Book Review: The Good Earth — Part 2
In Part 1 of our review, we examined the lives, times, and concepts of wealth and assets as depicted in ‘The Good Earth’. In this part, we will explore the characters in particular.
“Even peasants can build a cathedral.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty
Wang Lung is the heart of a compelling story, supported by his women, sons, and other characters who enhance the narrative. One of the plot's strengths is that every character plays a significant role, appearing at just the right moments to influence the story’s development.
Two prominent families are central to the tale — the House of Hwang and the House of Wang. Their contrasting fortunes illustrate the decline and decay of the Hwang House alongside the prosperity and growth of the Wang House, creating a storyline in itself.
The House of Hwang and the House of Wang
The book opens with Wang Lung visiting the House of Hwang to secure her wife O-lan, who is a teenage slave serving the old mistress of the house. He is in awe of the house — its long corridors that connect spacious courts, the exquisite furniture, and the milling servants.
‘I have been kitchen slave since I went into the House of Hwang. There were meats at every meal.’ — O-Lan
On his next visit, O-lan decides to show the old mistress his firstborn son. In the process, he learns that the old mistress is addicted to opium, the old Lord is still in his happy hunting ways, taking concubines, and the young lords spend time and money in their wayward lives, consuming wine and women. And, of course, for the wine, women, and opium, the house needs to sell land.
He prefers to buy the Hwang’s land even though it is far away.
I will buy it!’ he cried in a lordly voice. ‘I will buy it from the great House of Hwang!’
In contrast, as Wang decides to buy the land, he is climbing the social and economic ladder one step higher, while by selling the land, the House of Hwang is descending one step lower.
…the wide difference that still lay between him and the great house seemed suddenly impassable as the moatful of water in front of him, and as high as the wall beyond, stretching up straight and hoary before him. He was filled with an angry determination then, and he said to his heart that he would fill that hole with silver again and again until he had bought from the House of Hwang so much land that his own would be less than an inch in his sight.
The more he owned, the wealthier he became — he loved the land, made it fertile, and reaped the grains, while the Hwangs wasted their rich life.
Beyond the land, he met an ailing old lord and a young concubine named Cuckoo, who would change his life forever. Cuckoo is clever and takes advantage of the old lord as long as he is alive. At one point, the sweaty peasant decides to pursue the temptations of the wealthy, exploring the tea house and succumbing to his desires. Eventually, Cuckoo encounters Wang at the grand teahouse in town, where she works as a madame.
As the story progresses, his sons suggest that he could move into the House of Hwangs — an ultimate victory of the poor peasant to occupying the home of the rich overlords.
Now whether the tears would have alone moved Wang Lung he did not know, but he was moved by the words of his son when he said, “the great house of the Hwangs”.
His respect for the great house remained, and he could not get over the fact that he had moved in to live there.
Now Wang Lung, as this hour drew near, stayed more and more in the house in town and he walked about the courts and. he could never have done with musing on what had happened, and he could never have his fill of wonder at this : that here in these courts where the great family of Hwang had once lived now he lived with his wife and his sons and their wives and now a child was to be born of a third generation.
The first son followed suit into high society, living in the grand house and spending more. The lessons of high life were learned hard by Wang.
Wang Lung’s eldest son did, and they talked of what was being done in the great house, now that a rich man lived there again. And people who had said Wang The Farmer now said Wang The Big Man or Wang The Rich Man.
The land was the coveted prize contested between the House of Hwang and Wang Lung. However, Wang Lung’s household undergoes significant changes due to the influence of the House of Hwang. His wife, O-Lan, and Cuckoo, the servant of his concubine, Lotus, come from the Hwang family.
The Women
The women define Wang Lung’s life. Throughout his life, each woman represents his needs.
O-Lan
Like his father and grandfathers, a humble peasant who cherishes his land realizes it is time to marry to continue his family’s legacy. O-Lan represents the first significant phase of his life. She is his true better half, contributing hard work and genuine womanhood to his life. Enjoying her newfound freedom from the Hwang family’s servitude, O-Lan dedicates herself to transforming their house into a home. She feeds and serves his father and him mends clothes, sews, and bears him many children. O-Lan works alongside him in the fields and faces the struggles of childbirth alone. Though she is a quiet woman, she is strong-willed and pragmatic — she understands the value of the life Wang Lung provides for her and consistently goes above and beyond in her efforts.
