the good earth book report

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The Good Earth

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-7

Chapters 8-14

Chapters 15-26

Chapters 27-34

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Further Reading & Resources

Discussion Questions

Summary and Study Guide

A measure of the quality, prescience, and veracity of Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth is that, nearly a century after its first publication, the book remains required reading in literature, world history, and social science courses. The novel is a simple, straightforward narrative about 50 years in the life of Wang Lung , an uneducated farmer in eastern China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While this era period was one of continual political turbulence in China, Wang Lung’s personal struggle centers on securing good harvests, purchasing more land, and building a lasting foundation for his growing family. To accomplish this, he must work around tempestuous nature, unscrupulous relatives, opportunistic soldiers and brigands, and other common people who, like him, are just trying to survive. His greatest ally is his wife, O-lan . Like the land itself, she is fertile, dependable, and completely accepting.

Growing up in China in the 1890s as the child of Christian missionaries, Buck watched many of the changes she writes about firsthand. The first of a trilogy, the book received a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and was the bestselling novel in the US in 1931 (the year of its initial publication) and 1932. Buck received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1938, largely because of The Good Earth trilogy.

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This guide refers to the 2016 Simon and Schuster paperback edition.

Content Warning: Throughout The Good Earth there are numerous references to opium use and frequent references to sexual abuse. In addition, the book refers to cannibalism during a famine and an instance of infanticide.

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Plot Summary

On his wedding day, 20-year-old Wang Lung leaves the small farm where he lives with his widowed father and walks to the nearby village to meet his bride for the first time. Mistress Hwang has arranged the marriage, selling one of her kitchen maids, O-lan, to Wang Lung’s father. The newlyweds walk silently to the farm, where Wang Lung tells his bride to prepare a feast for his friends and relatives. While he serves the meal she prepares, he makes her wait outside with the ox. After everyone leaves, he takes her to his bed. While Wang Lung doesn’t find O-lan attractive, she’s the perfect wife in other respects: deferential, hard-working, loyal, and clever. When she finishes her housework, she joins Wang Lung in the fields. Although pregnant, she works beside Wang Lung until the birth. She delivers a boy, and O-lan presents their son to the House of Hwang, where she lived for 10 years as an enslaved woman. She tells Wang Lung that the Hwangs face financial difficulties. He responds by using their saved money to buy part of Hwang’s property. O-lan bears a second son.

Wang Lung experiences a series of events he considers evil omens. After arguing with his aunt, Wang Lung sees Uncle , his father’s shiftless brother, approaching him. Reminding Wang Lung of his social obligations, Uncle extorts some silver from him. Then, O-lan gives birth to a daughter, and a drought descends upon the land. Wang Lung has saved enough money that, despite the drought, he buys another piece of Hwang farmland. However, the drought is so severe that it results in famine, and the family becomes so malnourished that O-lan—who is pregnant again—can’t produce milk. Uncle appears with strangers who ask to buy Wang Lung’s property for a pittance. Instead, O-lan offers to sell their furniture. Wang Lung and O-lan plan to go to a city and beg for food after the baby comes. Wang Lung hears the new baby cry once and fall silent. O-lan tells him the baby is dead and asks him to take the body to the cemetery.

Weak with malnourishment and struggling to walk, the family passes the village on their way south and, for the first time, sees a “fire wagon,” or train; it takes them 100 miles to the city. Many migrants gather for rice each morning, and the family can eat again. O-lan teaches the boys to beg, and Wang Lung pulls a rickshaw—but they can’t earn enough to return home. Wang Lung hears street prophets calling for a revolution. He isn’t interested because nothing they say pertains to farming. Soldiers randomly conscript men to serve on civilian crews for the military. Wang Lung hides during the day and finds hard, menial work at night. A revolt occurs in the city one night. Wang Lung and O-lan hear that the great house behind the wall where they shelter is open. O-lan quickly disappears into it, and Wang Lung follows. The fearful lord of the house comes out of hiding and offers Wang Lung gold if he’ll let him escape. Wang Lung takes the gold.

Using the gold coins, Wang Lung leads his family back to his farmhouse, which is in disarray. As O-lan restores the home, Wang Lung replants his fields. One night in bed, Wang Lung realizes that O-lan has a pouch tied between her breasts, full of precious gems she found in the ransacked great house. Leaving her with two small pearls, Wang Lung uses the jewels to buy the remaining Hwang land. He engages his trustworthy neighbor, Ching, as his steward. They enter seven straight years of excellent harvests. O-lan gives birth to fraternal twins, a girl and a boy—but the delivery is difficult, and O-lan never fully recovers. Tired of merchants mocking his illiteracy, Wang Lung sends his two older sons to school.

Disaster strikes the land in the form of a lingering flood. Wang Lung, however, has stored food and funds. Discontent because he can’t work the land, he goes daily into the village to patronize a new teahouse that’s also a gambling establishment and bordello. Cuckoo—the sales agent who sold Wang Lung the last of Master Hwang’s land—is a madam there. She takes Wang Lung to Lotus , a beautiful, tiny sex worker. Smitten, Wang Lung returns to Lotus each day. Uncle, his wife, and their son—the remains of Uncle’s family—move into Wang Lung’s house. Uncle’s wife figures out that Wang Lung has another woman, and Wang Lung overhears her telling O-lan. He decides to move Lotus into the farmhouse. He adds a courtyard and three additional rooms. Lotus comes to his house, accompanied by Cuckoo as her servant. O-lan is emotionally devastated but doesn’t complain. The arrangement creates multiple problems for Wang Lung, however. His father loudly proclaims that Lotus is a “harlot.” O-lan, who Cuckoo mistreated when they were both in the House of Hwang, treats the intruders with passive aggression, so Cuckoo and Lotus complain to Wang Lung. When the eldest son, who agitated to go south for better schooling, calms down, Wang Lung discovers it’s because the boy has been going to see Lotus every day. Wang Lung beats him and drives him from the house. Once the flood recedes, Wang Lung returns to farming, which relieves him of his obsession with Lotus. He betroths his older sons to carefully selected young women. Wang Lung attaches his second son to a grain dealer, his eldest son’s future father-in-law. The second son will become a grain dealer to help Wang Lung move his harvests to market.

