Foot-binding

In traditional Chinese culture, small feet were considered an attractive female trait. The custom of binding young girls’ feet to ensure that their feet would remain small was practiced for almost a thousand years, from the tenth century to the Communist takeover of mainland China in 1949. Foot-binding was usually begun when a girl was between the ages of five and seven. Her mother would fold all her toes except her big toe beneath her foot, then tightly wrap a thick bandage at least several feet in length around the foot, so tightly that it actually prevented the bones from growing and eventually caused the foot to fold in half. The ideal product of foot-binding was known as a lotus foot, a foot that, on a grown woman, was not more than three inches long.

Despite the brutality of this practice, it was widespread throughout China, and by 1900 only the poorest and most wretched girls did not have their feet bound. Bound feet were considered so much more attractive than unbound feet that, without bound feet, it was very difficult for a girl to find a husband. Throughout The Good Earth, Buck uses foot-binding as a symbol for the moral depravity of wealth, which would subject young girls to torture simply to make them more attractive to men. Attraction to foot-binding also serves as a symbol of Wang Lung’s longing for wealth and status. He is initially disappointed to discover that O-lan’s feet are not bound, even though her unbound feet enable her to work in the fields with him, which dramatically increases his family’s fortune. Nevertheless, though she was an outspoken advocate against the practice, Buck takes a very objective, neutral tone toward foot-binding in The Good Earth, drawing attention to the cultural tendencies that might make a woman choose to do such a thing to her daughter. When O-lan binds her own daughter’s feet, for instance, she is motivated by Wang Lung’s rejection of her, by his criticism of her “large” unbound feet, and by her desire for her daughter to have a happy marriage with a husband who loves her.