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.

Character List

Wang Lung

The protagonist of the novel, a Chinese peasant at the beginning and a rich landowner by the end. Sometimes innocent and naive, sometimes brave and pragmatic, generally gentle and caring, Wang Lung reflects the myriad thematic elements of the text, for example the role of tradition, of beauty, and of marriage. His one unwavering characteristic is his love of and appreciation for the land.

Wang Lung's father

Wang Lung's father exemplifies the role of elders in traditional society. As tradition dictates, Wang Lung must care for him in his old age. During the course of the novel, he is often a voice of wisdom and a witness to the changes that the family undergoes.

Wang Lung's uncle

The epitome of greed, Wang Lung's uncle parasitically lives off of his hard-working brother and nephew. He often asks Wang Lung for money, and when his nephew gets rich he moves his family into Wang Lung's house. He causes Wang Lung much grief, inciting a mob to raid his farm at the beginning of the novel. At the same time, he keeps Wang Lung "safe" since he is one of the heads of an infamous band of robbers, the Red Beards. These criminals leave Wang Lung alone because of his presence in the house. To end his mischief, Wang Lung turns his uncle into an opium addict.

Old Mistress of the House of Hwang

A symbol of the excess of wealth, she is an opium addict, a woman used to luxury and cruelty. She is the woman who gives O-lan to Wang Lung. When the house goes into decline she dies from her opium addiction.

O-lan

Wang Lung's wife. Previously, she had served for ten years as a servant in the House of Hwang, as a kitchen slave. She is plain, which causes her much shame and hurt throughout her life. Her feet are large and thus considered unattractive. However, despite these superficial flaws, O-lan has a rich inner life and continually exhibits resourcefulness, practicality, loyalty and patience. She embodies the giving qualities of the earth. She is also primarily responsible for Wang Lung's wealth, a fact that he never fully acknowledges.

Gateman of the House of Hwang

Distinguised by the mole on his face, the gateman scorns Wang Lung as a peasant at first, later respecting Wang Lung when he gains wealth. When the Great House falls into decline he is among the band of robbers that raids the house.

Ching

Initially Wang Lung's neighboor, during the time of famine he raids Wang Lung's house for food along with the rest of the village men. However, he also gives Wang Lung some beans for O-lan on the day before her birth. After the famine his wife dies and he gives his daughter away. He then becomes Wang Lung's right-hand man, in charge of managing the land until his dying day. When he dies Wang Lung mourns him like a brother.

Cuckoo

A concubine of the Old Lord in the House of Hwang, Cuckoo later becomes the manager at the town tea shop. She moves in with Wang Lung after he buys Lotus. Always a chameleon, Cuckoo survives by adapting when hard times hit. She and O-lan are bitter enemies and O- lan never welcomes her into her house.

Lotus

A beautiful woman who becomes Wang Lung's mistress. She is a prostitute at the tea shop until Wang Lung purchases her. Dainty, delicate, and graceful, she is O-lan's opposite. Lotus is also crafty, greedy, and manipulative.

Wang Lung's eldest son

A spirited and willful man, Wang Lung's eldest son wants to be a scholar. He suffers from the idleness of wealth. Before O-lan dies he marries the town beauty, a superficial woman much like Lotus. By the end of the novel we see that he has become a respected man in town, and he follows in his father's footsteps by acquiring a second wife.

Wang Lung's second son Crafty, thrifty, and industrious, Wang Lung's second son becomes a grain merchant. Ultimately he controls all of the finances of the house and discourages his elder brother's spending. He marries a practical woman from the country who is completely the opposite of his brother's wife.

Wang Lung's third son

One of the two twins, Wang Lung's youngest son is an enigma to his father. Slated to work the land, he is unhappy with this fate and instead wishes to study. He later decides to become a soldier and becomes an important figure in the Revolution. He also shows an interest in Peach Blossom and runs away when Wang Lung takes her for a concubine.

Wang Lung's first daughter

Referred to as "his poor fool," Wang Lung's daughter just before the famine hits. She suffers from extreme malnutrition, and though she survives she never learns to speak or interact with others. Wang Lung has a soft spot in his heart for her and cares for her even as others mock her.

Wang Lung's second daughter

The second of the two twins, she is beautiful and O-lan makes sure that her feet are bound so that her husband will not reject her. She is sent to her betrothed's house when she is still young in order to avoid Wang Lung's nephew's advances.

Wang Lung's nephew

True to his father's nature, Wang Lung's nephew is lazy, lustful, and prone to trouble. He takes Wang Lung's eldest son to see a prostitute in town, and he also shows too much interest in his little female cousin. He then decides to go to war and become a soldier, and pays his family an unwelcome visit with his troop when they come through town.

