Analysis of Theme Through The Protagonist in Pearl S.Buck's 'The Good Earth'.

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ABSTRACT

Dalam Tugas Akhir ini, saya menganalisis sebuah novel yang berjudul The Good Earth karya Pearl S. Buck, seorang novelis Amerika pada abad ke-20. Novel ini menceritakan tentang kehidupan seorang pemuda miskin yang berusaha untuk bertahan hidup dan menghidupi keluarganya.

Pearl S. Buck menggambarkan Wang Lung, tokoh utama dalam novel ini, sebagai seorang petani miskin yang berusaha untuk mencapai mimpinya menjadi orang yang terpandang. Ia memperhatikan istri dan keluarganya serta berusaha untuk menaikan derajat hidupnya dan ia pun mempunyai prinsip yang kuat. Namun, ketika Wang Lung menjadi kaya ia berubah menjadi orang yang sombong dan memandang rendah orang lain. Ia tidak menghargai istrinya dan terlebih lagi Wang Lung menikah lagi dengan wanita cantik. Ia mulai mengabaikan tanah yang dulunya ia anggap sebagai sumber dari kemakmuran. Wang Lung hanya mempedulikan kesenangannya sendiri. Ia pun tidak lagi menjadi orang yang memegang teguh prinsipnya.

Melalui perubahan watak tokoh utamanya, Pearl S. Buck ingin menyampaikan tema dari novel ini bahwa uang dapat mengubah tidak hanya status seseorang tetapi juga sifat-sifatnya.

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APPENDICES

Summary of The Good Earth

The Good Earth is set against the late nineteenth century China. A young Chinese farmer, whose name is Wang Lung, is a hardworking man. He works in the field everyday. Wang Lung is getting married with a slave, named O-lan. She is a slave at the House of Hwang, the wealthiest family in the city. Wang Lung never meets O-lan before because his marriage has been planned by his father. He only knows that she is not pretty. After several months Wang Lung realizes that he is happy to have a good wife but he does not love her. Then O-lan is pregnant and they have a son who makes Wang Lung proud to be a father.

Different from his uncle, Wang Lung never wastes his money on gambling or fancy foods. Hearing the House of Hwang wants to sell some of their land, Wang Lung has an idea of buying it. Although O-lan does not agree, he insists on buying the land. After several years, people in the village are in famine. Wang Lung has nothing to feed his family but he still has his land and never thinks of selling the land. They decide to go to the south to find food. But in the south there is nothing good which can make Wang Lung get more money. Moreover, he finds his son becoming a thief. He is angry and decides to go back to his land, but he has nothing to sell except his daughter. Nevertheless, he refuses to sell his daughter as a slave. Fortunately, there is a dispute in town so he can take some

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money from a big house. Later, Wang Lung becomes a rich man. His social status is higher than before.

When Wang Lung’s land is flooded by water he has a lot of time to spend. Then he meets a beautiful woman named Lotus in a tea shop. He falls in love with Lotus because of her beauty. He decides to marry Lotus without thinking of O-lan’s feeling. He becomes extravagant and always spoils Lotus with everything she needs, including a slave to serve her. When Wang Lung realizes that O-lan is better than Lotus, everything has been too late: O-lan dies because of her illness. Wang Lung does not like Lotus anymore but she still lives in Wang Lung’s house. After his father dies, Wang Lung never gets peace in his life. Problems always come to Wang Lung. His problems usually deal with his son. Another problem in Wang Lung’s house is his uncle, who always asks for money to Wang Lung.

Wang Lung is proud of himself for having done what he wants to do. He regards his life as mostly over, and his family continues to flourish. Wang Lung’s old days are spent on his land. When his first two sons visit him and talk about their plan to sell the land after his death, he is angry with them and tells his sons that they must never sell the land. Both of his sons agree, but they have no intention of keeping their promise.

Biography of the Author

Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia on June 26, 1892. Her parents, Absalom and Caroline Sydenstricker, were Southern Presbyterian missionaries, stationed in China. Pearl was the fourth of seven children (and one of only three who survive to adulthood). When she was three

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months old, she was taken back to China, where she spent most of the first forty years of her life.

From childhood, Pearl spoke both English and Chinese. In 1910, Pearl enrolled in Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, in Lynchburg, Virginia, from which she graduated in 1914. Although she had intended to remain in the US, she returned to China shortly after graduation when she received news that her mother was very ill.

In 1915, she met a young Cornell graduate, an agricultural economist named John Lossing Buck. They married in 1917 and immediately moved to Nanxuzhou in rural Anhui province. In this impoverished community, Pearl Buck gathered the material that she would later use in The Good Earth and other stories of China. Pearl had begun to publish stories and essays in the 1920s.