Noticing O-lan’s growing difficulty completing her chores and continual swollen stomach, Wang Lung sends her to bed and summons a physician. They discover that O-lan is dying. Bedridden and approaching death, O-lan orchestrates the return of the elder son and his bride. After the elaborate wedding, O-lan dies. Wang Lung seals her body in a casket, leaving it in a temple for three months as he awaits the date predicted by a geomancer (one who bases divination on geographic features). Meanwhile, Wang Lung’s father also dies. He buries them both in a private hilltop cemetery.

Wang Lung’s oldest son complains that Uncle’s son watches his new bride with lust. Wang Lung explains that he can’t remove Uncle’s family because Uncle is a member of the Red Beards, an outlaw group. As long as Uncle remains with them, the family’s house is safe from the gang. The eldest son suggests that Uncle, his wife, and his son receive free opium because, as they have substance use disorders, they’ll become docile. Wang Lung employs this tactic when Uncle’s son sexually assaults the twin daughter. Uncle and his wife quickly develop an addiction to opium. Their son continues to leer at the women servants. Wang Lung’s oldest son suggests that he buy Hwang House and move all but Uncle’s family there. This is a completion for Wang Lung, who ends up owning the house he went to years ago to buy O-lan. Over time, the family and servants end up in Wang House. Uncle’s son approaches Wang Lung for money so that he can join the military and fight in the war. Wang Lung’s daughter-in-law gives birth to the first grandchild, a boy. Within five years, his two sons father seven children, all living in the 60-room city house. Wang Lung’s old friend Ching and then Uncle die. Wang Lung buries them in the hilltop cemetery.

Soldiers come to the village and billet (lodge) with area residents. Uncle’s son is one of the soldiers. He brings a rowdy group of men into the Wang House. To pacify Uncle’s lusty son, they let him take a servant girl as his “concubine.” When they leave a month later, the girl is pregnant. Wang Lung marries her to one of his field workers. When Uncle’s wife dies, Wang Lung buries her in the cemetery. The youngest son asks Wang Lung for permission to join the military. Wang Lung offers to get him a wife instead, thinking of 17-year-old Pear Blossom, the youngest of the servant girls. Wang Lung becomes infatuated with the girl, even realizing how inappropriate it is. She briefly becomes his “concubine,” and his younger son runs away to join the military. Yearning to enjoy the land again, Wang Lung moves with his elder daughter, Pear Blossom, and several servants back to the farmhouse. He tells his oldest son to procure his casket, which he keeps with him at the farm. His older sons visit him there. One day, he overhears their plan to divide and sell the farmland once Wang Lung is gone.

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The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

• Publication Date: September 15, 2004
• Genres: Fiction
• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press
• ISBN-10: 0743272935
• ISBN-13: 9780743272933
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The good earth by pearl s buck [a review].

Wang Lung is a young man living in a small village in rural China in the early 20th century with his elderly father. Though not poor for a peasant, real poverty and starvation is only one bad harvest away. Fortunately, Wang has a few advantages to him. The first is his immensely strong work ethic, deeply instilled within him by the only way of life he has ever known. He rises early, cares for his father, tends the land, works late and, under the watchful eye of his father, is extremely frugal and does not indulge any luxury.

Secondly, Wang is very ambitious, though his ambitions remain modest at this stage in his life. He wishes for little more in addition to his current life than a family with sons to continue his line after him. But his greatest advantage is that he has his own land. As long as he has land he has hope. Hope that, with good rain, he can work for his own food and avoid starvation. Hope that, if there is a little spare, he can save money as a second security against poverty. Hope that, if his savings can accumulate, he can even increase his holdings and become relatively wealthy.

Wang is about to add another advantage to his life – a wife. Being poor, he cannot marry a beautiful woman or for love.

“And what will we do with a pretty woman? We must have a woman who will tend the house and bear children as she works in the fields, and will a pretty woman do these things? She will be forever thinking about clothes to go with her face! No, not a pretty woman in our house. We are farmers. Moreover, who has heard of a pretty slave who was a virgin in a wealthy house? All the young lords have had their fill of her. It is better to be first with an ugly woman than the hundredth with a beauty. Do you imagine a pretty woman will think your farmer’s hands as pleasing as the soft hands of a rich man’s son, and your sunblack face as beautiful as the golden skin of the others who have had her for their pleasure?” Wang Lung knew his father spoke well.

Instead, he is to marry a house-slave, chosen by his father, from the local great house – the House of Hwang. This aristocratic family, who reside in a huge mansion, hold much of the farmland around the village. But the House has fallen into decline as the older generations indulge their opium addiction and the younger generations seem to understand little of how to manage wealth; with ill-disciplined spending, unrestrained borrowing and no conception of generating income.

Though she barely says a word, Wang’s new wife, O-lan, is more than a match for his work ethic. As well as managing the house and caring for her father-in-law, O-lan has enough left to help Wang with the farm work even when heavily pregnant. She even manages birthing her child alone, without any assistance, and still gets dinner made.

One day when Wang Lung was hard pressed with the swelling wheat and was cultivating it with his hoe, day after day, until his back throbbed with weariness, her shadow fell across the furrow over which he bent himself, and there she stood, with a hoe across her shoulder. “There is nothing in the house until nightfall,” she said briefly, and without speech she took the furrow to the left of him and fell into steady hoeing. The sun beat down upon them, for it was early summer, and her face was soon dripping with sweat. Wang Lung had his coat off and his back bare, but she worked with her thin garment covering her shoulders and it grew wet and clung to her like skin. Moving together in perfect rhythm, without a word, hour after hour, he fell into a union with her which took the pain from his labour. He had no articulate thought of anything; there was only this perfect sympathy of movement, of turning this earth of theirs over and over to the sun, this earth which formed their home and fed their bodies and made their gods. The earth lay rich and dark, and fell apart lightly under the points of their hoes. Sometimes they turned up a bit of brick a splinter of wood. It was nothing. Some time, some age, bodies of men and women had been buried there, had fallen, and gone back into the earth. So would also their house, some time, return into the earth, their bodies also. Each had his turn at this earth. They worked on, moving together – together – producing the fruit of this earth – speechless in their movement together.

Their first child is a boy and the harvest is a good one. Their second child is also a boy and, with another good harvest, Wang is able to buy land from the declining House of Hwang. It seems as if Wang’s every wish is coming true.

