The Good Earth - the Conflicts of Wang Lung That Are Influenced by Setting

The Conflicts of Wang Lung that are Influenced by Setting

Have you every wonder how farmers were like in the past? Farmers depended heavily on the ground to produce crops. With their crops, they sold it to try and make a small profit. Toiling hard, back breaking labor on the land describes how Wang Lung, the protagonist in The Good Earth, spent most of his time until he started finding a way out of poverty. In various circumstances his conflicts that were influenced by setting proves the theme "the land controls the life of a farmer" from the novel The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. These scenes are during when nature attacks him with locusts, a flood, and a drought.

One of the situations was when a band of locusts came to attack Wang Lung's fields. It was told that a band of locusts, grasshoppers that eat crops, were coming. Pearl S. Buck said

And women went weeping into town to buy incense to thrust before the earth gods in the little temple...and some went...where the gods of heaven were, and thus earth and heaven were worshiped.

This shows that many other farmers were scared about the locust coming to attack them so they prayed to their god. They all relied on the land to make profit and food. Wang Lung and many other farmers were out working to defend the fields. Building dams, Wang Lung and his associates tried to drown some in the water. They focused hard and tried to beat the locusts ferociously with flails. Although millions of locusts were killed, huge portions of the fields were destroyed. This shows a struggle a farmer had against the locusts. Usually, most people wouldn't care about locusts, but Wang Lung did because he needed his land's crops. His harvest is a source of wealth from selling them and he needs them as food too. This is one example how the land controls the life of a farmer by the locust scene.

Another example of how land controls the life of a farmer is in the flood. There are two floods that happen in the course of Wang Lung's life. Each time, Wang Lung receives no harvest because the water level is too high. Pearl S. Buck said, "But since much of the land could not be planted he [Wang Lung] was more idle than ever been in his life...." This quote show how board Wang Lung is because he cannot be with his land and harvest. Wang Lung felt a burn in him to go and plow the feels as if the