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60 pages 2 hours read

Pearl S. Buck

The Good Earth

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1931

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Literary Devices

Stilted Language

Many of Buck’s sentences may seem stilted or bear an unusual word order. Sentences may seem unduly long and may not resolve themselves as simply as typical sentences in English. For example, in describing the old Hwang house as Wang Lung walks through it, the author writes:

The heavy gates were swung back widely now, and none ever closed them upon their thick iron hinges, for any who would might come and go in these days, and he went in, and the courts and the rooms were filled with common people, who rented the rooms, a family of common people to a room (225).

Two significant factors affect the author’s word choices and sentence construction. First, as Buck indicated when discussing her writing style, she works to replicate the word order of spoken Chinese. Readers may detect a sense of space and indirectness in her style, as if purposely not being as direct in writing as American English writing or speech. Buck’s style of writing contributes to the quality of deference, as if the writer intends to be polite and respectful.

A second element that impacts Buck’s writing style is her love for the work of Charles Dickens. The author reportedly read all Dickens’s published works every year. Like many British authors, Dickens too writes with a deferential tone, a sort of perpetual politeness, that Buck adopts.

Idiomatic Speech

In writing dialogue, Buck faithfully uses Chinese idioms, most of which make sense even to English readers who wouldn’t use them in conversation. The most frequent example of this is the word “well,” which the characters use constantly in a give-and-take conversation. For example, here is an abbreviated exchange between Wang Lung and his oldest son, who asks for permission to study in the south:

“Well, and how now?” […]
“Well, and if I am to be a scholar, I would like to go to the south […]”
“Well, and what nonsense is this” (235).

Other languages employ such commonly used placeholder expressions that contribute to controlling the pace and emotional tone of conversational interaction as well.

Biblical Allusions

Buck makes no overt references to Christianity at any point in the narrative. The only reference to a Christian is the introduction of a missionary who hands out flyers depicting Jesus on the cross, which Wang Lung and others immediately assume implies that the executed man must have done something gravely wrong, deserving this punishment.

Despite making no comments about the Judeo-Christian tradition, Buck includes several important references to biblical stories and passages as clever asides. For instance, after many people try to convince Wang Lung to cut off his imperial braid, the sex worker Lotus cuts it off. This is Buck’s reflection on the Hebrew Bible’s story of Samson, whose strength ebbed when the sex worker Delilah cut off his hair; likewise, Lotus tames and controls Wang Lung. The anxious restlessness of King David, who couldn’t ride into battle, mirror Buck’s description of Wang Lung pacing his house restlessly when his farmland is under water. Just as David made the costly mistake of going to Bathsheba out of restlessness, so the agitated Wang Lung makes the costly decision of going to Lotus.

In addition, the author refers to well-known scriptural expressions. The seven years of prosperity that the farm experiences after Wang Lung returns to it clearly refer to the biblical concept of “seven fat years” (Genesis 41:18). After taking a mistress into the house where his wife still lives, Wang Lung gets no peace of mind. When he moves his mistress and two feuding daughters-in-law into a 60-room mansion, he still can find no peace of mind. Bible readers may recognize in this a reference to Proverbs 21:9, which, paraphrased, says, “It is better to dwell on the corner of a rooftop than in a spacious house with a nagging wife.”

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