The Good Earth is an epic depiction of agricultural life during the last half-century of the Manchu or Ch’ing dynasty (1644-1911) in China. The Chinese man of the soil is embodied in the character of Wang Lung. Wang Lung brings the slave O-lan to his earthen house where he cares for his aged father and from which he farms his land. After O-lan bears him two sons and a mentally retarded daughter, the region is devastated by drought and famine, and Wang Lung takes his father, children, and wife many miles south to a city, where they become street beggars while Wang Lung earns what he can as a rickshaw runner. O-lan will give birth later to a second girl and, after leaving the city, to twins, a boy and a girl.

In this first part of the novel, the customs of prerevolutionary China are detailed as part of the story. Filial respect, not only for the father but also for the father’s brothers, is absolute. Wang Lung must obey his father’s wishes, even though the old man is immobile and losing his memory and good sense. In addition, Wang Lung must take his shiftless uncle, along with the uncle’s wife and son, into his household as dependents. The uncle imposes upon his nephew’s charity with impunity: Wang Lung learns that his home is spared the ravages of bandit gangs only because his uncle is a member of a particularly vicious gang.

While there is something of merit in the tradition of filial piety, little can be found in favor of the concurrent status of women. In all but very wealthy families, “girl” is synonymous with “slave.” Girls and women are bought and sold as wives, concubines, and servants. A woman achieves status only by bearing one or more sons. Infant girls may be put to death for the sake of convenience. O-lan herself strangles at birth her second girl during the height of the famine when there is no possibility of adequate nursing or care. Another measure of status of women is the size of their feet. The feet of girls in wealthy or solvent families are bound from birth to maturity in order to create small, delicate feet. O-lan, a slave who is physically unattractive in other respects, becomes repulsive to Wang Lung at one point because of her large feet. He had not been bothered by their size during the famine and after the family returns to the land and makes a success of the farm. With the worst of these hardships behind them, however, Wang Lung sees things differently and purchases Lotus, a delicately featured concubine with tiny feet.

The acquisition of Lotus marks Wang Lung’s achievement of wealth and prestige. It is in this second part of the novel that Wang Lung’s sons begin to assert themselves as individuals and to part from the tradition of patriarchy that had been sacred to Wang Lung. Meanwhile, O-lan, having given her entire life to her husband and having been responsible in no small degree for his success, dies in the agony of cancer and without the love of her husband.

The conclusion of the novel passes stylistically from simple narrative to an approximation of biblical lyric, cadenced and polysyndetonic—for example, “Then Wang Lung was humbled and anxious and he was submissive and he was sorry and he said . . . ” The formalism of the language is in accord with Wang Lung’s function as a representative of prerevolutionary China. The world passes away from him as none of his sons commits himself to farming: His youngest son leaves to become a soldier, and his first and second sons are determined to sell his land.

*Anhui

*Anhui. Large inland province in east central China divided by the great Yangzi (Yangtze) River. The far northern part of the province, in which the novel is set, is part of the broad northern China plain that is usually hot and dusty but subject to frequent flooding from the Yellow River.

Wang Lung’s farmhouse

Wang Lung’s farmhouse. Rural farmhouse that is the scene of most of the novel. The house is located in Wang village, described as composed of only a half dozen households, within an hour or so walk of an unnamed walled administrative town in the inland province of Anhui. The changes the farmhouse undergoes closely mirror the fortunes of Wang Lung and his family. Wang Lung toils daily in the fields and has a deep attachment to the land—the “good earth” of the title. In famine he lets the house go into disrepair and sells the household goods but will not sell his land. A multitude of trials face the family and threaten the farmhouse, but both survive. In prosperity, Wang Lung buys additional land and improves his house.

The house first appears as a run-down three-room, earthen-floored structure made of mud-and-straw bricks with a thatched roof in which Wang Lung and his widowed father live. When a wife, O-lan, joins the household, the interior of the house improves through her skill and hard work. Additions to the house come as the frugal and hard-working family members raise themselves up. These improvements include sheds for animals and a room in which laborers reside. Eventually a tile-roofed, brick-floored addition is built for Wang Lung’s secondary wife, Lotus. The house sits above the high-water marks of the frequent floods and so both the house and Wang Lung’s family survive flooding.

