The Good Earth by: Pearl S. Buck-Theme

The theme of the book The Good Earth is the land that Wang Lung had cared for and bought in times of need and when he felt like he needed more, but at first, he didn’t realize what was important to him until the end. The land was with Wang Lung through out his entire life, from when he was born, and gradually adding more and more land until he became an old man and couldn’t take care of the land anymore. The land was a major part of his life, because it was where he could grow food in starvation time and what he could buy when in need of food.
Another theme is that some people just don’t learn from their mistakes. When Wang Lung becomes rich, he wastes all his money up on frippery and a lot of unnecessary items. He was very happy, when Cuckoo spoke of him almost like an equal to the Old Lord. He loved being rich and mighty, and thought of nothing but himself. Towards the end of the second-to-last page of the novel, Wang Lung hears his sons saying, “This field we will sell and this one, and we will divide the money between us evenly. Your share I will borrow at good interest, for now with the railroad straight through I can ship rice to the sea and I…” Upon hearing his own son saying this, Wang Lung realizes that his land meant the entire world to him, but it was too late.
The last theme of the book was the undeserved treatment towards women. When Wang Lung wanted a wife for himself, he bought O-lan, signifying that she was an object, not a living, breathing, human with her own rights. Also, when O-lan gives birth to Wang Lung’s eldest daughter, he calls her “a little slave girl” and “little fool of a girl”. He often complained of O-lan’s unadorned looks and her feet being not bound. In those times, if a woman’s feet were not bound, making her feet tiny and “delicate”, she was not considered very proper.

The Good Earth by: Pearl S. Buck-Plot

In the book The Good Earth, the exposition is when Wang Lung prepares to get married to O-lan, and for the first time since New Year’s Day, he washes for a change. The rising action is that he becomes wealthier because O-lan could work in the fields and cook delicious food for him. Soon, she also bears him a son, and because of their good fortune, Wang Lung buys land from the House of Hwang. For a few more years, Wang Lung keeps buying more and more land from the House of Hwang, and O-lan gives birth to a second son and a daughter. The climax happens when Wang Lung and his family moves to the south because of a major drought and because of all the starvation that was going on. Life in the city was very different from the countryside because now Wang Lung and his family have to live in a shack, and buy meals in pennies at the public kitchens. When Wang Lung finds out that O-lan has stole some jewels, he uses them to buy more land from the House of Hwang, and therefore, becomes wealthy again. The falling action is that Wang Lung buys himself a second wife, Lotus Flower, who becomes his concubine. Soon, his father and O-lan pass away. He then finds wives for all his sons and a husband for his younger daughter. The resolution is that Wang Lung is happy with the way his life is going along, and knowing that he himself is going to pass away soon, he moves into a little earthen hut to rest peacefully until the day he retires from the living world. Little does he know, his dream about his land outliving him, was not going to happen. His sons planned to sell of the land in exchange for riches, for they did not care about it.

The Good Earth by: Pearl S. Buck (chpts. 16-30)

In the book The Good Earth, the main character is Wang Lung. At the start of the novel, he prepares himself for marriage, and he describes himself as the type of man who washes only for women. He doesn’t usually wash every day, or even once a month. His first wife is O-lan, and she bears him many children. Wang Lung is happy with her cooking and ability to farm well.

When Wang Lung’s family, along with all the families in the village starves from the lack of food, he becomes desperate. O-lan teaches their children how to beg for food, and finds a few jewels in the process. But when Wang Lung finds out that his two sons were thieving from people, he became very angry and started hitting his two sons. Then once, he himself thieves from a helpless old man. Towards the end of the middle of the novel, he becomes greedy and gets himself another wife who is called Lotus Flower. He starts treating O-lan with disrespect, and even took her two special pearls to give to Lotus Flower. Also, he gets mad really easily at practically all the characters in the story. Towards his elder daughter, he calls her a “little fool”, “little slave girl”, or “ugly dark colored girl.”

Personally, I think that Wang Lung is a man who is kind of teetering on the edge of his emotions. When something angers him, he explodes it all out. If he is very sad, he will weep. Though someone of his character traits are at fault, he is still the character that Buck uses as the main character, and to help move the story along.

