Chinese Women In The Good Earth

In Six Records of a Floating Life, Shen Fu writes of his wife, “Yün came to this world a woman, but she had the feelings and abilities of a man.” (Fu: 89) Shen Fu and Yün considered each other to be intellectual equals. However, their relationship was still constrained within the gender roles set by their society. They lived during the Qing dynasty, which was a prosperous time for China (“The Manchus”: 266) but also a time when, as Professor Scarlett states in the lecture Daily Life in Imperial China, “the outside world was for men and the inside world was for women.” Shen Fu and Yün’s relationship was pushing the bounds of their culture, but they still kept (mostly) within the lines of social acceptability.

To begin with, Olan is a character that represents the traditional woman in China that spends her life working and bearing children. Throughout the whole book, she rarely complains and never asks for anything. Even when Wang Lung takes away the pearls he gave her, she doesn't defy him. “...when tears dropped slowly and heavily from her eyes she did not put her hand up to wipe them away…” (Buck 186). Although she is very upset and sad, she stays selfless

When talking to O-lan, Wang Lung implies that she is ugly. He exclaims, “Now anyone looking at you would say you were the wife of a common fellow and never of one who has land which he hires men to plow!” (pg.168) This statement is clearly disrespectful to O-lan and it likely stems from Wang Lung’s wealth. Wang Lung then cheats on O-lan with another woman (Lotus) from the tea shop. The narrator says, “Every day he went to the tea shop; every evening he waited until she would receive him, and every night he went into her” (pg.181). This suggests that Wang Lung now prefers another woman over O-lan. As if he hadn’t done enough damage already, Wang Lung brings Lotus into his house to stay there permanently. He says, “Tell [Lotus] she shall do no work of any kind in my house but she shall wear only silken garments and eat shark’s fins every day” (pg.192). This is very disrespectful to O-lan not only due to the fact that she is his wife, but also because while she is doing housework, Lotus is being treated like a royal guest. It is evinced that Wang Lung’s wealth causes him to disrespect

The Good Earth is a novel of a family’s journey throughout the years. Although the novel may seem to focus upon the family, the author wrote the book to show the life of women at the time. Women had little to no rights and only had certain tasks to undertake. Most women were slaves sold to men and were treated very poorly. The Good Earth tells a story about a hard working but powerless woman, Olan, who resembles closely to and contradicts “The Virtuous” woman.

Furthermore, instead of arranged marriages that only benefited the patriarchal head, intellectuals pushed for marriages based on love which would create happy and productive citizens . In addition, based on her mother’s experience, Bao Qin rejects arranged marriages and intends to only marry for love . After hearing of two concubines who drug Cousin Hu’s mother to feign adultery and gain the favour of her husband, Bao Qin is enraged by the historic “powerlessness of women, [the] barbarity of age-old customs, cloaked in tradition .” With the broad shift from tradition as well as her own personal experience, Bao Qin rejects traditional gender roles and seeks to create her own. Furthermore, as China became divided into separate spheres of influence and opened to international markets, British and American industrialization brought new ideas of opportunities for women, challenging established gender relations . With new economic opportunities and education, women could become self-reliant, broadening their choices and their role in society. Consequently, after disobeying her parents’ command to attend Mr. Liu’s funeral, Bao Qin was able to support herself by enrolling in a new teacher training department . Reducing patriarchal control, industrialization allowed children to head to schools and factories, no longer needing to rely on their parents for education and work . As a result, while foreign

In the ancient Chinese culture, the role of women was very restricted. They were raised by their parents until the age of marriage to be given away to another family. When living under their father’s roof he was the one they had to obey to, once married they then had to obey to their husband. Women were restricted to the walls of their home, which is no longer the case nowadays.

In the movie, Mulan, she is caught between having to stay at home and become a wife, which is her proper role in society or go fight in a war in her father’s name. After a while, they discovered that she had been a woman the whole time. I feel like they were more angry that she was a woman and fought better than most of the men there. They kicked her out, of course, and later saved them and the emperor, but was still shunned. Chi-Fu told Shang, “Tis a woman. She will never be worth anything.” This shows that Chi-Fu wants her to be a woman, just like he thought she should be. He even admitted that she would not be worth anything or be a impacting role in society. This shows even if she did risk

Have you ever heard the fascinating Chinese story “The Story of Miss Li”? This short story is about two main characters. One being Miss Li, a beautiful young Prostitute, and a young man of great wealth and power. Soon in the story Miss Li finds the young man and convinces him to marry her. Unfortunately, two years later they spend all of their money and end up having nothing to their name. So, Miss Li, tricked the young man and left him with nothing to his name. years pass and the young man was very sick and almost dead, he runs into Miss Li one more time. Miss Li felt so terrible that she did this to him that she took him in and cared for him. Soon, she became an ideal Confucian woman and led him back to great wealth in power by helping him learn “the five texts” and making sure he was ready to take the Civil Serves Examination. Even though Miss Li was not what most Chinese call a proper woman, later became an ideal Confucian woman and wife by following the Admonitions for Women and the Analects for Women.