Hwang family mansion

Hwang family mansion (wang). Walled compound located in an unnamed walled administrative city in Anhui that has its own imposing gates. The unnamed city is probably Nansuzhou (now known as Suxian), in northern Anhui, where Buck lived from 1917 through 1919. Wang Lung’s wife, O-lan, comes to him from the Hwang mansion where she grew up as a harshly treated orphan kitchen servant. In the course of the novel, Hwang family members dissipate the family fortune and eventually sell land to Wang Lung. The Hwang mansion falls into ruins, leaving only a servant or two living in its collapsing courtyards. In his greatest period of prosperity, after O-lan’s death, Wang Lung purchases the property. Now a great extended Chinese family, the Wangs move into the refurbished mansion, where Wang Lung falls heir to some of the same excesses and faults of the Hwang family. He can never find peace in the mansion and prefers his modest farmhouse.

City in Jiangsu (Kiangsu) province

City in Jiangsu (Kiangsu) province. Unnamed city to which Wang Lung and his young family flee by train during a famine in Anhui. There they live in a “little village of sheds clinging to the wall.” Country folk who are never comfortable with city life, they eke out a living through Wang Lung’s work as a rickshaw puller. O-lan and the children beg on the streets. After Wang Lung comes into some money by chance, the family immediately return to their farmhouse and land. Although never named, this city is clearly modeled on Nanjing (Nanking).

Biblical in the simplicity of its language and cadence, The Good Earth traces the life of Chinese peasant Wang Lung from his youthful marriage to his death in his seventies. Living in Anwhei Province hundreds of kilometers west of Shanghai, Soochow, Nanking, and other cities of eastern China between the Hwang Ho (Yellow River) to the north and the Yangtze River to the south, Wang Lung must pin his survival upon the yields of his land. Above all else, the land preoccupies and absorbs him, as it did most of China’s traditional, prerevolutionary peasantry.

Believing that the fate of his land compelled it, Wang Lung subordinated everything to the soil: family, friends, his beasts, and every ounce of his strength. To hold the land, he battled drought, devastating floods, plagues of locusts, bandits, the desires of his three sons, and jealous neighbors until midlife. Only on his deathbed was it clear that the land to which he had sacrificed so much—and which even as he was dying he sought to pass to his sons—would in fact be divided and sold by sons who had little affection for him.

Throughout the book’s thirty-four chapters, Wang Lung is depicted as a changing, three-dimensional figure. Poor, unlettered, shy, traditionally dutiful, honest, thrifty, and indefatigable in his labors as a young man, his eventual attainment of riches provides ambit for his desires and moments of reflection. Self-absorbed and insensitive toward O-lan, his wife, and certain that his sons must unquestionably mold their lives to care for the land, he slowly perceives the depths of his wife’s devotion and must grudgingly yield to his sons’ contrary strengths while suffering their weaknesses.

Similarly, when wealth is gained Wang Lung becomes a caricature of his earlier self. Shyness gives way to airs and pomposity. Self-restraint is transmuted into desire and licentious folly. Once openly generous or at the least dutiful toward others, he hoards his wealth and appears shrewd, calculating, and greedy. He thinks of himself as powerful. Meanwhile, his vulnerabilities and weaknesses are transparent to everyone around him. His sons argue or whine their way out of serving the land as Wang Lung wished them to do. Eldest son takes schooling and becomes a fat, lazy, and duplicitous scholar. Second son becomes a merchant, eventually managing his father’s money. Youngest son, fierce of temper, storms from the household to become a soldier.

After Wang Lung reaches midlife as a wealthy man, a landlord who lives off rents and interest, he purchases the house and lands of the decadent Hwang family and with his friend Ching as overseer hires labor to work his fields. Divorced from the soil, he indulges his follies, expanding his household to include his concubine (or second wife), Lotus, and her slave, Cuckoo, along with his uncle’s family. None of these arrangements brings him the peace that he expected: Cuckoo mocks him; Lotus tires of him; O-lan dies; and the members of his uncle’s family, on the strength of traditional duties, remain importunate. When the uncle reveals himself as the leader of local bandits, Wang Lung realizes that he has been immunized from their depredations.

