In 1931, Americans were suffering through the Great Depression. It was The Good Earth by Pearl Buck that brought comfort, the top-selling book that year.
Born into a religious workers’ family in 1892, Pearl Buck left the United States and moved to China with her parents. Her education began at home with her mother teaching her American school things while a Chinese tutor taught her other subjects, including writings of Confucius. In 1910, she went back to America to study philosophy. After graduation, she returned to China and married John Lossing Buck, an agriculture expert, eventually settling down in a small village in the north of China.
Had it not been for their first child Carol, who had an unusual disease causing her to have trouble learning, Pearl Buck might never have become a famous writer. The reason was money. She needed it to pay for her daughter’s care. She recalled why she chose China and its people as the subjects, “If none of you want to write these wonderful farmers. I will write about them. So, I wrote The Good Earth.”
The Good Earth tells the story of a poor Chinese man named Wang Lung and his wife O-Lan. It recounts how they work hard and finally make enough money to purchase some land for a farm. They stick to the land even in times of starvation, themselves begging on the streets. Experiencing ups and downs, Wang finds happiness in owning land and raising crops. He even forbids his sons to sell the land after his death.
Pearl Buck told her China stories with honesty and Americans were impressed by the new images of the Chinese totally different from those in Hollywood movies. The book earned Pearl Buck the Pulitzer Prize and was later adapted into an Oscar-winning movie. In 1938, she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
【小题1】How did Pearl Buck benefit from her education?| A．She thought the best education lay in home. |
| B．She highly appreciated education in the countryside. |
| C．She preferred Chinese education to Western education. |
| D．She gained a lot from a combination of different styles of education. |
| A．Some Chinese advised her to do it. | B．She was in desperate need of money. |
| C．She couldn’t bear the boring rural life. | D．She desired a good education for her kid. |
| A．Good fortune always favors the characters. |
| B．Owning land is the lifeline for Chinese farmers. |
| C．Chinese farmers lead a terribly miserable life. |
| D．The characters make a fortune by buying and selling land. |
| A．The moral values of The Good Earth. |
| B．The fighting spirit of Chinese farmers. |
| C．A woman writer’s sacrifice to save her ill child. |
| D．A woman’s great China-themed literary achievements. |
