The Good Earth

O-lan dramatically changes Wang Lung’s life. She automatically falls into a routine of caring for his father, cleaning the house, finding fertilizer for the fields, and providing fuel for the fire. She transforms the three-room house into a tidy place. The old man’s cough subsides. O-lan speaks little and completes all her chores without instruction.

One day, when Wang Lung is in the field, he looks up to see O-lan working beside him. She says she has completed her housework and will help him. They work in harmony. Wang Lung has never experienced anything like this. Soon, she tells him matter-of-factly that she’s pregnant. Thrilled, he doesn’t know how to respond. He tells his father, who cackles with glee: “[H]e called out to his daughter-in-law as she came, ‘So the harvest is insight’” (31).

As the time for the birth draws near, Wang Lung discusses the need for a midwife. However, O-lan doesn’t want anyone present, insisting that she deliver the child herself. She tells him how she’ll dress herself and her son when she goes triumphantly to show her son in the big house. Wang Lung gives her three silver coins to buy everything she needs for her celebratory clothing. They work together until she goes into labor. That day, she prepares supper for her father-in-law and Wang Lung before going alone into the bedroom to give birth. Wang Lung hears her panting and eventually the crying of a baby. O-lan affirms that they have a son. Wang Lung wakes his father and tells him that he’s the grandfather of a boy.

The next morning, Wang Lung works until noon and then goes to the village to buy eggs, sugar, and red dye to celebrate. Soon, O-lan is back working side-by-side with him in the fields.

This is a particularly good year for their crops, allowing them to store some for themselves and sell some. He hangs two chickens and a leg of pork from the ceiling. They conceal their money in a hole in the wall of their bedroom.

The child is healthy and alert. The grandfather brags that this is the brightest child in the village. Wang Lung feels confident because the harvest is so good and the rains have come.

During winter, the villagers prepare for the coming new year. O-lan creates marvelous rice cakes. She intends to take them as a gift to the great house when she presents her son. The extended family of Wang Lung comes to view all O-lan’s wonderful decorations and partake of some of the rice cakes.

In early January, the couple walks to the House of Hwang; O-lan and the baby are adorned as she proclaimed they’d be. The gatekeeper accompanies O-lan and the baby to see the mistress, while Wang Lung waits in the guard house with the gatekeeper’s wife. When O-lan returns, she tells Wang Lung that the great house has fallen on hard times. They’re so hard-pressed for money that the Hwangs need to sell some of their farmland. Wang Lung dreams about what kind of things they could do with more land. O-lan eventually agrees that some land from her old “master” would be a wise purchase.

Wang Lung uses the silver he hid in the wall to buy a piece of land that runs alongside a moat. He and O-lan work the land feverishly, and it produces well. He notices with irritation that his wife is pregnant again, meaning that she won’t be able to help during the harvest. O-lan tells him that only the first baby is hard to deliver, and she’ll help during the harvest.

When the second baby comes, O-lan goes to the house to deliver and then returns to the field that day. The harvest is good once more. Wang Lung receives good profits for selling rice from the fields that he bought from Hwang. The villagers know of his success and consider making him the head of the village.

Wang Lung’s uncle and his family, which includes six daughters and one son, trouble him. None of them work hard at anything. Three of the daughters are approaching marriage age. Wang Lung worries that they might become “loose” women with children born out of wedlock. He approaches his uncle’s wife and tells her to supervise her girls. Upset, she loudly claims that Uncle has a bad destiny.

The next day, Uncle approaches Wang Lung in the field, and they argue. When Wang Lung speaks bluntly, Uncle slaps him on both sides of the face and berates him for speaking disrespectfully to an elder. Uncle requests nine silver coins as a dowry for his oldest daughter, which he intends to instead spend on his own pleasure.

Wang Lung goes home, where O-lan is delivering their third child. She gives birth to a girl, which she immediately refers to as a “slave.” He considers this an evil omen, since daughters “do not belong to their parents, but are born and reared for other families” (66). Wang Lung later regrets that he didn’t even look upon the face of his new daughter before going back to work.