It seemed to him as he walked into the sharp sunshine of the dusty street that there was never a man so filled with good fortune as he. He thought of this at first with joy and then with a pang of fear. It did not do in this life to be too fortunate. The air and the earth were filled with malignant spirits who could not endure the happiness of mortals, especially of such as are poor.

His growing wealth begins attracting unwanted attention. Wang’s uncle is a lazy, irresponsible spendthrift who leeches off his family, feigning bad luck and taking advantage. Wang’s plans for further growth are stalled as he is obliged to support his uncle. Then the rains fail and famine reaches the village. Wang gains the courage to turn away his uncle who spreads vicious rumours about him. Soon angry villagers are bursting into his house expecting to find a cache of food or money the family have been hoarding, only to find nothing and leave remorseful.

Things soon turn dire. There are no animals left in the village and villagers are resorting to eating bark and grass. There are even rumours of cannibalism. With his elderly father, two boys and now a baby daughter and a wife who is pregnant again, Wang has difficult choices to make. One thing he will absolutely not consider is to sell his land.

They cannot take the land from me. The labour of my body and the fruit of the fields I have put into that which cannot be taken away. If I had the silver, they would have taken it. If I had bought with the silver to store it, they would have taken it all. I have the land still, and it is mine.

To the south is a city where they may be able to find work or at least can beg for scraps. Getting there will be arduous. Wang and O-lan will have to carry his father and their children and they are already skeletal. But to stay in the village will mean death.

Again, the land, the good earth, means hope. If they can survive the drought in the city, the land, and all of its promise, will still be waiting for them when they return.

Of all the literally hundreds of books on my shelves that are still to-be-read, The Good Earth is one that has haunted me the most. I felt certain from the moment I first came across it that it would one day become a favourite of mine. Occasionally I would steal it from its shelf and read the first chapter as if to pacify my impatience. Only a stubborn sense of duty towards those ahead of it on my TBR lists held me back.

Reading it has proven to be everything I had hoped it would be and I think it is the first fiction book that I can safely call an all-time favourite probably since reading We Need to Talk About Kevin some four years ago.

The first thing that must be said about The Good Earth is how incredibly evocative it is. From the first page Buck is able to transport you to the time and place. That she is able to do this with a real economy of words and a lack of long descriptive pieces is something magical. I was able to fill in the blanks quite easily with my mind’s eye and even now, unusually for me, I feel I can still go back there at will.

The pace of the novel is special as well. The story moves quite quickly and there is continual action and drama. Despite the literary quality of its subject matter, its simple writing, quick pace and ample story gives it all the page-turning appeal of the best popular fiction.

And the power of the drama is not to be dismissed either. I am not one to cry from reading, but I imagine many a reader would when reading of the despair of life with a young family during a famine and of what they witness. There is much more emotional engagement elsewhere in the story, whether it is the despair of poverty; the frustration of the inequities between rich and poor, men and women, workers and freeloaders; the fear of violence and disappointment in the character’s choices.

The Good Earth is mostly a plot and character-driven story. While there are themes worth exploring, I do not believe they necessarily played a large role in the creation of the story.

The major theme for me is the link between life/social experience and character. Wang has known nothing other than the hardworking, precarious, life of a peasant. The life within the House of Hwang is as alien to him as the life of a Westerner. He does not consider how different his life might have been if he had been born into privilege. Nor does he realise, since upward financial and social mobility is his dream, how, if he were to succeed, it would change the way he feels about his wife, the way he would raise his sons or the life he would choose to lead. The thought that his sons might grow up in a completely different environment to himself, with personalities, opportunities, ambitions and wants completely foreign to his own would baffle him.

A minor related theme in the book is that of superstition and scepticism and its relation to his rising and falling social station. Wang does not show much participation in organised religion, but he does give passing recognition to traditionally worshipped local idols. This too rises and falls with his fortunes and when famine strikes, it deals a blow to his faith from which recovery seems remote.

The novels also explores the contrast between city and country, rich and poor. The city provides much more opportunity than the country, but only for some. Those below the poverty line are kept there in a poverty trap, something that the hardworking, honest and ambitious Wang can only find incredibly frustrating. Only the fact that he possesses his own land can offer escape from poverty.

The novel contains only passing reference to events going on elsewhere in greater China. There is only a sniff of foreign influence, of revolution and of civil war. Having read Jung Chang’s Wild Swans last year, and read this book alongside Chang’s biography of Mao, it puts this novel into perspective. The trials and struggles of this one family, immense and empathising are they are, are tiny in this vast country where everything will soon be turned upside down. It makes you wonder what, in the end, their struggles will amount to.

As his fortunes move up and down, Wang’s character, the restrictions on his behaviour, change as well. Readers may not find him as likeable at the end of his trials as they did the simple, earnest man at the beginning. Wang’s daughter is mentally handicapped, perhaps due to malnutrition from the famine of her infancy. At a time when many families might have abandoned such a child, Wang cannot bear to and affectionately calls her ‘his fool’. With everything he experiences, she remains a centre of innocence in a world full of sin, evil and hardship.

The Good Earth was a best-seller when first published and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. Pearl S Buck would go on to become the first American women to win a Nobel Prize for Literature for her canon which consisted of much non-fiction and short stories as well as her novels of rural Chinese peasantry.

I can’t help but wonder how Buck would be appraised if she were writing today. Given the current climate towards assigning writers ‘identities’ – usually based on race, gender and sexuality – and insisting they write no fiction beyond their personal experience, which effectively makes fiction impermissible, I wonder how today’s audience would react to a white American woman writing novels about rural Chinese?

Buck spent most of the first half of her life in China, the daughter of missionaries. The authenticity of her work has repeatedly stood up to the test. Surely that is what matters most when judging this aspect of the work rather than the identity of the author?

I knew The Good Earth would become a favourite of mine and it did not disappoint. It is evocative, tragic, powerful and beautifully written. Despite how much I enjoyed The Good Earth , and the high ratings her other novels have, I had no strong intention of reading more of her work – there is so much else to read. But I had not realised until I finished, that she wrote two sequels to The Good Earth . I may have to at least read those.

Often we have to add qualifiers when we recommend books – ‘you may like this, if you like…’. The Good Earth can be urged on others without qualification. It is a book anyone who reads can love.

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13 comments.

