the good earth book report

The Good Earth

60 pages • 2 hours read

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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 ; illustrated by Nick Bertozzi ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 4, 2017

A finely rendered showcase for a classic tale.

Illustrator Bertozzi ( Becoming Andy Warhol , 2016, etc.) adapts Buck’s ( The Eternal Wonder , 2013, etc.) Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of a man’s fluctuating fortunes and existential crises in early-20th-century China.

For years, farmer Wang Lung has worked the soil, pulling forth bountiful harvests, and now the sale of his excess crops has funded a fateful purchase: a slave from the great house in town to be his wife. O-lan quickly proves invaluable: cooking fancy cakes like those she served to the local lord and lady, sewing clothes, and working the fields alongside her husband, stopping only to bear children. O-lan’s steady hand helps during high times, when Wang Lung purchases land from the great house, and during low, when famine drives the family south to a big city where they live as beggars and Wang Lung runs a rickshaw. On the streets, Wang Lung witnesses class tensions that boil over into a riot—during which O-lan manages to multiply their fortune. Once settled back on the land and having grown prosperous, the family faces the struggles of the nouveau riche: a son ashamed of their bumpkin roots, Wang Lung's discontent with his plebeian wife driving him to take a concubine, fears of good fortune being snatched away by jealous spirits (or family members). The half-dozen or so borderless panels per page propel the story along, flowing in brief scenes of survival, domesticity, society, and legacy. Bertozzi beautifully distills Buck’s text into poignant snippets, zeroing in on details such as the anguished clench of O-lan’s fingers as she bears the news that Wang Lung is pursuing another woman. The black-on-gray chiaroscuro lends the work an engraved look, perfectly capturing the story’s timeless subject matter while also underscoring the antiquity of the depicted world, where women are slaves. Even within this foreign worldview, Buck and Bertozzi convey rich moral complexity and universal concerns.

Pub Date: July 4, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-5011-3276-6

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: April 17, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017

GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS

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by Pearl S. Buck

HEART OF DARKNESS

by Peter Kuper ; illustrated by Peter Kuper ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 5, 2019

Gorgeous and troubling.

Cartoonist Kuper ( Kafkaesque , 2018, etc.) delivers a graphic-novel adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s literary classic exploring the horror at the center of colonial exploitation.

As a group of sailors floats on the River Thames in 1899, a particularly adventurous member notes that England was once “one of the dark places of the earth,” referring to the land before the arrival of the Romans. This well-connected vagabond then regales his friends with his boyhood obsession with the blank places on maps, which eventually led him to captain a steamboat up a great African river under the employ of a corporate empire dedicated to ripping the riches from foreign land. Marlow’s trip to what was known as the Dark Continent exposes him to the frustrations of bureaucracy, the inhumanity employed by Europeans on the local population, and the insanity plaguing those committed to turning a profit. In his introduction, Kuper outlines his approach to the original book, which featured extensive use of the n-word and worked from a general worldview that European males are the forgers of civilization (even if they suffered a “soul [that] had gone mad” for their efforts), explaining that “by choosing a different point of view to illustrate, otherwise faceless and undefined characters were brought to the fore without altering Conrad’s text.” There is a moment when a scene of indiscriminate shelling reveals the Africans fleeing, and there are some places where the positioning of the Africans within the panel gives them more prominence, but without new text added to fully frame the local people, it’s hard to feel that they have reached equal footing. Still, Kuper’s work admirably deletes the most offensive of Conrad’s language while presenting graphically the struggle of the native population in the face of foreign exploitation. Kuper is a master cartoonist, and his pages and panels are a feast for the eyes.

Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-393-63564-5

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019

More by Peter Kuper

by Peter Kuper ; illustrated by Peter Kuper

by Peter Kuper

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT

by Mark Twain ; adapted by Seymour Chwast ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2014

Chwast and Twain are a match made in heaven.

Design veteran Chwast delivers another streamlined, graphic adaptation of classic literature, this time Mark Twain’s caustic, inventive satire of feudal England.