Wang Lung appreciates O-Lan, but he also resents her for her brown, large-boned, earthy appearance. As he becomes richer, he finds her unfitting as a consort; her uncombed, unoiled hair, dusty clothes, and brown looks make him believe he deserves more — perhaps a beautiful wife he can showcase as a trophy.
As he falls head over heels for Lotus, his new concubine, O-Lan feels let down and suffers in silence. Having seen it all in the House of Hwang, she asserts her position as the wife. Eventually, as they live in separate quarters, she is rejected and lonely. When she contracts a liver disease, Wang Lung first sees her suffering as an inconvenience.
For the first time in his years with her Wang Lung began to think about O-lan. Even in the days of her new coming he had not thought of her for herself and not further than because she was a woman and the first he, had known.
However, as he realizes she is in the final stages of her illness, he is willing to pay her doctor with his own life and land. He hurries his first son’s marriage to comfort O-Lan during her last days. She dies feeling satisfied that she has lived as a full wife. Her character reflects the story of many women in rural China and around the world — dutiful and suffering, subjected to patriarchy.
Lotus
Lotus, the one of small feet, is the dream of a sweaty peasant’s newfound lust. Her life as a woman in the tea house, managed by Cuckoo, till she stumbles upon Wang Lung.
… he chose one most beautiful, a small, slender thing, a body light as bamboo and a little face as pointed as a kitten’s face, and one hand clasping the stem of a lotus flower in bud, and the hand as delicate as the tendril of a fern uncurled. He stared at her and as he stared a heat like wine poured through his veins.
Lotus was a dream woman for Wang Lung. She captivated him, especially when he flashed more silver. He frequented her presence to indulge his desires, and eventually, he decided to invest more in her, seeing her as his coveted trophy. This marked the point when he became a lord, believing that he was entitled to own a concubine.
‘Come out, my Lotus Flower, here is your house, and here your lord.’
'With his vile aunt’s negotiation skills and Cuckoo’s opportunistic mind, he gets Lotus to his inner court, where he treats her with fine grains, fruits, and beauty concoctions, that Cuckoo procures from the market, and in turn, demands her full attention of bodily love satisfying his unending lust for her.
Lotus establishes herself as the second woman, but not without challenges. The old father calls out her as a ‘harlot’, and his curious children peer and poke at her.
I will not stay in this house if that one comes near me, and I was not told that I should have accursed idiots to endure and if I had known it I would not have come — filthy children of yours!’
Wang Lung, unable to tolerate the insults directed at his children, chooses to avoid Lotus rather than confront her. This causes Lotus to recognize that there are boundaries she should not surpass.
‘Now here is my lord come for me and I must be obedient to him for this is my pleasure”
Ah, the pliant woman, you see. But O-lan in her last moments, speaks to Lotus and delivers a scathing verdict.
‘Well, and if I am ugly, still I have borne a son; although I am a slave there is a son in my house.’ And again she said, suddenly. ‘How can that one feed and care for him as I do? Beauty will not bear a man sons!’
That ought to put a concubine in place, take that, Lotus.
Lotus remains unchanged but acknowledges her role as a perpetual concubine. She no longer cares about her health, indulging in eating and drinking without concern for anything else. As a result, she becomes overweight and unattractive, especially with her small feet.
When Pear Blossom arrives, she realizes that Cuckoo is aging and can no longer work. Consequently, she decides to take Cuckoo in as her servant. However, when Wang Lung saves Cuckoo, Lotus develops an aversion toward Pear Blossom. This series of events ignites a second wave of desire in Wang’s old body, prompting him to seek Cuckoo as his second concubine, much to Lotus’s dismay. Despite her concerns, Lotus enjoys her life and knows Cuckoo is old, so she remains silent. That is typical of Lotus.
Pear Blossom
Pear Blossom enters the scene much like O-lan, a child slave. She is originally purchased by Wang Lung to serve Lotus. With her small feet and petite stature, she seems to fit Wang Lung’s preferences.