Unlike you I came to this book with no prior knowledge. It was recommended to me by some work colleagues in China and I was embarrassed that I had not heard of it despite Buck’s Nobel status. Like you I thought it was engrossing and quite an emotional experience especially in the section where they are starving in the city.

Like Liked by 1 person

You are right; reading through the famine was definitely an emotional experience. I also found myself getting quite emotionally engaged over the frustrating but dangerous uncle and some of Wang’s later-life choices

Me too Jason, those family members were so ungrateful

This was my favorite book through junior high and high school, and it remains one of my all time favorite reads. Great review!

Thanks! I really appreciate your compliment. I had not thought about how this book might appeal to younger readers but I think it should be encouraged. She really succeeds at building a lot of empathy and emotion for people living in very different circumstances to most readers.

I read this novel in high school and it is one of the best novels I have ever read. I read many more by Pearl Buck, but none can match this one. It is a treasure.

It certainly is, it has a magic charm, an easy engagement, that is impossible to properly describe

This book languished on my TBR shelf for an age. I then finally read it and was blown away. It is quite brutal in places but engrossing.

I’m glad you liked it, it’s quite magical how it pulls you in so completely.

Good blog…. I also love Pearl S. Buck, she wrote in The Good Earth: ” ‘Well, and they must all starve if the plants starve.’ It was true that all their lives depended on the earth.” I tried to write a blog about her, see whether you like it: https://stenote.blogspot.com/2019/01/an-interview-with-pearl.html

Thanks, I hope to read more of her writing sometime

A realistic depiction of very hard life and its rewards. Excellent. How can anyone call it boring?

I don’t know how anyone could call it boring either. Each to their own I guess!

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The Good Earth

Introduction to the good earth.

The Good Earth was written by Pearl S. Buck, with the setting of the early 20 th century in China. It also has two more volumes as the sequel to the rural Chinese story . The first book was published in 1931 under the title of The Good Earth. The series also won the Pulitzer as well as Noble Prize, for the author in quick succession. The novel proved a huge success after it was transformed into various movies and plays. The story revolves around a family facing hardships and the transformation of the rural setting.

Summary of The Good Earth

The story is about a young man, Wang Lung, in rural China who preparing to find a bride. His father advises him to visit the local Hwang family mansion to ask for a slave girl. After having some money and spending it lavishly on his maintenance and food, he visits the Hwangs and asks them for a slave girl. They propose that he take O-lan. Eventually, he marries her and takes her home after both agree to marry despite a slight disability in O-lan’s feet.

Both husband and wife start their agricultural work on their land. They also have a son, giving them happiness and resolution to work harder. On the other side, the Hwang family faces difficult times due to their patriarch being a womanizer and the matriarch being an addict. Soon Wang Lung is able to purchase some of the Hwang fields and enjoys farming with considerable income. Although they have another son, Wang Lung’s relatives start borrowing money from him and he is forced to lend. Meanwhile, he continues exploiting the Hwang, purchasing more of their fertile land. When their daughter is born, Wang Lung also faces acute drought , leading to a severe famine that causes severe disruption in the family.

During the famine, O-lan kills the second girl, still, food is hard to come by and the family continues facing hardships and is unable to feed the children. When winter becomes too unbearable, he migrates to a southern city where they become beggars. Wang Lung rents a rickshaw to earn his living. They get enough to eat, but they hardly make both ends meet. When Wang Lung has some money, he tells his family and plans to return to their estate.

Later, they try to sell their daughter when riots erupt in the city and they also join the other people and plunder the wealth of a rich man. Wang Lung lays his hands upon the gold coins while his wife plunders jewels after which all of them return to their estate. Soon they purchase all the fields from the Hwang family after which they start to settle down, having two more children. Now as a landlord, Wang Lung has laborers to work on his fields with a good harvest every year and more money in his reserves. Sadly there’s a flood, which disrupts his income, making him feel the dreariness of life, but routine again settles on him.

He is fed up with O-lan and starts finding fault in her after seeing a local prostitute, Lotus, a beautiful woman. He uses his money to purchase her. He regrets spending the money when O-lan falls sick. Wang finds his uncle and aunt in his house after which he moves to another house, leaving the big Hwang house for his relatives. During this time, his wife dies after which his sons decide not to farm their lands. After O-lan’s death, Wang’s father dies as well. He entrusts the land to his second son as the quarrel also deepens enmity among the brothers and soon causes a rift wider enough for them to sell the family land and divide the money.