In 1931, John Day published Pearl’s second novel, The Good Earth. This became a best selling book of both 1931 and 1932, and won the Pulitzer Prize and the Howells Medal in 1935. In 1934 Pearl moved permanently to the US. From the day of her move to the US, Pearl was active in American civil rights and women’s rights activities. Pearl Buck died in March, 1973, just two months before her eighty-first birthday. She is buried at Green Hill Farm.

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Chinese people are generally known to be hard working, disciplined, punctual, and very respectful. According to index china.com, Chinese people are known to be ‘. . . peaceful, hardworking and easily contented. They respect elders, love children and are patient with their fellows. Chinese in general are reserve and humble. They believe in harmony and never look for confrontation’ (china.com n.d).

One of the twentieth century American writers who often write about the life of Chinese people is Pearl S. Buck. She ‘. . . is the first American woman to win the Nobel prize for fiction . . . she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the William Dean Howells Medal for the Most Distinguished Work of American Fiction1930-35’(Melvin 2001). In my opinion to win the Nobel Prize for fiction is a great achievement; that is why I am of the opinion that her works are worth analysing. Moreover, Phyllis Bentley, a critic gave his opinion of Pearl S. Buck as follows:

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An attempt is made to present China from within, as the Chinese see it . . . in the same way, Mrs. Buck aims to present the Chinese custom as

familiar, natural, and correct, because so would her characters regard them. (These customs) are all copiously illustrated, but always presented, as it were, unselfconsciously, as part of natural process of living; never by the slightest word or turn of phrase does Mrs. Buck call attention to the difference of these customs from our own. (Egbe 2005)

In my thesis I would like to analyse one of her works The Good Earth. This novel ‘. . . is Pearl S. Buck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (1931) about the Chinese peasant Wang Lung and O-Lan, and one of the most widely translated books in the world’ (Melvin 2001). The protagonist of the novel is Wang lung. He is a modest farmer, but he has a strong will to make his family become wealthy. To bring more fortune to his family, Wang Lung works very hard; but then wealth changes some of his characteristics. The development of the protagonist’s characteristics leads the readers to find out the theme of the novel. William Kenney, in his book How to Analyze Fiction, said that ‘As a major element in fiction, character is obviously of major importance for theme (94). Thus, I would like to analyse the theme through the protagonist of the novel. Theme is ‘. . . the total meaning discovered by the writer in the process of writing and by the reader in the process of reading’ (Kenney 94).

Statement of the Problem

The problems which I would like to analyse are: 1. What is the theme of the novel The Good Earth?

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2. How does the portrayal of the protagonist help to reveal the theme?

Purpose of the Study

The purposes of the study are:

1. To show the theme of the novel The Good Earth.

2. To show how the portrayal of the protagonist help to reveal the theme.

Method of Research

The method of research used is library research. First of all, I begin my research by reading the primary text The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. Then, I continue by reading several books that can be used to support the research. I search for the information needed in some references and material from the Internet to support the analysis. Finally, I gather and use the data that I have found to help to complete my analysis, from which I later draw some conclusion.

Organization of the Thesis

I present this thesis in three chapters. Chapter One is the Introduction, which contains the Background of the Study, the Purpose of the Study, the Method of Research and the Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two deals with the discussion of theme through the protagonist of the novel. The last one is Chapter Three, the Conclusion of the thesis. This thesis ends with the Bibliography, which presents the list of references and various sources that have been used in the writing and, the Appendices, which present the synopsis of The Good Earth and the biography of the author.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

References:

Kenney, William. How to Analyze Fiction. New York: Monarch Press, 1966. Internet/ websites:

Conn, Peter. Biography of Pearl S. Buck, University of Pennsylvania 1966.

5 March 2007<http://www.english.upen.edu/Projects/Buck/biography.html>

Egbe, John. A classic read The Good Earth (Oprah’s Book Club). 4 April 2005. 26 August 2007 <http://www.amazon.ca/Good-Earth-Oprah-Book-Club/dp/0743272935>

Index China. Chinese People. 5 March 2007 <http://www.index-china.com/index-english/people-s.html>

Melvin, Sheila. “China Get Reacquainted with Pearl Buck International.” Herald Tribune. 22 Dec 2001.5 March 2007 <http://www.iht.com/articles/2001/12/22buck_ed3_.php>

Primary text:

Buck, Pearl S. The Good Earth. New York: Pocket Book, inc, 1953.

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