‘He says he will have the little pale one who sleeps on the bed of the mistress.’ Now this pale slave was called Pear Blossom…
She gets saved from Wang Lung’s cousin who lusts after her, much to the consternation of Lotus, who decides to sell her to avoid further attention from Lord Wang. But that stirs up the jelly in the old man, after a decade of quietness. He goes back and forth, inside his mind he thinks of giving her away to his sons, but he knows he would return them to the old Hwang ways, yet something gets to him — he calls her in one fine day, and it stirs a conversation between them.
Although he feels good when her youthful body touches his aging skin, he still feels anomalous about the whole thing. He decides he will go ahead, finally, after the three sons come and go, and Pear Blossom pours tea for each.
‘I am too old for you, my heart, and well I know it. I am an old, old man.’
But the girl dropped her hands from her face and she cried more passionately than he had ever heard her cry: ‘Young men are so cruel — I like old men best!’
As his passion wanes, Pear Blossom becomes Wang Lung’s only reliable companion. Both Lotus and Cuckoo are self-indulgent, and his sons and their wives are preoccupied with their quarrels and lives. In his declining years, he entrusts his daughter, whom he calls “the poor fool,” to Pear Blossom, who sincerely promises to take care of her once Wang Lung is gone.
Her faithfulness is based on her fear, fear of young men, and a life with them. A curious Wang Lung asks her.:
What was it in your tender years that made you thus fearful of men?’
… He saw a great terror in her eyes and she covered them with her hands and she whispered :
‘Every man I hate except you — I have hated every man, even my father who sold me. I have heard only evil of them and I hate them all.’ … ‘I am filled with loathing,’ she said, looking away. ‘I am filled with loathing and I hate them all. I hate all young men.’
Pear Blossom completes the triumvirate of women in Wang Lung’s life. O-lan, the kitchen slave who became a wife, who bore sons and earned her top rank in Wang’s clan; Lotus, a young prostitute, who became a concubine, and finally settled for a self-indulgent care-free life, and Pear Blossom, another child slave who sought his refuge to become another concubine.
The lives of women who serve as dutiful wives or slaves, using these limited resources to assuage the men, are a telling account of rural Chinese society in the early 20th century.
The Sons
Every father dreams of seeing his son succeed, perhaps even surpass him. In the case of Wang Lung, he desired not just one son, but three. Initially, he wanted them to follow in his footsteps, but recognizing the importance of education, he enrolled them in a town school.
Now the second son of Wang Lung was as unlike the elder as two sons in a house may be. Where the elder was tall and big-boned and ruddy-faced as men of the north and like his mother, this second one was short and slight and yellow-skinned, and there was that in him which reminded Wang Lung of his own father, a crafty, sharp, humorous eye, and a turn for malice if the moment came for it.
Their differences became apparent when the second son developed a talent for petty theft, prompting Wang Lung to reprimand him and choose to distance himself from the proceeds.
Even though they were born to the same parents, it is interesting to see how the three sons choose different paths based on their interests, personalities, and strengths. Wang Lung hopes that at least one of his sons will succeed him in managing the family farm, but ultimately, none of them follow in his footsteps. Although they share some similarities, the first son pursues an academic path and is more educated, while the second son becomes focused on accounting and numbers.
His third son, a quiet follower, finally speaks up — he sees the soldiers who occupy his home, looting, and pillaging, brandishing their weapons, and observes their easy access to food and women.
‘I know what I will do. I will be a soldier and I will go forth to wars.'
The third son seeks glory, claiming that it’s his goal. While Wang Lung suggests marriage for him, the son is focused on the glory of fighting for free land during the age of revolution. Wang Lung realizes he is becoming outdated and disconnected from the significant changes occurring in the world, as perspectives shift within a single generation.
Wang Lung often feels disappointed by his sons, but he does not hold it against them. He accommodates his eldest son’s request for a wedding and agrees to stay in the old Hwang Mansion in town, even though he knows it is a rather extravagant request.
The sons also reflect the social classes of society in the early 1920s. The hierarchy consists of the government official (the first son), the trader and money lender (the second son), the soldier (the third son), and Wang Lung himself (the peasant). Each character’s class is represented through their actions and personalities.