Major Themes in The Good Earth

• Man and Earth: The Good Earth shows man’s natural relationship with the earth and farming. Not only man is dependent on the earth in terms of food and security but also he is linked with the earth in his social relations, morality, and status in the area. At first, Wang Lung is loyal to his father and has good relationships, he depends on the land for the livelihood that he earns during the harvesting season. The Hwang family, having large tracts of land, is stable because of having more land in the area than any other person. In contrast to them, others have fewer lands or none that force them to work in their fields, making them have less contact with the earth. This leads to moral as well as social decadence. Finally, their removal from the social fabric while having more land raises Wang to have a good status after he replaces the Hwang family by purchasing their lands.
• Wealth and Values: The Good Earth presents the story of a traditional Chinese rural setting in which the increase of wealth is shown as causing the elimination of traditional values. Wang Lung is courteous, humble, and down-to-earth sincere before he becomes a rich man, replacing the Hwang family. However, when he becomes a rich man, he wins Lotus, the local prostitute, and becomes arrogant ignoring his wife as well as children. Soon he becomes aware that as his children have grown up in luxury, have become lazy and disobedient. He also sees his status slipping from his hands before his eyes because his children have left their traditions and values of hard work after gaining wealth.
• Gender Oppression: Gender oppression is seen through the character of O-lan and Lotus. Although it is not clear about the condition of the Hwang family in terms of gender discrimination and oppression, beyond that mansion everything is against femininity. Wang Lung marries O-lan only because she is a slave and has bound feet. However, when he has achieved the status of the Hwang family, he is attracted to Lotus, a local prostitute. This leads to the disintegration of the family, and his relations with Lotus also deteriorate. It shows that female characters are at the receiving end.
• Migration and Prosperity: The Good Earth also shows the theme of prosperity associated with migration and vice versa . When Wang Lung does not see any future in his own land due to drought, he migrates to a southern city. Although whatever he gets in terms of wealth, is plundered. Yet he becomes rich enough to return as a wealthy person after the riots in the south. Migration and reverse migration, thus, show prosperity associated with it.
• Progress : The progress is seen through Wang Lung as he wants to prosper and works very hard to purchase a piece of land. His family grows and he faces an uncertain future in the wake of a drought. He goes for green pastures to the southern town, begs, works very hard, and finally falls upon the plundering mansion to collect gold coins while his wife gathers all the jewels. When this progress is achieved, they return home and live a comfortable life for a while. However, he finds himself in love with a prostitute, Lotus, a sign of newly acquired wealth while his children go astray as they grow older. The newly won prosperity soon takes its toll on the entire family until it is too late for Wang to turn back.
• Significance of Simple Living: The novel presents the theme of simple living as pious and morally good. When Wang Lung is a poor young man, he had to struggle hard to earn his bread , he is sincere, patient, and hard-working. Even when he marries, he stays loyal to his wife, O-lan, who also stays loyal to him. However, as soon as they get wealth from the southern town and purchase the Hwang family mansion, they start a lavish lifestyle as well as inhabit to the point that Wang Lung keeps a prostitute, Lotus, while his sons marry and start living recklessly. The second son tries to fulfill his father’s dream. This shows the value of simplicity in rural China.
• Decadence of Aristocracy: The novel shows the theme of the decadence of aristocracy through extravagant life. Although the Hwang is a traditional family and has been almost ruling the farming community , when Wang Lung becomes rich, he also turns to the same extravagant habits and starts destroying the wealth he has earned with hard work as well as savings that took from the plunder in the southern town. It shows that he is on the same path as the rural aristocracy.
• Family Life: The theme of family life is seen at first through Wang Lung’s plan to marry after his father’s insistence. The reason is that his father has married to have a family and knows that if his son does not marry, he will not see his grandchildren, and the traditional family life will come to an end. That is why Wang Lung goes to the Hwang family mansion to get a slave girl to have a family life. The family stays together through thick and thin, but by the end, the unearned wealth plays havoc with the family life and disintegrates it. Wang Lung brings Lotus, while his sons split apart to have their own families.
• Social Position: The theme of social position is through Wang Lung who is poor and has no money to get a good girl at the start. That is why he stays contented on his feet-bound wife, O-lan. However, as soon as his social status rises with his hard work and d plundered wealth from the southern town, he starts showing his true colors.

Major Characters of The Good Earth

• Wang Lung: The protagonist , Wang Lung is not a traditional hero in the classical sense but a common rural farmer in China whose main ambition is to do what his father demanded. He agrees to marry a slave girl his father tells him. With his economic and social standing in the village, he marries O-lan, a slave girl from the Hwang family, who is the only aristocratic family in the village. He has children and is hard-working with good stamina. Soon he becomes prosperous enough to bear some months of drought. During the severe famine, he migrates to the southern town where he works as a rickshaw driver and beggar until he gets gold and jewelry from the plunder. Then returns to their land as a rich man. When he takes over the Hwang family mansion, he wins Lotus, the village concubine, and loses his control over his sons who have separate families. Soon he learns that it is the land that keeps the family united which he has built with much effort. Now that they have stopped tilling the land, the family is witnessing disintegration.
• O-lan: Wang Lung’s wife, O-lan contributes significantly to his wealth in terms of hard work and children. She stays with him through thick and thin when he is poor and yet has to tolerate his brief period of infidelity when he contacts Lotus. Despite having no beauty and having bound feet, she fulfills her duty as a mother and wife in every way. She also takes care of his mansion, his land, and his family. Also, as opposed to the wayward behavior of Wang Lung on some occasions, she remains pragmatic. For example, when the occasion demands, she does not hesitate from sacrificing her own child for the greater good of the family.
• Wang Lung’s Father: A relic of the past and glory of the rural setting’s simplicity, Wang Lung’s father is very old and is treated as a burden on him. Despite his fragility and constant cough, he values the presence of a woman and married life in the rural setup. That is why he constantly pushes his son to have a family. He scolds at his disappointment when his son has an affair with Lotus, the local concubine, and dies shortly after O-lan’s death.
• Wang Lung’s Uncle: A very greedy and ethically disobedient person, Wang Lung’s father’s brother. He sees the extended family’s fall and rise, and comes to him to borrow money, believing it his familial right. His careless attitude could be seen in his clothes as described and when it becomes too awkward for him to carry on with the invading drought, he shifts to Wang Lung’s house, showing his presence in the house as a security against the robbers. Soon Wang Lung seeing his addiction tries to get rid of him.
• Nang En: Nang En is the eldest son of Wang Lung, he is the favorite of his parents who want him to be a scholar to assist them in future contracts about their produces from the fields. However, he soon turns to reckless life after finding himself in the Hwang mansion and rich quite early than expected and easily loses control of his temper. His obsession to look more prominent in the family costs Wang Lung good fortune.
• Nung Wen: Nung Wen is Wang Lung’s second son with ambitions of becoming a successful merchant. He is the only son who wants a good and hard-working wife. Finally, Wang Lung puts him in charge of the land to keep him busy and help him achieve his dream.
• Youngest Son: Like his elder brother, he is also arrogant and lazy. He, later, announces to join the armed forces, leaving his lascivious brothers behind to enjoy life.
• Eldest Daughter: The loving one but unaware of her circumstances, she faces tragic situations without knowing due to her mental health condition. Wang Lung desires to be with her to see her happy and safe.
• Second Daughter: The second daughter is very beautiful and wise as she realizes the reason for her mother’s illness. She understands that her father is not paying attention to her mother because of her bound feet.

Writing Style of The Good Earth

Like her other novels about foreign lands, this book is also very simple in language as well as style . Pearl S. Buck has used short, crispy, and concise sentences with occasional use of repetitions and ellipses. The diction , too, is very simple, sometimes formal and sometimes informal, yet appropriate and direct. For literary devices , the author turns metaphors and similes, making the book a simple read.