Old Lord

The patriarch of the House of Hwang. He embodies the negative qualities of the rich: their luxuriant and unsustainable lifestyles, as well as their lust for women.

Pear Blossom

A slave bought by Wang Lung and given to Lotus. Frail, delicate and beautiful, Pear Blossom is afraid of all men with the exception of Wang Lung. She becomes his second concubine by the end of the novel, and is with Wang Lung till the end of his days.

Yang

The local prostitute. Wang Lung's eldest son goes to her with his cousin. Described as grotesque, she represents the ugliness at the core of lust.

Eldest son's wife

A town woman, she is very proper and class conscious. She is always comparing her current standard of living with the way things were in her father's house.

Second son's wife

A country girl, she is the complete opposite of the eldest son's wife. She is loud and boisterous, not proper like the town woman, and this is why they do not get along.

Wang Lung's uncle's wife

Described as fat and lazy, she is a woman that enjoys the good life that her husband cannot give her. She is the one that arranges for the purchase of Lotus and in fact becomes her friend. Ultimately, she dies from her opium addiction.

Liu

A respectable merchant, Liu is the father of Wang Lung's eldest son's wife and of of his youngest daughter's husband. Also, he is the man in charge of his second son's apprenticeship as a grain merchant. Like Wang Lung, he is a hard working man.

Ask and Answers

Chapter1

1. Where do Wang Lung and his father live? He and his father live in a small house made of earth in ANHWEI. 2. What does Wan Lung’s old father complain about? About the tea-leaves that Wang Lung used so many tea- leave like to drinking silver. 3. Write a list of the things Wang Lung does before he go to the town? Make the tea for his father, take a bath in hot water, combed and braided the long tail of hair, make food for his father, ask his relatives to eat with him that night, , he dress his best blue robe. 4. what is Wang Lung going to buy in the town? he going to buy some food for the marriage feast, such as pork and fish chestnuts and bamboo’s shoots and he buy stick of incense to burn. 5. Why Wang Lung please with his new wife? Because she is not pretty but she look like a farmer’s wife.

Chapter 2

1. How does O-lan help her husband? She ciame out into the field and worked silently beside her husband. 2. Why does Wang Lung give O-lan money for a red coat? Because she going to visit the great House of Hwang with her son. 3. How do you know that Wang Lung is please to have a son? He call to his wife if is it a man and then he buy a basket of eggs and paint them red and take them to the village.

Chapter 3

1. ‘Wang Lung, the farmer, the farmer,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘you have had good fortune.’ what is the gatekeeper polite to Wang Lung ? It is mean that Wang Lung is so lucky that he had a son event he is a farmer. 2. What does Wang Lung buy with his silver? Land

Chapter 4

1. Before winter O-lan gave birth to other child Now Wang Lung have three childrent. 2. Why Wang Lung and his family have to leave their land? Because no rain fell and the field became dry and they can’t grow crop in their field if they don’t leave they will be die. 3. Why is Wang Lung please that he has land and not silver? Because at time the villagers come to take his possession if he has silver they would taken silver, but he has land they can’t. 4. Where does Wag Lung’s family decide to go? They go to the South, Beijing City. 5. How are they going to travel? By fire wagons.

Chapter 5

1. Where do Wang Lung and his family live in the City? They live in a hut in a slum. 2. What happen at the public kitchens? It is the place that people can eat by pay a penny and Wang Lung met the guard and asked him who gave many rive to the poor and how can so many men be fed for a penny? 3. How do O-lan and the children get money? By beg in the street. 4. Why does Wang Lung beat his younger son? Because he steal the meat from butcher.

Chapter 6

1. Why doesn’t Wang Lung go back to his own land? He don’t know if it is safe to return to him home land and in City where they can get food. 2. What does O-lang say they could do with Wang Lung’s daughter? What is Wang Lung reply? O-lan said that’ there is the girls we can sell her as a slave and I was sold as a slave to the House of Hwang’ Wang Lung reply that ‘I cannot sell her, she has such a sweet smile that I cannot do it. 3. Wang Lung listens to his neighbour and hears a group of men speaking in the city. What does he learn about the rich and the poor? He learn that the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor, think always change and he learn that the rich have pearls and gold and silver, there dogs eat better food than poor do. 4. ‘we must go to our land,’ Wand lung says to O-lan. Why does he say this? Because Wang Lung knew that in the city the solder take men to fight in the war and if he live here they could caught him to the battle and he thought of his wife and children would left to starve. 5. What happen inside the Great house after the enemy breaks the gates of the city? After the gate of city was broken many men ran in toward the doors of the great house and they made noise in their throat like tigers and they ran through the house, searching rooms, opening boxes, pulling at curtains, taking dishes and clothes and all the value thing in the great house. Chapter 7

1. Who is Ching? He is Wang Lung’s neighbour and during the time of famine he raids Wang Lung's house for food along with the rest of the village men. However, he also gives Wang Lung some beans for O-lan on the day before her birth. After the famine his wife dies and he gives his daughter away. He then becomes Wang Lung's right-hand man, in charge of managing the land until his dying day. 2. Where did O-lan get the jewels form? She took it from the great house in the city of the south. 3. Why does she want to keep tow peals? Because she want to keep them and hold them in her hand and when her sister marries she would gave them to her make into errings. 4. Why does Wang Lung go to the house of Hwang? What happens there? Because he want to buy some land from the House of Hwang and he met Old Lord and Cuckoo and he tell them he want to do business with them by buy the land.