His peace of mind has been destroyed by the demands of his household; by his sons’ discontents, jealousies, and lack of affection; and by his own isolation—except for the love of his “fool” (a retarded daughter) and his last passion, the young slave Pear Blossom. Wang Lung grows more reflective about himself as he prepares for death. Old and alone, remorseful over the loss of his direct union with the soil, he seeks to ensure that his family retain his lands. Yet, even as his sons hoodwink him with promises of a grand funeral, they conspire to dispose of the earth that had been the focus of his life.

Pearl Buck was a widely read and influential author. Previously unknown and lacking money or influential friends, she gained instant fame and international recognition because of The Good Earth. Published to rave reviews, The Good Earth became a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and in 1932 won the Pulitzer Prize. In 1935, it was awarded the William Dean Howells Medal for distinguished American fiction. The following year, Buck was also elected to the National Academy of Arts and Letters. These honors culminated in the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938, for a corpus of work which also included two masterful biographies, The Exile (1936) and The Fighting Angel: Portrait of a Soul (1936), portraits of her parents, Caroline and Absalom Sydenstricker, respectively.

Before her death, Buck published forty novels, along with a score of nonfiction works, fourteen books for children, and several translations of Chinese works. Her novels in particular were themselves swiftly translated into more than fifty major languages and many others, testifying to the universal humanity of her works. This influence was of immense importance to the women of the world.

As a strong woman (although one often in conflict with herself), Buck created or portrayed memorable women throughout her life, starting with O-lan and Caroline. Such characters were embodiments of her own vocal rebellion against the situation that women, particularly creative ones, confronted in male-dominated cultures. She publicly exhorted women, in the tradition of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott, to rail against the abuses, carelessness, and indifference with which they were so commonly treated by men in most societies. She was no less contemptuous of the “selfish, ignorant, self-indulgent American woman of wealth and privilege” and those who preferred life in “a mental vacuum.” Rather than helping their sisters struggle against injustice, these women, Buck argued, pulled everyone down. Because of her sensitive strengths, Buck reached women as have few other authors. She understood their plights, but she also exhorted them to see themselves as the hope of civilization, as people capable of shaping the future of their countries and of the world.

Revolutionary Change in China
During the timeframe depicted in the novel, China experienced significant political upheaval. While The Good Earth primarily highlights rural life, which largely resisted change, Wang Lung encounters broader societal forces on two notable occasions. The first encounter occurs when he is in the city of Kiangsu (Nanking), where he is exposed to revolutionary discussions and witnesses soldiers recruiting for war. Subsequently, a revolutionary army arrives, leading to outbreaks of mob violence. These scenes in the novel reflect the escalating social unrest in China at the start of the twentieth century. For many years, the political institutions of China's imperial rulers had become increasingly corrupt and inept, notably failing to protect the country from foreign invasions. This growing social dissatisfaction reached a peak with the Revolution of 1911, which resulted in the fall of the Ch’ing dynasty. The revolution was sparked by an uprising that erupted in October 1911 between nationalist revolutionaries and the military in Wuhan. Over the next four months, numerous provinces revolted against imperial authority, with intense battles occurring in Nanking. At that time, Buck’s parents, Christian missionaries Absalom and Carie Sydenstricker, were in Nanking and were advised to leave, but they chose to stay.

On February 12, 1912, a Chinese Republic was established, with revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen as its inaugural president. He announced that the republic's objectives were nationalism, democracy, and socialism. However, he soon faced pressure and stepped down in favor of Yuan Shi-k’ai, a revolutionary general. Yuan Shi-k’ai declared himself emperor in 1915, but he passed away the following year before realizing his imperial goals. His death significantly weakened the republican government, leading to the Warlord Era (1916–1927), during which regional armies competed for dominance, often with dire consequences for local communities. This chaotic period is depicted in chapter 31 of The Good Earth, when soldiers invade Wang Lung’s town and oppress the residents. This represents the widespread turmoil in China at the time, which was not fully resolved until the communists' victory in 1949.

