The Old Man By Wang Lung Sparknotes

The old man has never done anything positive for the family, when they were in the village he never worked in the field, instead all day he must sit there on his bed doing nothing. But now that they are poor he should at least contribute in doing something, at least try to contribute in begging. The old man is old, sad, and sick, so the rich people would give him a lot of money however he does not want to try and that it could also be a reason that the Wang Lung and his family have to put in twice the effort that the old man does so they are able to not only buy food for him, but also for themselves. He has been a lazy man since the beginning of the book, however this did not affect the economy of the family, but now that it is affecting them …show more content…
Unlike people in the North work on the farms and earn their money from growing crops, most of the people in the southern people work in factories, business, and have rich careers. Just like the southern people live in the Northern people have to work really hard and they actually have to do more work compared to the people in the South because people in the South have the technology and resources that would help their work become easier. In the north people do not have these resources which would have life very difficult, like Wang Lung mentioned earlier in the book that the farming in the north would only harvest once or twice a year, however in the south people would use fertilizers to gt crops when they wanted to. This technology could affected the people in the South negatively or positively for example could affect them up positively because they don't have to do so much work but it could also affect negatively because they don't have a lot of people who would be able to use it. According to one example in the book most of the people who lived in the South are beggars as where Wang Lung and his family are currently staying there a lot of huts which illustrates that there are a lot of beggars who would continuously go every day to the streets and beg for money. These people …show more content…
Also O-lan should not have saved her son from getting excused by Wang Lung when Wang Lung was shouting at him from stealing, and told that he would not eat meat that was stolen, but only that was earned or begged from. Another reason that Wang Lung should not have stopped himself from the screaming at the son just because O-lan told "Meat is Meat" is because even if it was just meat, this could actually encourage him to do something like this in the future. Although this was just a problem with his youngest child this could have affected the way the other kids think about stealing, and one day they might start stealing as the sibling learn from one another. It is not just about stealing it is also about one's reputation as Wang Lung has already lost his reputation in the village because the villagers told that he had a lot of money and a food while everyone else was starving from the drought, so he can not afford for losing his reputation again out his son's mistake that could cause him to make the strangers in the North look at him a different way. Despite all that O-lan actually defended his child by not only picking up the meat from the