[If The Good Earth] is not about America, it is "American" in the Pulitzer way. The Good Earth is the story of how Wang Lung rises from his lowly position as a poor farmer to lordship of a great house; how his rich sons are softened by the idleness to which they are bred; and how the house of Wang will sink back into the poverty from which it arose, now that the great principle of honest toil has been forsaken. Thus, despite its Chinese setting, The Good Earth is another ethical-moral American drama acted out against the relentless cycle of history which raises up one generation and causes the downfall of the next. (p. 90)
One can see why The Good Earth might have appealed to the Pulitzer jurors as it did to many other American readers in the early 1930's—before the effects of the depression went very deep or very far. There was, first of all, the escapism offered by the exotic setting of far-off China, the lavish descriptions of poverty and famine which doubtless made the hard times at home seem a minor, transitory affair. Moreover, those inclined to seek a moral for a troubled nation did not need to probe very far below the surface of Mrs. Buck's narrative. In the rise and fall of her Chinese dynasties, one could discern the recent pattern of events at home, and perhaps one could find a guide for the future. Weren't the poverty and suffering of the 1930's a result of the extravagance of the 1920's, when America had strayed from the rocky path along which Americans had traditionally traveled, abandoning the old virtues—thrift, hard work, sobriety? As the career of Wang shows, such conduct leads to softness and moral flabbiness, and then to poverty and to hunger. One need only renounce the easy life and the primrose path, take up the hoe and shovel, and moral strength would come again, and every man would be saved. (p. 91)
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