhat simple nuclear family, except for the presence of his father that would make it like an extended family. Moreover, the Chinese perception of a nuclear family include the father, but when members other than the children are introduced, th e family would then be an extended one. Thus, Wang Lungs nuclear family is comprised of himself, O-lan, his wife, and his father. After he had his children, there were three generations under his roof. Wang Lung soon began to prosper, and had an extended family when his uncle and his family go into Wang Lungs house.