Analysis of the Literary Devices in The Good Earth

• Action: The main action of the novel comprises the life of Wang Lung and his family until he takes over the Hwang mansion and becomes the rich man of the village. The rising action occurs when Wang Lung returns to his village as a rich man, while the falling action occurs when he hands over the full house to his uncle.
• Anaphora : The following sentences show the use of anaphora , i. At night he knew the soft firmness of her body. But in the day her clothes, her plain blue cotton coat and trousers, covered all that he knew, and she was like a faithful, speechless serving maid, who is only a serving maid and nothing more. (Chapter -2) ii. Out of this body of his, out of his own loins, life! (Chapter -2) iii. For my father it is not fitting to enter your room–for myself, I have never even seen a cow give birth. (Chapter -3) These examples show the repetitious use of “serving maid”, “out of this body” and “for my.”
• Allusion : The use of allusions is given in the below examples, i. Yesterday he had said to his father that if this brazen, glittering sunshine continued, the wheat could not fill in the ear. Now it was as if Heaven had chosen this day to wish him well. (Chapter -1) ii. But what sort of schools these were he had no way of knowing, beyond the fact that they were called such names as “The Great School of Western Learning” or as “The Great School of China,” for he never went beyond the gates, and if he had gone in well he knew someone would have come to ask him what he did out of his place. (Chapter -12) The mention of Heaven, China, and Western learning in the above examples are some notable allusions.
• Conflict : The novel shows both external and internal conflicts. The external conflict is going on between the circumstances and Wang Lung, while the internal conflict is going on in his mind about his situation and the situation of his relatives when they come to borrow money from him.
• Characters: The novel, The Good Earth, shows both static as well as dynamic characters. The young man, Wang Lung, is a dynamic character as he shows a considerable transformation in his behavior and conduct by the end of the novel. However, all other characters are static as they do not show or witness any transformation such as O-lan, his father, the Poor Fool, and his uncle.
• Climax : The climax in the novel occurs when Wang Lung comes back to his village having a lot of wealth.
• Imagery : The use of imagery is given in the following sentences, i. The children’s bellies were swollen out with empty wind, and one never saw in these days a child playing upon the village street. At most the two boys in Wang Lung’s house crept to the door and sat in the sun, the cruel sun that never ceased its endless shining. Their once rounded bodies were angular and bony now, sharp small bones like the bones of birds, except for their ponderous bellies. The girl child never even sat alone , although the time was past for this, but lay uncomplaining hour after hour wrapped in an old quilt. (Chapter -9) ii. Beneath their feet the mud was thick and speared through with needles of ice and the little boys could make no headway and O-lan was laden with the girl and desperate under the weight of her own body. Wang Lung staggered through with the old man and set him down and then went back and lifted each child and carried him through, and then when it was over at last his sweat poured out of him like rain , spending all his strength with it, so that he had to lean for a long time against the damp wall, his eyes shut and his breath coming and going quickly, and his family stood shivering and waiting about him. (Chapter -10) iii. Running about the streets every day and all day long, he learned to know the city after a fashion, and he saw this and that of its secret parts. He learned that in the morning the people he drew in his vehicle if they were women, went to the market, and if they were men, they went to the schools and to the houses of business. (Chapter -12) These examples show images of movement, color, feelings, and sights.
• Metaphor : The following sentences are good examples of metaphors, i. A small soft wind blew gently from the east, a wind mild and murmurous and full of rain. (Chapter -1) ii. But between all these thoughts which were in his mind every day there ran weaving and interweaving the new thought of what his life now was, and it occurred to him, suddenly, thinking of the night, to wonder if she liked him. (Chapter -2) iii. All else at that New Year sank into insignificance beside this visit. (Chapter -5) iv. And as family after family finished its store in the small village and spent its last coin in the scanty markets of the town, and the winds of winter came down from the desert, cold as a knife of steel and dry and barren, the hearts of the villagers grew distraught with their own hunger. (Chapter -8) v. At times it seized him like a frenzy so that he rushed out upon his barren threshing floor and shook his arms at the foolish sky that shone above him, eternally blue and clear and cold and cloudless. (Chapter -9) These examples show that several things have been compared directly in the novel such as the first shows wind compared with something soft, the second shows thought as a wave, the third shows a year with something trivial, the fourth shows winds as a knife, and the fifth shows the sky as something cold and clear.
• Mood : The Good Earth shows a very pleasant mood in the beginning but turns out tragic, sorrowful as well as ironic, and didactic or moralizing in some places.
• Motif : Most important motifs of The Good Earth, are birth, religion, death, and life.
• Narrator : The novel is narrated in the third-person point of view , who is the author, Pearl S. Buck.
• Paradox : The following sentences are good examples of paradoxes, i. When the rich are too rich there are ways, and when the poor are too poor there are ways. (Chapter -14) ii. But men must work on, and Wang Lung worked as he had before, although the lengthening warm days and the sunshine and sudden rains filled everyone with longings and discontents. (Chapter -15) Both of these examples show paradoxical ideas expressed within the same sentence .
• Parallelism : The use of parallelism is given in the following sentences, i. And then he lay in his bed warm and satisfied while in the kitchen the woman fed the fire and boiled the water. (Chapter -1) ii. Wang Lung saw that she was afraid of him and he was pleased and he answered before she finished, “I like it–I like it,” and he drew his tea into his mouth with loud sups of pleasure. (Chapter -2) iii. He put his hoe upon his shoulder and he walked to his plots of land and he cultivated the rows of grain, and he yoked the ox to the plow and he ploughed the western field for garlic and onions. (Chapter -2) iv. He thought of this at first with joy and then with a pang of fear. (Chapter -4) v. And what he did for the farm implements, his wife, O-lan, did for the house implements. (Chapter -5) These examples show the parallel structure of the sentences, having phrases and clauses of equal length.
• Personification : The following examples of personifications are given below, i. A small soft wind blew gently from the east, a wind mild and murmurous and full of rain. (Chapter -1) ii. There were already other huts clinging to the wall behind them, but what was inside the wall none knew and there was no way of knowing. (Chapter -11) These examples show that the wind and wall, have life and emotions of their own.
• Protagonist : Wang Lung is the protagonist of the novel. The novel starts with his entry into the story from the very first chapter and ends with him.
• Setting : The setting of the novel, The Good Earth, is someplace in rural China.
• Simile : The following sentences are good examples of similes, i. But out of the woman’s great brown breast the milk gushed forth for the child, milk as white as snow , and when the child suckled at one breast it flowed like a fountain from the other, and she let it flow. (Chapter -4) ii. And as family after family finished its store in the small village and spent its last coin in the scanty markets of the town, and the winds of winter came down from the desert, cold as a knife of steel and dry and barren, the hearts of the villagers grew distraught with their own hunger. (Chapter -8) iii. But nothing could stop the mass of hungry men and women and they foughtlike beasts until all were fed. (Chapter -11) These are similes as the use of the words “like” and “as” show the comparison between terraced walls with a broad setup and the gleaming water with lamps.