His sons do not bring him peace. The first and second sons and their wives constantly argue, highlighting their class differences. The first son feels uneasy about his father's decision to entrust the grain trade—the cash flow and expenses—to the second son.
The intergenerational differences between the father and his sons culminate in the last scene. The sons do not share their father’s perspective but prefer financial gain over the land. They plan to sell the land for “silver” after their father passes away.
When readers realize that 'The Good Earth' is the first in Pearl S. Buck's trilogy, thoughts about the sons, their childhood, and their evolution become more interesting.
The Uncle and Family
The word “perfidious” perfectly describes the uncle and his family. Their appearance throughout the story, especially towards the end, adds an intriguing twist to the narrative.
Initially, the uncle displays envy and deceit while pointing out the better life that Wang Lung’s father has led. Despite this, Wang Lung tolerates him for the sake of his father.
Wang Lung is aware that his uncle’s land is barren; he has neither tilled nor fertilized the soil, which is as lifeless as lime. As a result, Wang Lung declines the opportunity to help his uncle, instead focusing on buying Hwang’s land.
The uncle’s family lives in a dilapidated hut, wasted away. Of their seven children, the girls have unkempt hair and exhibit unruly behavior, while the boys idle around and do not work. The aunt is too lazy to sweep the floor, and their children never bother to clean the food off their faces. They lead a parasitic existence.
Wang Lung’s confrontation with his wife leads to his frustration as he ends up paying his uncle a reluctant amount of silver. His uncle manipulates him by inducing guilt and a dose of jealousy, becoming as toxic as one could be. Nevertheless, he plays a significant role as a plot-twister in the story.
When a drought hits the village, Wang Lung’s uncle criticizes him for refusing to give up, while he scavenges like a starving dog in search of scraps. He barges into Wang Lung’s house with some neighbors, but thanks to O-lan’s intervention, they manage to take away only the furniture and the doors, leaving the land untouched. This incident reveals the uncle’s treachery.
The shameless coterie turns up again when Wang Lung becomes rich. The uncle’s relationship with him is no more ‘filial’ but a cloak-and-dagger situation. The red-beard robber gang that the uncle belongs to has an unsavory reputation for looting the rich, which now Wang Lung is. He keeps his uncle and family close by and provides them with accommodation in his house.
Wang Lung’s aunt becomes an unusual ally, helping him negotiate Lotus’ deal, and managing the setup of her outer court. While this role seems insignificant, it seems to change Wang Lung’s life forever. He now has the high life of a noble, with concubines and a house divided by courts.
Wang Lung realizes that keeping the two together is like breeding serpents at home, so he spends lavish silver on buying opium and feeding the couple thereby debilitating them — the intoxication and age slowly diminishing their senses. However, he has to deal with their son, who is incentivized to disappear.
His son, more crooked and cruel than his dad, returns with a horde of soldiers, who camp in Wang Lung’s house. They pillage, pilfer, and harass the inmates, ogle at the maids, and even pose a threat to the wives of Wang Lung’s sons. He pays his nephew off as he desires to fight a war far in the north.
The son returns, and by then the old uncle and his wife have withered away by opium. He also has an issue
From the Earth To the Earth
The Earth is what provides to a peasant. It makes him, it consoles and heals him. Somewhere, his wife and concubines, his sons, know that Wang Lung loved his lands more than any human.
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 sometime return into the earth, their bodies also. Each had his turn at this earth.
All tie to the peasant, Wang Lung, and the Good Earth. Humans evolve in layers, one over the other. The purpose of each generation is to better the lives of the next generation. Returning to the Yellow River Civilization, Chinese society has absorbed cultures from the steppes, desert, peninsula, and ocean. However, the structure — peasants at the bottom and a pyramid above them — the merchants, the soldiers, the officials, the nobles, and the rich — has stood the stead for many years. But everything goes back to the land — for the land yields the grains, the grains are sold by merchants. Then the land turns to silver. Silver then creates the rich and the nobility.
The book illuminates history, culture, and society while retaining its strength in fiction, beautifully interweaved into chronological foundations. When we realize that it is the first of the trilogy, the end of the first book leaves the sons' story open. But for Wang Lung, it was a journey from the Earth, holding on to Good Earth, and then finally, to the Earth.
~Ashok Subramanian © 2024
