History Literature / TheGoodEarth

* ChildhoodBrainDamage: The poor fool is implied to have this, as she was born during a terrible famine and was malnourished as an infant that her brain never developed properly.

''The Good Earth'' is a novel by Creator/PearlSBuck, first published in 1931. It won the UsefulNotes/PulitzerPrize in 1932, and topped the best-seller lists in the United States for 1932 ''and'' 1933. It is the first, and by far the best-known, book in a trilogy which continues in ''Sons'' (1932) and ''A House Divided'' (1935). Though Buck was an American, she spent most of her early life in China, and ''The Good Earth'' is credited with doing much to humanise and demythologise China and Chinese people to Americans. By contrast, the book's unflinching depiction of some of the grimmer aspects of life in China have made it less than popular there.

''The Good Earth'' was adapted for the stage in 1932, and a film version was released in 1937. The film, directed by Sidney Franklin, starred Paul Muni as Wang Lung. For her role as his wife O-Lan, Luise Rainer won an UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for Best Actress. The film also won the UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for Best Cinematography, and was nominated for Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Picture. Despite Pearl Buck's objections, all the leading roles were given to white actors in {{yellowface}}.

* PapaWolf: Wang Lung has ONE moment in his life, when his children sneak into Lotus' room to get a look at her, and she screams and tries to strike them. Wang Lung is PISSED, and tells her off for it.
* ParentalFavoritism: Wang Lung openly favors his eldest son, since he's a first-born son who takes after him. His second son doesn't mind since he knows how to manipulate his dad into giving him what he wants anyway, but his third son does mind. [[DeliberateValuesDissonance It goes without saying that he favors his sons over his daughters.]]

** The characters' attitudes toward people with disabilities are harsh to 21st century western readers. Poor Fool's intellectual disability is treated like a calamity. She is ignored by the other household members, with the exception of her parents and Pear Blossom. Lotus is enraged when Poor Fool gets too close to her. Wang Lung is considered odd for loving the girl and spending time with her. Wang Lung instructs Pear Blossom to mix poison in Poor Fool's food after his passing, believing that death would be a kinder fate for the girl than a life of abuse and neglect without his protection. [[spoiler: Fortunately, Pear Blossom intervenes, sparing Poor Fool's life]].
* TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed: O-Lan's illness, which she refers to as "a fire in my vitals": likely cancer. All but confirmed as uterine cancer, when the doctor refers to "a rock the size of a man's head in the womb".
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: All the sympathetic characters are either dead or no longer sympathetic, Wang Lung has learned absolutely nothing and is just as much of a JerkAss - if not more - as when the novel started, and it's heavily implied that Wang Lung's sons are no better than he is, and they won't honor his wishes after his death.]]

* HateSink: While Wang Lung himself is no prize, he's not necessarily a ''bad'' guy, so much as he is a bit selfish and overly ambitious. His ''uncle'', on the other hand, is a monster--he speaks cruelly towards both Wang Lung and his family, is implied to have ''eaten his own children'' during a famine and before his death of opium addiction, he's stated to have joined (and implicitly be leading) a gang that steals, kills, rapes and pillages.

* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler: Wang Lung's uncle and aunt die of an opium addiction. [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] because Wang Lung notices their addictions and makes sure to leave plenty of it around the house]].

* MayDecemberRomance: [[spoiler: Wang Lung and Pear Blossom. Although in an odd way, it seems to switch back and forth between being a romance and a more father/daughter relationship. He loses sexual interest in her quickly, but enjoys her companionship.]]

* ObliviousToLove: It's strongly implied in the novel that O-Lan has fallen in love with Wang Lung (a rarity in old fashioned arranged marriages, especially in China) but Wang Lung mistakes her devotion and obedience as slowness and stupidity, and repays her years of faithful servitude--and her having given birth to several sons, especially a first-born one--by falling in love with another woman, which breaks O-Lan's spirit.

** {{Invoked}} by his second son for himself. After Wang Lung finds his eldest son a beautiful wife, he assumes his second son will want the same. The kid replies that he actually wants a girl who's sensible, pretty but not so pretty as to be vain, and from a decent family but not so good a family that she's be haughty or arrogant. Confused, Wang Lung carries out his requests, and from all appearances his second son's marriage is more stable than any other man's in the family.

--> And she taught him.

* SoBeautifulItsACurse: O-lan repeatedly cites how the beautiful servant girls were raped by their masters if not outright sold into prostitution. Indeed, this was Lotus's fate.

* TakeAThirdOption: When Wang Lung's aunt and uncle drive the rest of the family crazy with endless extortions, his sons seriously plan to kill them and MakeItLookLikeAnAccident. When Wang Lung sees that they both become too lethargic to make demands when high on opium, he opts to have his sons give them as much as they want until [[spoiler: [[KarmicDeath they eventually die from it]].]]
* ThemeNaming: The pretty girls are given flower names - Lotus and Pear Blossom.

* TopWife: Played extremely realistically and dramatically as part of the protagonist's moral decline. After living for years in poverty with his devoted wife O-Lan, Wang Lung later becomes a wealthy man and uses that wealth to buy two concubines--including a former prostitute named Lotus. Lotus becomes the clear favorite to the point that Lung takes two pearls he knew O-Lan loved and fashions them into earrings for Lotus. It's only on O-Lan's deathbed that he gives her attention again.
* TraitorShot: In the ending, [[spoiler: Wang Lung's sons pretend to agree to his LastRequest, but look at each other over his eyes and smile, indicating that they intend to go back on their word]].