Foot-binding and the Role of Women in China
In traditional Chinese society before the twentieth century, women were considered subordinate to men. The traits most valued in women were obedience and loyalty. As depicted in The Good Earth, the birth of a girl did not bring the same joy to a family as the birth of a boy. Xiongya Gao clarifies in Pearl S. Buck’s Chinese Women Characters that if a couple's first child was a girl, it was seen as a letdown; a second daughter brought sorrow, and a third was deemed a calamity. The wife would be held responsible for not bearing a son. It was not uncommon for a baby girl in a poor family to be smothered or sold into slavery, as portrayed in The Good Earth.

Girls in traditional Chinese families faced many challenges, including the practice of foot-binding. This custom started with the aristocracy in the tenth century and eventually spread throughout China. Foot-binding began when a girl was between four and six years old and continued for more than ten years. The feet were wrapped tightly with bandages so that the toes were bent under the sole and the arch was forced upward. This painful process caused broken and deformed bones, leading to misshapen feet prone to infection and disease. After years of binding, the foot would become virtually lifeless and emit an unpleasant odor. However, Chinese men considered the small, crippled foot highly desirable. As Gao notes, “Such a product of cruelty, of women’s tears and suffering, had come to be greatly admired, played with, and worshiped by men. It [the foot] became the most erotic organ of the female body.” Essentially, women were intentionally crippled for the sake of beauty and erotic appeal.

The brutality of this practice is vividly illustrated in The Good Earth, where Wang Lung's daughter tells her father, "because my mother binds a cloth about my feet more tightly every day and I cannot sleep at night." The bandages on the foot were typically changed every two days and rebound even tighter, causing increased pain.

Without foot-binding, a girl's prospects for marriage were bleak. She was often told that bound feet were necessary to appeal to men. One reason men found such women attractive was because their physical frailty made them easier to dominate. These women were typically confined to their homes, unable to walk long distances or even stand without support. Having a daughter with bound feet signified a family's high social standing, indicating they could support a woman who didn't contribute economically. Large, unbound feet, like O-lan’s in the novel, were associated with poverty and low social status.

However, at the dawn of the twentieth century, voices began to rise in China challenging the inferior status of women and the tradition of foot-binding. Jonathan Spence, in The Gate of Heavenly Peace, cites a 1904 essay by Qiu Jin, a young woman who criticized the oppression of women in Chinese society. Her account of the typical reaction to the birth of a daughter echoes themes found in The Good Earth. The father might

immediately utter phrases like “Oh, what an inauspicious day, here’s another useless one...”. He often repeats, “She will belong to another family one day,” and regards us with cold or disdainful eyes.

Qiu Jin also spoke out against foot-binding:

They wrap our feet with snow-white bands, securing them with strips of white cotton; even at night, we are not allowed to loosen them at all, causing the flesh to peel and the bones to bend.

In 1911, the Chinese government officially prohibited foot-binding. Around this time, as Spence notes, Chinese society began addressing women's status more broadly. The number of girls' schools increased, and publications focusing on women's issues emerged. Christian missionaries and Chinese reformers also played significant roles. By 1919, girls were first admitted to Peking National University.

Imagery and Symbolism
While the novel is grounded in realism, it occasionally incorporates imagery and symbolism. For instance, the ancient Chinese custom of foot-binding symbolizes Wang Lung’s aspiration to elevate his family's social standing. This practice involved binding girls' feet over several years, resulting in a foot sometimes as small as three inches. Although painful, tiny feet were deemed attractive. Wang Lung is captivated by Lotus because of her small feet. Additionally, bound feet made it easier for families to secure a husband for their daughters. Among the poor, however, foot-binding was rare since women needed to work and couldn't afford to be mere ornaments. As a kitchen slave, O-lan did not have bound feet. Yet, when Wang Lung gains wealth and decides his wife is beneath him, he is particularly repulsed by her "big feet," glaring at them in anger. To placate him, O-lan offers to bind their younger daughter's feet. She does this effectively, leading the girl to "move about with small graceful steps."