Chwast ( Tall City, Wide Country , 2013, etc.) has made hay anachronistically adapting classic texts, whether adding motorcycles to  The Canterbury Tales  (2011) or rocket ships to  The Odyssey  (2012), so Twain’s tale of a modern-day (well, 19th-century) engineer dominating medieval times via technology—besting Merlin with blasting powder—is a fastball down the center. (The source material already had knights riding bicycles!) In Chwast’s rendering, bespectacled hero Hank Morgan looks irresistible, plated in armor everywhere except from his bow tie to the top of his bowler hat, sword cocked behind head and pipe clenched in square jaw. Inexplicably sent to sixth-century England by a crowbar to the head, Morgan quickly ascends nothing less than the court of Camelot, initially by drawing on an uncanny knowledge of historical eclipses to present himself as a powerful magician. Knowing the exact date of a celestial event from more than a millennium ago is a stretch, but the charm of Chwast’s minimalistic adaption is that there are soon much better things to dwell on, such as the going views on the church, politics and society, expressed as a chart of literal back-stabbing and including a note that while the upper class may murder without consequence, it’s kill and  be killed for commoners and slaves. Morgan uses his new station as “The Boss” to better the primitive populous via telegraph lines, newspapers and steamboats, but it’s the deplorably savage civility of the status quo that he can’t overcome, even with land mines, Gatling guns and an electric fence. The subject of class manipulation—and the power of passion over reason—is achingly relevant, and Chwast’s simple, expressive illustrations resonate with a childlike earnestness, while his brief, pointed annotations add a sly acerbity. His playful mixing of perspectives within single panels gives the work an aesthetic somewhere between medieval tapestry and Colorforms.

Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-60819-961-7

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013

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by Mark Twain edited by Benjamin Griffin Elinor Smith

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The Good Earth

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

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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Add your guide, you are here:, the good earth.

"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, in some age, bodies of men and women had been buried there, houses had stood 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."

The simple raw imagery of THE GOOD EARTH won Pearl S. Buck the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1932. Its poignant portrayal of a poor farmer's life and his bond with the land is as relevant to our own ancestral roots as it is to rural China. Wang Lung, the central figure around which the entire narrative revolves, is a man of many complexities depicted by his relationships with his wife, his father, his children and his village. His land is precious, its value equating to his own self-worth. Although steeped in the ancient traditions, he reflects certain enlightened thinking at times that may be more for the author's emphasis of injustices than a true depiction of the average Chinese peasant in the early 1900s.

Wang Lung's story begins as a young man seeking a wife to cook, clean and bear his children. O-lan, a slave's slave from a wealthy household, comes to live and share his life in the subservient fashion that traditions dictate. Initially their marriage brings satisfaction to both, although for vastly different reasons. Wang Lung has a sense of fulfillment in having such a wise and competent woman to raise his children and maintain his home. And even though women are still considered "slaves" by their men, O-lan has found a better life than she's ever known; she is well-cared for and Wang Lung is kind. Together they bring five children into the world and work their thriving farm.

But just as the life of a peasant is harsh, so are the traditions that mold marriage and family. Women are little more than chattel, necessary for procreation and to serve the household needs. A girl child is an unwelcome birth and can even bring shame to families unable to produce a boy. During hard times young girls were often sold into slavery or worse. For all the compassion that Pearl Buck feels for these people and the beauty she finds in their simple lives, her outrage at the conditions of the women is apparent. Although Wang Lung's thoughts are a bit more liberal than we might expect, he still maintains his distance, displaying neither open affection nor love for the woman who shares his life.

". . . she was like a faithful, speechless serving maid, who is only a serving maid and nothing more. And it was not meet that he should say to her, 'Why do you not speak?' It should be enough that she fulfilled her duty."

"Sometimes, working over the clods in the fields, he would fall to pondering about her. What had she seen in those hundred courts? What had been her life, that life she never shared with him? He could make nothing of it. And then he was ashamed of his own curiosity and of his interest in her. She was, after all, only a woman."

As the years pass, Wang Lung's family suffers abject poverty and famine but their strength of character sustains them through stark conditions that we would find inconceivable. Reduced to begging in the city, Wang Lung steadfastly refuses to sell his land. Then as China experiences the first rumblings of revolution, the cycle of prosperity returns and Wang Lung eventually becomes the wealthy landowner that he once envied and despised. But his evolution from a proud hardworking peasant to the decadent life of an idle lord is disheartening. Pearl Buck eloquently portrays the sad disintegration of this man and his family as they become alienated from the land and the noble values it imparted.