* WouldHurtAChild

** Wang Lung buys poison and quietly instructs Pear Blossom to mix it into the Poor Fool's food after his death, since he knows that the Poor Fool will probably be abused and neglected without his protection. [[spoiler: Pear Blossom never uses the poison, but promises to look after the Poor Fool herself instead.]]

* AdaptationalHeroism: Wang Lung [[spoiler: realises he does love O-Lan on her deathbed, and gives her back the pearls he took]], something he didn't do in the book.

* {{Bowdlerise}}: Due to the Hays Code, when Wang Lung brings Lotus home, his father just screams that she's a "bad woman" repeatedly instead of "whore" like in the book.

* FixFic: Many viewers describe [[spoiler: Wang Lung giving O-Lan back her pearls on her deathbed]] as something they wished he would have done in the book.

* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler: Wang Lung dies at the end of the book, but the film ends much earlier in the story when his son gets married]].

* TimeSkip: Multiple time skips shown by the tree O-lan plants in the yard--first a seed, then a sapling, then a full-grown tree.
* {{Yellowface}}: The Chinese characters were played by white actors. Chinese American actress Creator/AnnaMayWong wanted to play O-Lan; however, she was not allowed to play Paul Muni's wife, due to UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode's anti-miscegenation rule.

* {{Bowlderise}}: Due to the Hays Code, when Wang Lung brings Lotus home, his father just screams that she's a "bad woman" repeatedly instead of "whore" like in the book.

* {{Bowlderization}}: Due to the Hays Code, when Wang Lung brings Lotus home, his father just screams that she's a "bad woman" repeatedly instead of "whore" like in the book.

[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/luise_rainer_07_the_good_earth.jpg]]

** O-Lan is enraged when her young songs laugh about begging during the famine. She slaps them and shouts at them because they fail to understand the gravity of the situation. It's the first time readers see her show strong emotion.

* ChristmasCake: Wang Lung feels lucky to have landed such a beautiful concubine until his relatives laugh that Lotus' looks are starting to fade, thus it's obvious she only agreed to be his because her days at the brothel are numbered.

Creator/ShawBrothers made a rather loose adaptation titled ''Film/SonsofTheGoodEarth'' in the 60s.

* BadDreams: O-lan suffers from these thanks to the beatings she received as a slave all her life.

''The Good Earth'' is a novel by Creator/PearlSBuck, first published in 1931. It won the UsefulNotes/PulitzerPrize in 1932, and topped the best-seller lists in the United States for 1932 ''and'' 1933. It is the first, and much the best known, book in a trilogy which continues in ''Sons'' (1932) and ''A House Divided'' (1935). Though Buck was an American, she spent most of her early life in China, and ''The Good Earth'' is credited with doing much to humanise and demythologise China and Chinese people to Americans. By contrast, the book's unflinching depiction of some of the grimmer aspects of life in China have made it less than popular there.

* ImpoverishedPatrician: The House of Hwang, which is forced to sell most of their properties to Wang Lung.

** Earlier, when living on the streets during the famine, Wang Lung beat his eldest son for stealing some meat, calling the boy a thief. He later has no problem taking jewelry from a rich man who had assumed Wang Lung to be one of the violent looters he was hiding from. Nor does he mind O-lan stealing an even larger bag of jewels.

* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler: Wang Lung's uncle and aunt die of an opium addiction. [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] because Wang Lung notices their addictions and sends his sons to give them more]].

** Wang Lung's treatment of O-lan after he starts seeing Lotus; particularly when he makes her give him the two pearls she'd humbly asked to keep (from the bag of gems she'd originally stolen that made them rich), and which she'd planned to make into earrings as a wedding gift for their youngest daughter, so he can give them to his mistress Lotus.

* NoWomansLand: The trials and tribulations of the novel's female characters remind readers that pre-revolution China was a scary place to be female. Men had absolute authority over their wives, concubines, and children. The social acceptability of polygyny and concubinage meant that a wife's status in the home was never secure. The absence of contraception meant that women could expect to bear large numbers of children and suffer reproductive health problems as a result. Girls born to impoverished families could be killed as infants or sold into slavery, where a life of servitude, physical abuse, and sexual violence awaited them. Middle and upper class girls were subjected to foot binding and child marriage.

** Wang Lung instructs Pear Blossom to quietly poison Poor Fool after his death, since he knows that Poor Fool will probably be abused and neglected without his protection. [[spoiler: Pear Blossom never uses it, but promises to look after the Poor Fool herself instead.]]

* VerbalTic: The phrase "well, and" is at the beginning of about half the passages of dialogue in the novel.

** Wang Lung instructs Pear Blossom to quietly poison Poor Fool after his death, since he knows that Poor Fool will probably be abused and neglected without his protection. [[spoiler: Pear Blossom intervenes, sparing the poor fool]].

Wang Lung burying Ching in the family cemetery to honor a lifetime of service, despite his sons' protests.

** Wang Lung burying Ching in the family cemetery to honor a lifetime of service, despite his sons' protests.