Wang Lung’s braided hair also serves as a symbol, representing traditional values. As a young man, when he visits a barber before fetching his bride, the barber suggests cutting off his braid for a more modern look. Wang Lung refuses, stating he would need his father’s consent, showcasing his commitment to tradition. However, upon meeting Lotus, he forgets the values that have defined his life. When Lotus teases him about what she calls a "monkey’s tail," he immediately cuts it off to appear fashionable. Upon returning home, O-lan is appalled by his decision. "You have cut off your life!" she exclaims, establishing a symbolic connection between a man's hair and the traditional ways of life.

• 1930s: In Nanking, China, Japanese forces invade and kill an estimated 369,366 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war from December 1937 to March 1938. Approximately 80,000 women and girls are raped, with many later mutilated and murdered.

  Today: Japan resisted apologizing to China for World War II atrocities for many years. In 2005, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi expressed regret for the suffering Japan caused in Asian countries during the war, yet he did not specifically mention Nanking.

• 1930s: China is governed by the Nationalist Party, under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek. The Chinese Communist Party opposes the nationalists but remains on the defensive during the 1930s. In 1934, the communists begin their iconic 6,000-mile Long March from Hunan to northwest China to establish a stronghold.

  Today: China is led by the Communist Party, but economic reforms over the past two decades have introduced many capitalist elements. The private sector is rapidly expanding as China emerges as a significant global power.

• 1930s: In Shanghai, a city heavily influenced by international cultures, educated and sophisticated women begin to redefine their roles, moving away from traditional gender expectations. They view themselves as liberated, while traditionalists perceive them as symbols of modernity and foreign influence. Meanwhile, women in rural and less developed areas face hardships with limited rights.

  Today: The Chinese government has made significant progress in safeguarding women's rights and enhancing their political and social status. Advances have been achieved in education, healthcare, and employment, though workplace discrimination persists. Women from impoverished regions often face rights violations, particularly in family and marriage matters.

The Good Earth was produced by Metro Goldwyn Mayer in 1937, with Sidney Rainer as the director. By 2006, the movie could be found on video cassette. A theatrical adaptation of the novel, penned by Owen Davis and Donald Davis, premiered at the Theatre Guild in New York City on October 17, 1932.

Sources
Buck, Pearl, The Good Earth, John Day, 1965.

Conn, Peter, Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 126.

Gao, Xiongya, Pearl S. Buck’s Chinese Women’s Characters, Susquehanna University Press, 2000, p. 36.

Harwood, H. C., Review of The Good Earth, in Saturday Review, Vol. 151, No. 3942, May 16, 1931, p. 722.

Smart, Ninian, The Religious Experience of Mankind, Fontana, 1970, p. 218.

Spence, Jonathan D., The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895–1980, Viking Press, 1981, p. 51.

Walton, Eda Lou, “Another Epic of the Soil,” in Nation, Vol. 132, No. 3, May 13, 1931, p. 534.

Further Reading
Doyle, Paul A., Pearl S. Buck, revised edition, United States Authors Series, No. 85, Twayne, 1980. This book serves as a succinct and engaging introduction to the full scope of Buck’s literary contributions.

Harris, Theodore F., in collaboration with Pearl S. Buck, Pearl S. Buck: A Biography, John Day, 1969–1971. Crafted by her close friend and collaborator, this two-volume biography remains the most detailed account of Buck's life as of 2006.

Leong, Karen J., The China Mystique: Pearl S. Buck, Anna May Wong, Mayling Soong, and the Transformation of American Orientalism, University of California Press, 2005. Leong examines American orientalism in the 1930s and 1940s, concentrating on three women connected with China: Buck, Anna May Wong, and Mayling Soong. She illustrates how these women navigated the cross-cultural experiences of being American, Chinese American, and Chinese amidst the rise of the United States as a global power and the increasing involvement of women in civic and consumer spheres.

Liao, Kang, Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Bridge across the Pacific, Greenwood Press, 1997. Liao explores the reasons behind the popularity of Buck’s early novels and the critical oversight of her later works. He suggests that the social, historical, and cultural dimensions of Buck’s writings surpass their artistic value.