The Good Earth 8

In the previous post, you may have noticed that my writing style was simplistic and choppy, without transitions. This was, of course, not an accident. It was my imitation of Pearl S. Buck's writing style, at least in The Good Earth. This novel was an interesting novel, in that it was written in a style that some Chinese readers objected to; it was a somewhat objective view of everyday life in Pre-Revolutionary China, as opposed to the dressed-up version that some Chinese would prefer. Some critics objected to it because it was not presented in the traditional Chinese manner.
However, these critics were few and far between. The way that Buck presents the facts and then allows the reader to conclude the obvious gave the novel a Pulitzer Prize and made it one of the most important novels about modern China.

The Good Earth 7

Wang Lung completes the buying of the great house in town and moves in after his eldest son has a baby. There are now three generations in the house.Wang Lung hears about the death of Ching, his close friend and trusted servant, who had worked on the farm for many, many years. He mourns Ching's death for a few days.
Wang Lung becomes very respected in the town, "And people who had said Wang The Farmer now said Wang The Big Man or Wang The Rich Man." His eldest son wanders around the house, complaining about one thing or another because it is not up to the standards he had seen while he was studying in the South. However, Wang Lung now has the money to fix these things. He buys carved furniture and installs indoor pools and fruit trees.
Wang Lung's second son gets married. "Wang Lung, then, in the space of five years had four grandsons and three grand-daughters."
Wang Lung's uncle dies and his wife is moved to the great house (they had been at the old farm house). The uncle's son has gone off to fight in a far-off war. However, when he comes back, he brings the whole army. The army stays in Wang Lung's house for many months, and there is nothing Wang Lung can do about it.

The Good Earth 6

Wang Lung suddenly notices that O-lan is ill and in pain. He calls a doctor, who tells him that O-lan is dying. O-lan "lay dying on her bed for many months" before she said that she wanted to see her son married before she died. Wang Lung sends a messenger south to get his son to come back. O-lan is pleased to see her son's wife perform the proper subordination rituals at the wedding, and dies shortly after. Wang Lung's father dies the next night, and Wang Lung properly honors both of them.
This year, there is a terrible flood, and even Wang Lung has to be very careful about wasting food, even though he is the richest of the villagers. He keeps his gates barred against people who would want food or money from him during the flood, but "Well did Wang Lung know that if it had not been for his uncle's power he would have been robbed and sacked... So he was courteous to his uncle." However, his uncle's greed would have ruined him, and he had to do something. So, consulting with his son, he decides to give his uncle opium, in order to keep him under control.
During this time, Wang Lung betroths his second daughter to the son of a merchant in town. He also buys a slave to take care of Lotus. He also begins to think about the betrothal of his second son.
The opium keeps Wang Lung's uncle under control, but the uncle's son cannot be controlled, and Wang Lung desperately needs to get away from him. He decides to buy the great house in town.
It is interesting as the reader gets farther and farther into the novel, how the author's writing style seems more and more simplistic. The author seems to just throw a bunch of events into some sort of cohesive order and then shows how they continue to affect the characters later on.

the good Earth5

Wang Lung brings his concubine, Lotus, to his house, and his father, who is now very old, is angered and alarmed. "There is a harlot here! And I had one woman and my father had one woman and we farmed the land."
After many days, Wang Lung decides to go back to the land, which has dried up after the flood. The land is now very moist and fertile, and Wang Lung forgets about Lotus for a while; he recovers from his boredom. Wang Lung becomes even more rich and respected; villagers come to him for advice and council. His sons can read and help him when he is dealing in the market. His eldest son, however, becomes sullen and won't go to his lessons. Wang Lung decides to begin preparation for the son's betrothal.
Wang Lung tries to kick his father's brother, who had been staying at his house, out because he had been wasting food and resources, but he finds out that he is part of a major band of robbers. Wang Lung has to treat his uncle carefully to make sure that he is not robbed.
At one point, there is a very large plague of locusts. All the villagers despair for their fields, but Wang Lung decides to fight the locusts. He and his men set fire to a few of his fields and run after the locusts. Thousands of the locusts die, and they leave Wang Lung's best fields alone. Most of the other villagers' fields are devoured, so Wang Lung can fetch prime prices on the grain market.
O-lan despises Lotus, and will not deign to be in the same room with her. At one point, she tells Wang Lung that his eldest son often goes into Lotus' room when Wang Lung is gone. He decides to pretend to go away and then check on Lotus. He hears his son speaking with Lotus, and he grows very angry. He decides to allow his son to go south and study at the university there.