Chapter 8

1. ‘my poor little fool’ who is Wang Lung talking about? Why does he call this person this name? He call his first daughter like this because she was born in staving and she is a daughter with no reason in her mind and Wang Lung so pity her so much. 2. Why does Wang Lung decide to send his tow older sons to school? Because he was ashamed that at the market he must say “will you read this bill of sell to me, for I can’t read or write.” 3. How long has O-Lan been ill? She was ill since the twin were born there was a fire in her bally. 4. How does Wang Lung meet at the new tea-house? He was very complain his wife and he is not worked because his fields is blooded so he has so many free time to think about tea-house. 5. Why does she (Cuckoo) at Wang Lung? Because he told she, that he has never gambled or drunk string wine and she think that Wang Lung has never touch pretty hand and sweet face.

Chapter 9

1. Wang Lung asks O-Lan for the pearls. Why does he do this? Because he want to make Lotus happy when she told him that her friends have got a gold pin from their lover and she have got old silver pin. 2. Who came to live in Wang Lung house? Lotus. 3. Which of this people does O-Lang hate? She hate Cuckoo with a great hate. 4. Why does Wang Lung become angry with Lotus? Because she curse and screams at poor fool that is his favourite.

Chapter 10

1. Why does Wang Lung go to talk to the merchant in the town? Because he wants his son Nug En marries merchant’s daughter. 2. Why can Wang Lung not make his Uncle and his Uncle’s son leave the house? Because His uncle show Wang Lung the sign of a that they were the group bandits called the Redbear and this group, they robbed people, burnt their home and raps women from the villages and Wang Lung realized why these bandits had never come to his house. 3. Why does Nung En go to the city in the south? Because he want to continue his studies in the city where he can study with new teacher and read more books. 4. ‘shall we have two marriages together? asks the merchant. Whose marriages is the merchant talking about? Nung Wen, Wang Lung’s son marriages his daughter. 5. What does Wang Lung’s second daughter say to make him ashamed? Because he heard that O-Lan told she that He was not love her and she look ugly so he don’t love her. 6. The doctor examines O-Lan. What does Wang Lung learn about his wife ‘s illness? He understand that O-Lan is going to die.

Chapter 11

1. Who look after O-Lan while she is ill? Merchant’s daughter. 2. Everyone dressed in whit clothes because white is the colour of death. Who has died and where are they buried? O-Lan and Wang Lung’s father, they are buried on a hill in Wang Lung’s land. 3. Wan Lung’s family is now very large. What does he decide to do? he to buy the House of Hwang and move his family to there, but he stay with his daughter in his own house. 4. There was no peace in Wang Lung’s house. (a) Why do Wang Lung’s two sons argue? Because of money, his first son used money to buy a new house, but his second son want Wang Lung to spend all this money in lending.(b) Why is his third son unhappy? because his brothers laugh at him because he cannot read or write. 5. Which relation please Wang Long? Wang Lung please with his oldest daughter, poor fool.

Chapter 12

1. Who came to live in House of Wang Lung? son of Wang Lung’s uncle. 2. Who is Pear Blossom? A slave bought by Wang Lung and given to Lotus. Frail, delicate and beautiful, Pear Blossom is afraid of all men with the exception of Wang Lung. She becomes his second concubine by the end of the novel, and is with Wang Lung till the end of his days. 3. Why do Wang Lung and his youngest son argue about Pear Blossom? Because both of them love Pear Blossom and Wang Lung he talks his son away. 4. What does Wang Lung do for the servant girl? she became his concubine.

Chapter 13

1. Why does Wang Lugn give a packet of poison to Pear Blossim? Because he think that when he die there is no one feed her and cares her and she will live in suffer. 2. Pear Blossom would not take the packet of poison form Wang Lung. Why ? Because she will care for her and look after her and she told Wang LUng that he is the Kinder than any man in all her life. 3. Why does Wang Lung want to return to the earth house? Because he want to buries himself there when he die. 4. Why is the land so important to Wang Lung? Why don’t his sons understand this? Because he is the farmer and land make him rich if you sell land is end. his son don’t want to be a farmer. 5. I think his son will sell the land after their father dead.