Once the novel comes to an end, we notice clearly the way Wang Lung changed. In the beginning of the novel we learned many ancient Chinese traditions by observing Wang Lung as a simple peasant, but as he becomes a wealthy landowner his life collapses. This rapid change of social class makes it difficult for anyone who intends to keep their traditional values until their death. This fantastic novel by Pearl S. Buck reminds us that we can never forget our traditional values, because if that happens your life will collapse just the way Wang Lung unfortunately

5) and it was said that it was a man’s world, “Now, this is a grownup’s world for you, and it’s a man’s world.” (Chen pg.5) We can also see women going through some of the same struggles in The Dragons Village as they did in The Death of Woman Wang, such as not getting to choose who they marry and being owned by their husbands. Ling-ling’s uncle married her aunt for her dowry as said by Chen on page 3. Dowry is property or money, which means Ling-lings uncle married her aunt for money, not love like every young girl dreams of when thinking about her future marriage. Ling-ling’s aunt says “Young Bob Lu and you are suited to each other. Isn’t that so? If we combine forces with the Lu family we’ll have more bargaining power with both sides.” (Chen pg.6) It seems that women are perceived as a piece of property, if they marry into a powerful family then their family will gain more power which seems to be the goal in life in this

The Death of Woman Wang, by Jonathan D. Spence, paints a vivid picture of provincial China in the seventeenth century. Manly the life in the northeastern country of T’an-ch’eng. T’an-ch’eng has been through a lot including: an endless cycle of floods, plagues, crop failures, banditry, and heavy taxation. Chinese society in Confucian terms was a patriarchal society with strict rules of conduct. The role at this time of women, however, has historically been one of repression. The traditional ideal woman was a dependent being whose behavior was governed by the "three obedience’s and four virtues". The three obedience’s were obedience to

In this time in China, the role that women and men had were very different from each other. Women were expected to be quite, obedient, and respectful. While men were the provider, the intellectual and the decision maker in the family. In Shen Fu and his wife, Yun marriage it started out like the typical relationship in eightieth century China, each one fulfilling the roles that society had in place for them. But as they became to know each other more, Shen Fu saw Yun real personality and wanted someone to experience life, so he started to encourage her to be herself and told her she didn’t have to live up to this gender stereotypes for women. They both were always

Han Kang’s use of comparison between two closely related but very different characters demonstrates society’s definition of a dutiful wife. Unable to withstand the embarrassment of having a wife he is not proud of, he leaves her. Han Kang used the sense of pressure to depict not only the public opinion, but also the force that drives Mr. Cheong’s actions.

In 19th century china, a worthy daughter is to respect and follow her parent’s orders. When she gets married, she is to follow her husband, bare children, and wait for her husband to support her. Her life suggested a great deal of maturity and what is expected from women in traditional China. In spite of the fact that Lao acknowledged her part as a female in traditional Chinese society regardless she thought about opportunities she was not given and how they may have influenced her life. In the nineteenth century China, women were not sent to school to be educated. Instead, they were showed how to be an ideal spouse and how to take care of a family, for women were ordinarily

The female character, Tzu-chun, made decisions that many women at that time wouldn’t have because of the criticism and punishments they would’ve faced. She was a strong female role who was independent, educated, and had a mind of her own. She did not let her partner control her because he was a man, but instead expressed her own opinions and thoughts. Their choice to live together however caused other problems which eventually led to a breakup, but the situation presented a new idea to readers that women could take on new roles that were once never even considered in Chinese society . Despite the brutality and criticism both women faced in these stories for going against the societal traditions, resistance was still present and constructed new ways of seeing women. Lu Hsun sparked intellectual thinking by presenting different situations to his readers and criticized the societal norms in his stories. He showed some of the current problems that existed and what changes needed to be made for women so that a better China could eventually