Dragon Seed Summary
Pearl S. Buck

Dragon Seed Summary

Dragon Seed champions the need for more active support of China as the Chinese recoil from the horrors of the Japanese invasion early in World War II. Its major theme is the outrageousness of man's inhumanity to man in wartime. Men of peace and sense, reasons the protagonist Ling Tan, in all parts of the world should band together and forbid life to all who would make war. If a child is observed to demonstrate the potential aggression of war, he should be isolated and treated, and then, if unteachable, locked up. If men had been born for warfare, they would have been made with shells as turtles have, into which they could retreat when threatened. A man who is honorable should feel sickened and angry at the thought of war.

Since, however, the Chinese peasants are being plagued by these brutal Ocean little...

(read more from the Short Guide)