Reviewed by Ann Bruns on January 22, 2011

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

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• Good Earth, The - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

The Good Earth , novel by Pearl Buck , published in 1931. The novel, about peasant life in China in the 1920s, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1932.

The Good Earth follows the life of Wang Lung from his beginnings as an impoverished peasant to his eventual position as a prosperous landowner. He is aided immeasurably by his equally humble wife, O-Lan, with whom he shares a devotion to the land, to duty, and to survival. Buck combines descriptions of marriage, parenthood, and complex human emotions with depictions of Chinese reverence for the land and for a specific way of life.

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 did wa

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

Wang Lung buries his uncle next to his father.

Explain how the authors background is reflected in wang lungs response to the city men use at least three details from the text to support your answer

I know a little about the author but not enough to provide detail for this question.

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
• Political influence
• Peripatetic manuscript

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Word of Mouth

Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, the good earth.

"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, in some age, bodies of men and women had been buried there, houses had stood 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."

The simple raw imagery of THE GOOD EARTH won Pearl S. Buck the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1932. Its poignant portrayal of a poor farmer's life and his bond with the land is as relevant to our own ancestral roots as it is to rural China. Wang Lung, the central figure around which the entire narrative revolves, is a man of many complexities depicted by his relationships with his wife, his father, his children and his village. His land is precious, its value equating to his own self-worth. Although steeped in the ancient traditions, he reflects certain enlightened thinking at times that may be more for the author's emphasis of injustices than a true depiction of the average Chinese peasant in the early 1900s.

Wang Lung's story begins as a young man seeking a wife to cook, clean and bear his children. O-lan, a slave's slave from a wealthy household, comes to live and share his life in the subservient fashion that traditions dictate. Initially their marriage brings satisfaction to both, although for vastly different reasons. Wang Lung has a sense of fulfillment in having such a wise and competent woman to raise his children and maintain his home. And even though women are still considered "slaves" by their men, O-lan has found a better life than she's ever known; she is well-cared for and Wang Lung is kind. Together they bring five children into the world and work their thriving farm.

But just as the life of a peasant is harsh, so are the traditions that mold marriage and family. Women are little more than chattel, necessary for procreation and to serve the household needs. A girl child is an unwelcome birth and can even bring shame to families unable to produce a boy. During hard times young girls were often sold into slavery or worse. For all the compassion that Pearl Buck feels for these people and the beauty she finds in their simple lives, her outrage at the conditions of the women is apparent. Although Wang Lung's thoughts are a bit more liberal than we might expect, he still maintains his distance, displaying neither open affection nor love for the woman who shares his life.

". . . she was like a faithful, speechless serving maid, who is only a serving maid and nothing more. And it was not meet that he should say to her, 'Why do you not speak?' It should be enough that she fulfilled her duty."

"Sometimes, working over the clods in the fields, he would fall to pondering about her. What had she seen in those hundred courts? What had been her life, that life she never shared with him? He could make nothing of it. And then he was ashamed of his own curiosity and of his interest in her. She was, after all, only a woman."

As the years pass, Wang Lung's family suffers abject poverty and famine but their strength of character sustains them through stark conditions that we would find inconceivable. Reduced to begging in the city, Wang Lung steadfastly refuses to sell his land. Then as China experiences the first rumblings of revolution, the cycle of prosperity returns and Wang Lung eventually becomes the wealthy landowner that he once envied and despised. But his evolution from a proud hardworking peasant to the decadent life of an idle lord is disheartening. Pearl Buck eloquently portrays the sad disintegration of this man and his family as they become alienated from the land and the noble values it imparted.

Reviewed by Ann Bruns on January 22, 2011

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, common sense media reviewers.

