The Good Earth: Lotus’ Character Analysis

In China, becoming a concubine starts with childhood. A young Chinese girl’s feet are bound tight, she is taught the ways of influencing people and, in short, getting what she wants. Her goal in life is to be bought and to be housed within a great family. She achieves this goal by using her characteristics and attributes as a method to entice men.   In The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, the character Lotus Flower is a concubine. She begins her life just as any wealthy girl would, with bound feet and mistreatment by men. But Lotus, like many others in The Good Earth, symbolizes something else entirely. Buck conveys China’s shifting new culture through Lotus, communicates China’s transformation into a modern country, and exposes the propaganda in which China brainwashes its citizens into thinking something else completely.   Lotus represents China’s adjustment in culture because she transforms Wang Lung, changes how Wang Lung perceives his first wife, O-lan, and is able to use her innocence and splendor as a tool to achieve her goals.  
Initially, Lotus causes Wang Lung to alter his original beliefs into other ways of living not previously accepted by his ancestors. When Wang Lung first meets Lotus, he still remains faithful to the Chinese belief system. Later on, after visiting her almost daily, he starts to lose those previous principles. This is shown when Lotus states that Wang Lung needs to cut his hair and that all of the men in the south wear it cut short. Buck portrays this by writing, “he went without a word and had it cut off, although neither laughter nor scorn had been able to persuade him before” (196; ch. 19). Before he met her he wouldn’t dare to cut his hair without asking his father. His actions display Lotus’s ability to persuade him that he can be more prominent in the community, something no one in his family has been for generations. This quote proves that she was the only one able to convince him to cut off his long braid. In addition, Wang Lung...