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

Most critiques of The Good Earth atomic number 18 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 free fall go against 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 Buck had presented as factual in the novel, were impertinent to the actual life of the Chinese. Yet researches have shown that Buck was rightly apprised and presented her information correctly. One detail that she paid special attention to was the family social structure within the rural Chinese family, which she presented in the form of the Wang Lung household. The family structure present by Buck is not restricted to the Wang Lung family, but was a farewell of every rural Chinese home in the early 1900s. either members experiences within the family structure are determined by the role and expectations laid on them by the society, and Buck was careful to include these experiences in Wang Lungs family. tally to the World Book Encyclopedia, in rural China, persons live in fully grown family units, and it was ideal that five generations live at a lower place the same roof. Even so, about peasants live in nuclear families, and the extend 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 carriage of his father that would make it like an extended family. Moreover, the Chinese perception of a nuclear family included the father, but when members other than the children are introduced, the 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 moved into Wang Lungs house.