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The Good Earth

The novel opens on the wedding day of Wang Lung , a simple Chinese farmer. He has never met his bride-to-be, and on this morning he goes to the nearby town to fetch her from the wealthy house where she works as a slave. After much nervousness, he finally appears before the Old Mistress of the House of Hwang , who presents him with his wife, O-lan . They return to Wang Lung’s house, stopping on the way to burn incense in a temple to the gods of the earth. Wang Lung has a wedding feast that night, and then he sleeps with O-lan.

Over the next few months, O-lan works hard in the house, and when she runs out of tasks, she come to help Wang Lung with his work in the fields. Wang Lung is very happy with her. Before long, she becomes pregnant and gives birth to a healthy son, bringing joy to the house. They have a large harvest that winter, and Wang Lung guards it carefully, saving the money he makes.

When New Year’s arrives, O-lan bakes beautiful cakes to bring to the Old Mistress. She dresses her son in fine clothes and Wang Lung accompanies them to the great house, proud of his prosperity. O-lan learns that the House of Hwang is suffering from a lack of money and hoping to sell some land . Wang Lung triumphantly buys it. In the spring, O-lan gives birth to another son. His harvests continue to be large, and he begins to become an important man in his village.

Wang Lung worries that his lazy uncle will ruin his family’s reputation, so he admonishes his uncle’s wife for letting her daughters talk to men. The next day, his uncle comes to demand money for his eldest daughter’s dowry. Wang Lung grudgingly gives it to him. At the same time, O-lan gives birth to a girl, which Wang Lung sees as bad luck.

Soon after, a drought comes. Wang Lung buys more land from the House of Hwang, though he doesn’t have much money. As the drought worsens, Wang Lung’s family becomes more and more desperate for food. His uncle, however, spreads rumors that he’s hoarding food and refuses to share, so men from the village tear apart his house trying to find it.

As the family starves, O-lan gives birth to another girl, whom she kills immediately. One day, men from town come to buy Wang Lung’s land, but he refuses. Instead, O-lan sells them all the furniture in the house. With the money they’ve made, the family sets out for the south, hoping to find food. They end up on a train, where the other passengers tell Wang Lung how to survive by begging in the southern city.

When they arrive in the city, they build a mat hut against a wall and get rice from public kitchens. O-lan and the children beg on the streets, while Wang Lung pulls a ricksha (rickshaw) around the city. They make just enough money to eat consistently, but Wang Lung feels like a foreigner in the city. He constantly dreams of going home to his land. O-lan suggests that they could sell their eldest daughter to raise the money they need, but Wang Lung is too attached to her.

Wang Lung hears men blaming their poverty on the wealthy, but he isn’t convinced by their arguments. One day he sees soldiers snatch men off the street to force them into slavery, so he begins to hide in his hut during the day and work at night. The city becomes unsettled, but he doesn’t know exactly why. Just as he decides he must sell his daughter to return to his land, a mob forces its way into the wealthy house behind the wall. Wang Lung gets caught up in it and forces a fat man to give him large amounts of gold.

The family returns home and uses the gold to reestablish their farm’s old success. One night, Wang Lung discovers that O-lan has been guarding a handful of jewels that she stole from the wealthy house in the city. Wang Lung takes them to the House of Hwang to buy more land and finds that the House was robbed during the famine. Only the Old Lord and a female slave named Cuckoo remain. Much to Wang Lung’s dissatisfaction, he has to do business with Cuckoo.

Wang Lung expands his house and hires men to work his lands, putting his neighbor Ching in charge of them. He sends his sons to school so that they can learn to read and write, which he can’t do.

After seven good years, the region floods. Many people starve, but Wang Lung has enough set by to live comfortably. However, he has no work to do while his fields are underwater, and he grows restless and grumpy. He suddenly realizes how ugly O-lan is, and tells her so. He begins to go to a fancy tea shop, where he finds Cuckoo in charge of a number of prostitutes. She convinces him to hire one, and he’s astonished by the beauty of the girl, whose name is Lotus . Wang Lung returns to her night after night, but his passion is never entirely fulfilled. He starts spending exorbitant amounts of money on gifts for Lotus and on finery for himself.

One day, Wang Lung’s uncle brings his family to live with Wang Lung, and Wang Lung can’t turn them out because they’re family. He decides to buy Lotus and bring her to live in his house. Cuckoo comes as her servant, and O-lan lashes out at her while pretending Lotus doesn’t exist. There are constantly conflicts between Wang Lung’s family and Lotus. Finally Lotus insults his children, and Wang Lung’s passion for her cools. He returns to his fields.

Wang Lung decides he should find his eldest son a wife, but before he can do so, his son becomes moody and refuses to go to school. One morning, the son comes home drunk, and Wang Lung discovers that he’s gone to a prostitute, Yang , with Wang Lung’s uncle’s son . Wang Lung visits the prostitute and convinces her to turn his son away if he returns. Wang Lung tries to throw his uncle’s family out, but his uncle reveals that he’s part of a robber band that will destroy Wang Lung if he’s cruel to his uncle. Wang Lung finally engages his son to the daughter of a grain merchant named Liu .

An infestation of locusts arrive, killing many crops but leaving most of Wang Lung’s intact. Soon after, the eldest son announces that he wants to go to school in the city to the south, but Wang Lung refuses to let him go. Then O-lan tells him that the son goes to Lotus’s rooms when Wang Lung is gone. The next day, Wang Lung surprises his son in Lotus’s court and, furious, tells him to go to the city.

Wang Lung apprentices his second son to Liu and engages his second daughter to Liu’s son. Wang Lung begins to think about O-lan more often, and he realizes she’s in pain. He brings a doctor , who says that she’s dying. Wang Lung is distraught. He spends the winter at O-lan’s bedside. Just before the New Year, O-lan says she wants to see her son married before she dies, so Wang Lung brings him back from the city and makes the wedding arrangements. O-lan is happy during the wedding, but dies soon after. Not much later, Wang Lung’s father dies as well. He makes a burial plot on his land and buries them both in it with a grand funeral.