The Good Earth by: Pearl S. Buck (chpts. 1-16)

Pearl S. Buck is a very descriptive and detailed type of writer, who can practically "make a movie behind your eyelids" on her novel, The Good Earth. Sometimes though, I think that Buck makes some things a little too detailed. When I red the book quietly to myself, it sounded a little strange at first, for it seemed like a novel for teens or older. But when I read the novel out loud along with my reading group, taking turns reading a paragraph each, the whole story seemed alive. Probably because we were reading the paragraphs in a dramatic voice, and most likely that is what really helped us understand what Buck was really trying to tell us through her novel.

Thru ought the 16 chapters that I have read so far, I felt that the characters were being a little too harsh on certain characters. For example, when O-lan was about to give birth to her and Wang Lung’s first-born child, she was working on the field while in labor. Wang Lung was acting all impatient and a little unkind to her. I mean, in my opinion, how could a woman even work when she is in labor? Also, when O-lan gave birth to a daughter, from then on, Wang Lung called his own daughter names like “a little fool”, of “little slave girl”. I thought that that treatment was really unfair.

Though sometimes Buck is a little too detailed in description of a few parts of the book, so far, this novel has been a page-turning book, and a quite interesting one at that.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

J.K. Rowling’s style of writing somehow always leaves me transfixed on her book, failing to stop and rest my eyes. I always find myself staying up late just to finish one of her books. This time, the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows left me with a myriad of questions. What happened to James, Lily, and Albus Severus? What happened to Luna, Neville, George, Hagrid, and all the other secondary main characters? Most people think that a book that leaves off a part, letting you imagine the rest, is a well written book. I disagree, I would very much rather get the facts about what happened. Though I can imagine what happened, you never know if it really happened or not. Basically I just rather have the facts then having to imagine, or in other words, guess what happened later on. Out of all the great authors of whom their books I read, J.K. Rowling is my one of my all-time favorite authors. The other one is Christopher Paolini, the author of The Inheritance series, which includes Eragon and Eldest. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the last book to the Harry Potter book series. I have read all the other books in the series and I have always loved them.

In this book, I feel that Harry is thinking too much of himself and thinking that he has to find the Horcruxces and do what Dumbledore told him to do all by himself. Luckily, Hermione and Ron are both there, and they help him realize that he isn’t the only one that can do what Dumbledore had said. I wonder why the Horcrux chose the affect Ron the most. Maybe it was because he seemed more vulnerable than Hermione or Harry. Maybe it was because he had more doubts that had a strong possibility of becoming true. The thing is, how did the Horcrux know to choose Ron? I never thought that it had a mind of its own. Once a Horcrux is made, isn’t it separate from the person who made it? Well, it’s the last book, so I can’t really find out much about it anymore. I really enjoyed this book and I can’t help but read it over and over again.

Walk Two Moons (chpts. 35-44)

When Mrs. Winterbottom finally comes home, Pheobe, Mr. Winterbottom, and Prudence all have different thoughts and reactions. Before Mrs. Winterbottom comes home, Prudence gets a phone call from her mother, saying that she is coming home. Then Mr. Winterbottom and Prudence go into a cleaning frenzy, and start cleaning up the whole house. They later decide that it would look as if they could do well enough without Mrs. Winterbottom, so they messed the whole house up again. When Mrs. Winterbottom finally comes home, Pheobe and Mr. Winterbottom are too nervous to answer the door, so Prudence does. Pheobe goes and meets her mother, and nearly fainted because, there, standing in her doorway, was Mike the lunatic. Sal starts to think that maybe Mike really did kidnap Mrs. Winterbottom, and might be coming to collect his ransom money, or maybe he came to "do away" with the rest of the Winterbottom family. Prudence, well she is a teenager, so she thinks that Mike is handsome, and starts flirting with him. On the other hand, Mr. Winterbottom, is on the verge of thinking that his wife was cheating on him.

Pheobe doesn't like the looks of things when she sees Mike standing in her doorway, because, well, she believes that he is a potential lunatic. Sal has been around Pheobe enough to get herself wound up in Pheobe's tall tales about Mrs. Winterbottom getting kidnapped by the "potential lunatic".Prudence is basically just a teenager, so she flirts with Mike. Then, Mr. Winterbottom starts to think that mybe his wife might be cheating on him mainly because Mike was a guy, and Mrs. Winterbottom seemed to act a friendly with him.