The Good Earth4

The reason that Wang Lung manages to get land for such a low price was that the great house has been experiencing considerable hardships. The lady of the house has died, the young lords has squandered their wealth, almost all the slaves have run away, etc. There were only two people in the great house when Wang Lung returned from the great city: the Old Lord and an old slave called Cuckoo, who will do just about anything to get a little money. She was the one who managed the sale of the great house's remaining land.
Wang Lung becomes quite prosperous through his land, and even hires workers to help out. He becomes aware that he can't read or write, so he sends his sons to school so they can read and write for him when he makes business deals.
Then, one year the fields are flooded, and Wang Lung can't do anything. He gets bored easily, and he goes to the village, where he finds a brothel run by the slave Cuckoo. He succumbs to the temptations of good food and takes a concubine. Wang Lung starts to realize that O-lan is not attractive to him, and he gets angry at her for this. "He stood there silent for a while and then he said to her roughly, and he was rough because he was ashamed and would not acknowledge his shame in his heart"
It is interesting to note the author's views about boredom. The author brings up the interesting point that boredom should be considered a major historical factor. Up to this point, the major conflicts in this book are starvation, sexism, and boredom. Boredom is not normally considered a major plot device, but the author makes good use of it.

The good earth3

In the great city, Wang Lung's wife, children, and father were forced to beg for money to live, while he himself pulled heavy "jinrickshas" around town for whoever would pay. Everyday, he came back to the hut exaughsted and weary and everyday, he had just enough money to buy the meager meals of rice for his family. Occasionally, he would pass revolutionaries telling onlookers that "You are poor and downtrodden and it is because the rich seize everything." Everywhere he looked, Wang Lung saw the squalor and filth of the street contrasting sharply with the lives of the rich, and even with the life he dreamed of when he got back to his farm, for he rarely stopped thinking about the land. He dreamed of a way to get back, but he had no money. At on point, he even considered selling his daughter into slavery, but he decided against it. He was so desperate for money that when the revolutionaries rioted in the city and destroyed the houses of the rich, he stole some money from the rich man whose house he had been living next to for the past several months. Wang Lung then moved with his family back to the village, but found their house torn apart. They had some money left over, however, so they began rebuilding. Then, one night O-lan revealed that she had stolen some gems from the rich man's house in the great city, so Wang Lung could buy some more land.

The Good Earth 2

In the fifth and sixth chapters, Wang Lung makes a small profit from his small farm, so he decides to buy a little piece of land from the estate of the great house and life seems to be going well. However, the next year, things take a turn for the worse: "The rains, which should have come in early summer, withheld themselves, and day after day the skies shone with fresh and careless briliance."
From the preceding passage, we can infer two things: that the farmers in Wang Lung's village are in trouble, and that the author places an emphasis upon the land in her writing style.
The drought gets so bad that Wang Lung and his family are forced to migrate south, to a big city. Wang Lung, however, makes a point of not selling his land or his house, so he has something to return to. In the big city, the reader gets a glimpse into the author's view of the socioeconomic divisions that plauged the urban areas of pre-Revolutionary China. The poor of the city live in small huts made of mats along the side of some rich guy's large house, with several huts fitting along a single wall. The poor are forced to eat rice for almost all their meals, while the rich can eat anything they want.

The Good Earth1

The book "The Good Earth," by Pearl S. Buck starts off with Wang Lung, a Chinese farmer before the revolution, about to get married. Note, however, that he has never actually met the woman who is to be his wife and his old father has insisted that she should be a slave, "Not a slave too young, and above all, not a pretty one"! Wang Lung's own father has insisted this because otherwise the wife would be too demanding.
Wang Lung goes to the great house to pick up his wife, and he comes out of the gate followed by O-lan. Within the first seven chapters, O-lan bears Wang Lung two sons, and then, much to Wang Lung's horror, a girl, or "only a slave".
In case one cannot tell, the first chapters lay out a setting of considerable sexism and similar discrimination.