Gritty, moving tale of couple in turn-of-the century China.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

The sweeping changes that occurred at the turn of

The themes of the search for meaning in life and l

As protagonist Wang Lung journeys from poverty to

Violence in the usual sense isn't shown, but t

No explicit sex, but the reality of life as a conc

The drinking of rice wine and the smoking of tobac

Parents need to know that this book is unsparing in its depiction of the oppression of women and the horrors of peasant life in turn-of-the-century China (in one scene the corpse of an infant is left to be devoured by a starving dog). The author also makes her views on wealth as a destroyer of traditional values quite…

Educational Value

The sweeping changes that occurred at the turn of the 20th century in China are brilliantly depicted by an author who witnessed them firsthand. Readers get a vivid picture of the lives of poor farmers, and their relationships to the land, their emperor, and each other, and the beginnings of modernization that would lead to the 1949 revolution. The social traditions that oppressed women, from foot-binding to arranged marriages and subservience to husbands, are explored in an eloquent, moving manner.

Positive Messages

The themes of the search for meaning in life and life's inevitable tragedies both predominate. The Good Earth derives its title from the author's conviction that a connection to and reverence for the earth can actually lead to inner goodness and peace, and that a disconnection from nature can only result in a lack of fulfillment. Buck presents human beings as transitory, with the earth as the only constant.

Positive Role Models

As protagonist Wang Lung journeys from poverty to success, we see the price he pays for his upward mobility. By today's Western standards, his wife, O-lan's, subservience and victimhood are appalling. Yet, she retains a quiet power and dignity throughout her ordeals, and her strength is both inspiring and exemplary.

Violence & Scariness

Violence in the usual sense isn't shown, but the lives of the poor Chinese peasants -- particularly women -- are depicted graphically. Foot-binding, daughters sold into slavery, women as concubines, and female infanticide by strangling are all presented unblinkingly.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

No explicit sex, but the reality of life as a concubine -- and the acceptance of the role of the concubine in the Chinese culture of the period -- are presented very matter-of-factly.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

The drinking of rice wine and the smoking of tobacco and opium are presented in the historical context of the time and place, but are not made to look glamorous or even particularly significant.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this book is unsparing in its depiction of the oppression of women and the horrors of peasant life in turn-of-the-century China (in one scene the corpse of an infant is left to be devoured by a starving dog). The author also makes her views on wealth as a destroyer of traditional values quite clear.

Where to Read

Community reviews.

• Parents say (3)
• Kids say (5)

Based on 3 parent reviews

As a pre-adolescent it was informative, not shovking.

Exceptional, harrowing and euphemistic, what's the story.

In turn-of-the-century China, Wang Lung, a poor young farmer, is sold a slave, O-lan, who becomes his wife. Although they steadily become prosperous and enjoy the birth of a son, they soon fall prey to famine and economic instability. The novel follows the couple from young marrieds to old age, and parallels the growth of China itself from an ancient dynasty to a nation of very modern crises.

Is It Any Good?

Young readers will be impressed by the gritty realism, the graphic depiction of a certain kind of society (that still exists today), and the redeeming lessons learned by the characters. THE GOOD EARTH won the Pulitzer Prize and is considered a classic. It has been in print since its first publication in 1931, and was made into a popular film in 1937. It is a fine example of the work of Pearl S. Buck, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the advantages of wealth and materialism (status, comfort, security) and disadvantages (separation from nature, the erosion of values).

How and why are the Western Christian missionaries (which both of the author's parents were) satirized?

What factors contributed to the Chinese culture of this period oppressing and abusing women even more so than other cultures?

Why might it be important to foster and maintain a relationship to the earth and nature, when doing so is no longer necessary?

Wang Lung and his eldest son share many similarities, but what are their crucial differences?

Book Details

• Author : Pearl S. Buck
• Genre : Historical Fiction
• Topics : History
• Book type : Fiction
• Publisher : Washington Square Press
• Publication date : March 2, 1931
• Number of pages : 337
• Last updated : June 17, 2015

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A modern-day avatar of Vishnu, a Hindu god, who is believed to have descended to earth to protect the world from evil forces. A modern-day avatar of Vishnu, a Hindu god, who is believed to have descended to earth to protect the world from evil forces. A modern-day avatar of Vishnu, a Hindu god, who is believed to have descended to earth to protect the world from evil forces.

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