Another massive flood comes, and Wang Lung rations his food and money, but he has to give his uncle’s family privileges to protect his house from the robbers. They become increasingly demanding. When the eldest son learns of the situation, he suggests that Wang Lung get them addicted to opium so they won’t cause trouble. Wang Lung only agrees after his uncle’s son tries to molest his second daughter.

When the flood recedes, Wang Lung’s eldest son can no longer stand living alongside his cousin, and he suggests that they move into the House of Hwang, now abandoned by the old family. Wang Lung visits the house and likes the feeling of power it gives him, so he decides to rent it. His eldest son’s family moves there, but Wang Lung stays behind in his old house.

Ching arranges a marriage for Wang Lung’s second son, and Wang Lung’s nephew leaves to fight in a war. Wang Lung eventually moves to the house in town, where he relaxes in luxury. However, there always seem to be problems in his household. His eldest son spends lots of money to decorate the house lavishly and become well respected in the town, but the second son doesn’t want him to waste so much money. The youngest son wants to go to school instead of working the land, which Wang Lung grudgingly allows, putting the second son in charge of the land.

There are rumors of an approaching war, and one day soldiers fill the town and garrison themselves in all the houses. Wang Lung’s uncle’s son brings many soldiers to Wang Lung’s house, and he has to let them live in the outer courts, though they destroy them. The uncle’s son lusts after the women in Wang Lung’s household, so he gives him a slave woman to keep him busy.

Finally, the soldiers leave for the war. Wang Lung marries off the slave he had given to his uncle’s son, sitting where the Old Mistress did when she gave O-lan to him. Wang Lung’s youngest son decides he wants to become a soldier, but Wang Lung refuses to let him go. Meanwhile, Wang Lung begins to lust after a young slave named Pear Blossom . He makes her his concubine, and when the youngest son finds out, he runs away to the army.

As the years pass, Wang Lung sits in the sun and relaxes like his father did, focusing only on his physical comfort and paying little attention to the goings-on around him. He still goes out to his land in the spring, and he has his eldest son buy him a coffin. Eventually he moves back to his house on his land to live out his last days. One day he hears his sons discussing how they’ll sell the land. In the face of his distress they promise not to sell it, but their smiles tell a different tale.

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The Good Earth

by Pearl S. Buck

• The Good Earth Summary

The Good Earth is a family saga centered on the figure of Wang Lung , a simple farmer in the village of Anhwei. The novel opens on Wang Lung's wedding day, when Wang Lung arrives at the Great House of Hwang to claim his bride. He is a poor man who has come to marry a slave, the only wife he can afford, and for this reason he is very aware of his inferior status. The Old Mistress asks that they bring their first-born for her to see. Wang Lung agrees and departs with O-lan , now "his woman."

O-lan is plain and simple, though a hard worker. She plans the wedding feast, and Wang Lung and his father are pleasantly surprised by the delicacy of her food. That night, they consummate the marriage.

Wang Lung is happy in his life with O-lan. She is a quiet being, but diligent and respectful. Also, he finds comfort in her and soon is overjoyed to learn that she is pregnant. O-lan also takes it upon herself to go into the field and work with Wang Lung, thus bringing in a better harvest that year.

Wang Lung and O-lan continue saving silver and having children. They hide the money in an earthen wall until Wang Lung decides to buy some land from the House of Hwang. There is talk in the village about his prosperity, and with that Wang Lung's mooching uncle comes around and asks for money. Wang Lung is forced to help his uncle financially because he is family.

The next year a famine strikes. The harvest is minimal and hunger abounds. O-lan gives birth to a girl, something Wang Lung considers a bad omen. Eventually the family migrates south in search of food. They settle in this foreign city and make do as best as they can. During this time there is an uprising and a rich house is sacked by the poor. Wang Lung steals a rich man's gold. With this money the family heads back to the land with seeds, an ox, and renewed spirits.

The village is desolate when the family returns. Ching , Wang Lung's neighbor, is still alive, but barely so. Wang Lung tells Ching he will help him plant again, and soon they become close friends. Ching later works for Wang Lung as his foreman.

One night Wang Lung finds out that during the night of chaos in the south, O-lan found a collection of jewels. O-lan asks to keep two pearls, something to which Wang Lung obliges, and the next day he goes out to buy more land from the House of Hwang with the remaining jewels.

Wang Lung thus becomes a rich man and begins to delve in the pleasures of life. He seeks out a concubine, Lotus , sends his sons to school, and becomes widely respected. He also realizes that, as much as he owes to O-lan, he does not love or desire her. She is simply the mother of his children. He remains bound to sustain his uncle, aunt and nephew, because they know of Wang Lung's wealth and will not work when he can provide for them.

By the end of the novel the family has changed drastically. The sons have been raised without knowing the value of the land, all they know are monetary riches. They convince Wang Lung to rent the Great House in the city rather remain in the country. Wang Lung, though occasionally enjoying the pleasures of a rich man (for example fine food and clothes, and another concubine named Pear Blossom ) never wholly sheds his identity as a farmer. However, his sons, who are eager to sell the land and make more money, represent the changes to come.

A novel of simple beauty, The Good Earth is above all a glimpse into the life of Chinese peasants and the social changes that affect their traditions.

The Good Earth Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Good Earth is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

What does Wang mean when he said there is a way when the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor.

There is still strange talk among the poor. Wang Lung hears a cryptic message from one of his neighbors. Times will change soon: "When the rich are too rich there are ways, and when the poor are too poor there are ways" (118). There is a point...

What did wa

Wang Lung purchases some seed and an ox before returns home.

Wang Lung buries his uncle next to his father.

Study Guide for The Good Earth

The Good Earth study guide contains a biography of Pearl S. Buck, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Good Earth
• Character List

Essays for The Good Earth

The Good Earth literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Good Earth.

• The Value of Education in The Good Earth
• Society, Poverty, and History in The Good Earth and The Grapes of Wrath

Lesson Plan for The Good Earth

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to The Good Earth
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• The Good Earth Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for The Good Earth

• Introduction