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The Good Earth | Introduction

Pearl Buck was one of the most widely read American novelists of the twentieth century. When she published her most popular and critically acclaimed novel, The Good Earth, in 1931, she was living in China as the wife of a Christian missionary. By that time, she had lived in China for about forty years and brought to her portrayal of Chinese rural life a knowledge that few if any Western writers have possessed.

The novel is about a poor farmer named Wang Lung who rises from humble origins to become a rich landowner with a large family. Although Wang Lung is a fundamentally decent man, as he becomes wealthy and acquires a large townhouse he becomes arrogant and loses his moral bearings, but he manages to right himself by returning to the land, which always nourishes his spirit.

The The Good Earth contains a wealth of detail about daily life in rural China at the end of the nineteenth century and in the first quarter of the twentieth century; it shows what people ate, what clothes they wore, how they worked, what gods they worshiped, and what their marriage and family customs were. The novel is written in a simple but elevated, almost Biblical style, which lends dignity to the characters and events. It was widely praised for presenting American readers with an accurate picture of a country about which they knew very little in the 1930s. As of 2006, The Good Earth had never been out of print and had sold millions of copies in many different languages.

The Good Earth Summary

Chapters 1–3
As The Good Earth begins, Wang Lung, a poor farmer in north central China, is preparing to get married. He is looking forward to having a woman to do the household chores since his mother died six years earlier. He lives with his father, an old man who complains a lot.

Early in the morning, Wang Lung puts on his best clothes and walks into the town. He is on his way to the House of Hwang, the wealthiest family in town, where he has been promised a slave girl as a wife. The marriage has been arranged by his father, and he has never met the girl, although he knows she is not pretty.

Arriving in town, he visits the barber and then the butcher, where he buys meat for the evening wedding feast. Outside the House of Hwang, he is at first too frightened to go in, and he goes to a restaurant and buys noodles and tea. When he returns to the House of Hwang at noon, he is taken to the Old Mistress, who summons the female slave, named O-lan. The old mistress says O-lan is a virgin and a good worker, although somewhat slow and stupid. Wang Lung is pleased to have her, and on their way home, he takes her to a temple, where he burns incense to the gods. When they arrive home, O-lan prepares the food, and Wang Lung’s neighbors and relatives arrive for the feast.

As the days go by, Wang Lung begins to enjoy married life. O-lan, although she is mostly silent, is a good cook and a competent housekeeper. By summer, she has started to work with him in the fields, too.

Soon O-lan becomes pregnant. Refusing help from anyone, she gives birth to a baby boy, to the delight of Wang Lung and his father.

Chapters 4–6
Following a local custom, Wang Lung buys fifty eggs and dyes them red in honor of the new baby. In a short time, O-lan resumes her work with her husband in the fields. That year, the harvest is a rich one, and the frugal Wang Lung manages his affairs well, in contrast to his lazy uncle and his wife. During the winter, he even manages to save some silver pieces.

For the New Year celebrations, O-lan makes rice cakes, and Wang Lung and she take their son to the House of Hwang. O-lan presents the boy to the Old Mistress and gives the cakes to the ladies in the house. O-lan learns from the cook that the Hwang family has fallen on hard times because of the spendthrift habits of the young men, and the family wishes to sell some land. Wang Lung decides to buy the land and is proud of his new acquisition.

In spring, he and O-lan labor on their new land. In the fall, O-lan gives birth to a second son, and Wang Lung is happy with his good fortune. His plentiful harvests continue, he saves money from the sale of his produce, and he earns a reputation in the village as a man of substance.

Chapters 7–9
Wang Lung is angered by the laziness of his uncle’s family. His uncle has a wife and seven children, but none of them works, and the family is always in need. One day Wang Lung’s uncle complains of his ill-fortune and asks Wang Lung for money. Reluctantly, Wang Lung gives him nine pieces of silver.

O-lan gives birth to a baby girl. Neither he nor O-lan is pleased by this, since girls are not valued as highly as boys.

There is a summer-long drought, and only one piece of Wang Lung’s land bears harvest. But Wang Lung remains well off, and he buys more land from the House of Hwang as that family’s fortunes continue to decline.

The drought continues into autumn. Food becomes scarce, and Wang Lung and O-lan are forced to kill and eat their ox in order to survive. Wang Lung gives his uncle some beans, but when the man returns for more, Wang Lung refuses. His uncle turns against him.

In the winter, hungry villagers, encouraged by Wang Lung’s uncle, come to Wang Lung’s house, intent on stealing food. But they find little food there. The famine gets so bad that people eat grass and the barks of trees, as well as dogs and horses.

O-lan gives birth to another girl, but the infant dies, either strangled or smothered by O-lan. With his family penniless and starving, Wang Lung decides they will travel south to escape the famine. He and O-lan sell their furniture but keep their land.

Chapters 10–13
Wang Lung and his family begin their walk south, then catch a train. When they arrive in the city of Kiangsu (based on Nanking), Wang Lung buys mats and builds a hut that rests against the wall of another house. They get rice from the public kitchens for the poor. The following day, the family begs on the streets, except for Wang Lung, who hires a rickshaw and conveys people around town. But for all his hard work, at the end of the day, he has made almost no profit. Fortunately, however, O-lan and their sons have collected enough money to pay for their rice the following morning.

As Wang Lung pulls the rickshaw each day, he gets to know the city, but he does not feel at home there. He hears young men speaking to crowds at street corners, saying that the Chinese must have a revolution and rise up against the foreigners. Wang Lung meets a foreigner for the first time when he gives a ride to an American woman in his rickshaw.

In the city, food is plentiful, but Wang Lung and his family cannot escape their poverty. When the younger son steals pork from a butcher, Wang Lung beats him. He decides he must get back to his land as soon as possible. But he has nothing to sell that would finance the move back,... » Complete The Good Earth Summary