Moreover, I think that Gramps allowed Sal to drive up to Lewiston, Idaho, all by herself, in his car, because he knew that she had this little "deadline" thing about getting to her mother's grave by her birthday. Plus, he probably thought that she would be very upset if she didn't get to see where her mother lay in time, when the were so close. If I was in Gramp's moccasins, I would have done the same thing, too. As Gramps, I would think about how Sal would feel about being late to get to her mother, and other stuff. I would also trust her to drive safely all the way, and not get into trouble.

Lastly, I think that the sheriff in Lewiston did the right thing by taking Sal to her mothers grave, and not to jail. When Sal tells the sheriff about why she was there in the middle of the night, he remembers that he helped get the people trapped in the bus out. So, because of that, he goes and shows Sal where her mother's grave is, because he know that that is why she had drove out in the middle of night to come here: to see her mother's last resting place. I also think that the sheriff didn't bring her to jail because, first of all, it wasn't right to, and third of all, he felt sorry for Sal for losing her mother at such an early age.

Walk Two Moons (chpts. 19-34)

Ever since Mrs. Winterbottom left her family, each and every one of them has been affected in a different way. First of all, out of all the Winterbottoms, Pheobe has been affected the most. Her wild imagination leads her to believe that her mother has been kidnapped by this potential lunatic, who is actually Mike Bickle. Pheobe also tries to connect the strange quotes that she finds outside her door, on her porch, to the, supposedly, "kidnap" of her mother, and uses them as clues. She becomes really frustrated, depressed, and is nervous a lot of the time. As for Mr, Winterbottom, I think that he is depressed, also, but tries not to show it. He may even think that his wife might of cheated on him an ran off to another guy. Then, Prudence, is basically sad about it, but, in the book, she doesn't really show it.

Sal compares her own family with the Winterbottom family because now, Pheobe and Prudence's mother, also Mr. Winterbottom's wife, has left the Winterbottom family, somewhat like her mother had left her father and herself one April morning. She also sees similarities between Pheobe and herself. They both are depressed, sad, and frusrtrated when their own mother leaves them, except the fact that Sal didn't make up things about her mom being kidnapped by a potential lunatic. Sal also thinks that her father and Pheobe's father seemed like they were depressed and troubled by this turn of events. The only difference, is that her father knew that his wife wasn't cheating on him or anything like that.

When Salamanca learns from Mr. Birkway, that Mrs. Cadaver didn't really chop up her husband, but he had died when a drunk driver hit his car. Sal also learns that Mrs, Partridge had survived the accident, but had lost her eyesight. She probably feels a bit guilty for partially believing what Pheobe had said about Mrs. Cadaver and her husband. She also feels sorry for Mrs. Cadaver and Mr. Birkway for the loss of her husband and their mother becoming blind.

Walk Two Moons (chpts. 1-18)

I think that Sal's granparents want to take Sal on a trip to Lewiston, Idaho, mainly because they want to see their daughter-inlaw,and Sal's mother's, grave. Plus, Gram and Gramps want Sal to come along too, because they now that she wants to, except that she is to afraid to go. Also, Sal's father also agrees that Sal should go, because he wanted to be alone with Margeret Cadaver. Another reason was that he didn't trust Gram and Gramps to behave themselves during the trip, unless they had Sal with them.

Salamanca also feels really rushed to get to Lewiston, Idaho, in time for her mother's bithday. This was very important to her, because her mother had been a big part of her life, and coincidentally, Gram, Gramps and her, had a possibility of getting there in time. She probably also wants to get to Lewiston, Idaho fast, because she was excited about seeing the place where her mother last went. Basically, the main reasons all revolve around having to do with her mother.

While Sal's father waits for his wife, Sal's mother, to come back, after she had left on that one April morning, he starts chipping away at the plaster wall in the living room of Sal's house. When Sal's father finally heard later on, that his wife wasn't coming back, he "...pounded and pounded on that wall with a chisel and a hammer." At two o'clock in the morning, he woke Sal up and showed her his discovery. Hidden behind the plaster was a brick fire place. Clearly, Sal's father was greatly upsetted by this news. Moreover, it affected Sal because she had just lost her mother, whom she was close to. She missed her mother for all she was, and she still, would never forget her precious moments that she had with her before her mother left.