An Analysis Of The Peasants’ Land Complex In The Good Earth

Pearl S.Buck received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938,becoming the first female writer to win the award in the history of American literature.She is good at creating works about Chinese themes and her masterpiece is The Good Earth.Since its publication in 1931,it has caused a worldwide research boom,helped to reshape the image of Chinese in the eyes of western people and promoted cultural exchanges between East and West.The Good Earth tells a poignant story about how Wang Lung,a Chinese peasant,struggles to be a landowner.Pearl S.Buck focuses on the relations between peasants and land,describes their attitudes towards land at different times and under different conditions,and gradually reveals the causes and effects of the changes of peasants’ attitudes to land.In the light of Carl Gustav Jung’s theory of complex,this thesis intends to analyze the peasants’ different attitudes towards land in The Good Earth.In the late 19th and the early 20th centuries,for most peasants in China,land was the major source of wealth and the survival of their family depended heavily on it.And those who,like the characters in the novel,chose to leave land or abandon land would face severe problems such as moral degeneration and the decline of their family.Thus,worries concerning land and the failure to truly understand the importance of land have led to various attitudes towards it,such as excessive dependence on land,greedy possession of land,morbid protection of land,extreme hatred of land and indifference to land,etc.In a Jungian sense,these land-centered emotions and behavior that are usually irrational and abnormal constitute their "land complex".This thesis aims to analyze the three typical land attitudes of the peasants.Chapter One mainly explores the ambivalent attitudes of land-holding peasants towards land,represented by the protagonist,Wang Lung.Wang Lung’s excessive dependence on land and strong desire to possess more land stem from the worship of land engraved on the heart of Chinese peasants and the trauma caused by natural and man-made disasters.With the accumulation of wealth,his attitudes towards land have changed from dependence on land to the estrangement from land.Only when he is at the end of his life does he have a preliminary understanding of the value of land.This process reveals the fact that land-holding peasants merely pay attention to what they can benefit directly from land,being unable to think about land’s long-term importance to them.Chapter Two focuses on female peasants’ consistent attitudes to land,represented by Wang Lung’s wife,O-lan.Her strong insistence on owning some land mainly stems from her unique traumatic experiences in the natural and man-made disasters.Her attitude towards land is consistent,manifested in her silent love for land and morbid protection of land.O-lan would even sacrifice her life and her daughter’s freedom to defend land.Moreover,O-lan has a relatively close relation with land because of her female identity.Chapter Three analyzes landless peasants’indifference to land,represented by Wang Lung’s uncle.As the villain of the entire novel,his experience suggests the importance of land to peasants from the reverse side.He nearly embodies all the shortcomings of the peasants.His ignorance,laziness and greed contrast sharply with the frugality,industriousness and kindness of Wang Lung and O-lan.Landless peasants’indifference to land ultimately brings about negative effects,including living a parasitic life and moral degradation after losing land.To sum up,this thesis argues that Pearl S.Buck attempts to explore the various attitudes of Chinese peasants to land in The Good Earth and guide readers to understand the significance of land for peasants and even for all human beings.Only by understanding the causes,manifestations and effects of the Chinese peasants’ land complex can readers understand their attachment to land that has been passed down from generation to generation.