In The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck portrayed Wang Lung as a reflection of one of the many Chinese men during that period of change, who considers land as everything needed to sustain life. Wang Lung, the main character, the peasant of Nanking, the son of an old man, the husband of O-Lan, the lover of Lotus, The father to sons and daughters, the escaper of the famine, the looter of the great house in the south, the peasant-turn-wealthy of his town, and the old one of himself. Yet is he a good man? Although he was all these things and more, he still showed no evidence of being a good man.

Wang was a happy peaceful man in the beginning but as his greed for land and money grew his happiness declined. Pearl S. Buck writes "And so this parcel of land became to Wang Lung a...