The Good Earth Argumentative Essay Example

family by doing so. He had always been a person who was close with his family because of his culture and would never have questioned the thought of giving his uncle money before he was corrupted.

Paragraph 2: Wang Lung also loses himself whilst gaining wealth.

•  "Now the anger that arose in Wang Lung's heart was an anger he had not known in al his life before, although as things had prospered with him and as men came to call him rich, he...had grown full of small sudden angers, and he was proud even in the town. But this anger now was the anger of one man against another man who steals away the loved woman, and when Wang Lung remembered that the other man was his own son, he was filled with a vomiting sickness”.
• "It seemed to him that now his life was rounded off, and he had done all that he said he would in his life and more than he could ever have dreamed he could”(241).
• "Here is enough for a few days of opium for the old lady, at any rate".

Commentary: Wang Lung’s family is the center of his world, and his land second. He seemed to put both of these things behind when he became a richer man. He put other things before the things he initially really cared about. The second quote, saying that Wang Lung lived a happy and complete life, isn’t true because he spent a large amount of his time being unhappy and unable to find himself. Wang Lung then continued to put things that didn’t really matter in front of his family and his land,

such as opium.

Paragraph 3: When Wang Lung gains money and becomes a totally different person, and throws his morals away.

• "The common people had to move, then, and they moved complaining and cursing because a rich man could do as he would and they packed their tattered possessions and went away swelling with anger and muttering that one day they would come back even as the poor do come back when the rich are too rich”.
• "Now evil, idle son-sell the land! It is the end of a family-when they begin to sell the land. Out of the land we came and into it we must go-if you will hold your land you can live-no one can rob you of land-if you sell the land, it is the end”.
• "And am I always to look like a hind when we have enough to spare?".

Commentary: Wang Lung lives by respecting his land and respecting others, and loses almost all of his respect for everything he once cared about when he grows overly wealthy. Quote 2 suggests he relied on the earth throughout his life and it in turn brought him success and what he desired. Because of Wang Lung’s determination of his land, he couldn’t sit back and watch what he believed gave him everything sold. Wang Lung had originally spent his time being committed to the land and forming solid relationships with those around him, those morals were then lost. Wang Lung originally had morals to respect his elders and never questioned it. After he was corrupted, he didn’t see why respecting them applied to him anymore. His children then saw the way he acted,

and treated their elders differently too.