The Good Earth

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The Good Earth is a novel by Pearl S. Buck, first published in 1931, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1932. It is the first book in a trilogy that includes the books Sons (1932) and A House Divided (1935).

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

It is the story of a peasant family in China in a times of famine, flood, and prosperity. A peasant Wang Lung who lives with his widowed father, marries O-Lan, the homely former slave of a wealthy household, the Hwang Family. Through frugality and hard work they fare relatively better than other farmers in the village. However, as the weather turns disastrous for farming, the family -now grown to include the couple's three children- has to flee to the city to find work. They sold their meager possessions -but not the land- and took the train for the first time.

While at the city, O-Lan and the children beg and Wang Lung pulls a rickshaw. They found themselves aliens among their more metropolitan countrymen and foreigners. They no longer starved, but still lived like paupers: Wang Lung's work is barely able to pay for the rickshaw rental, and the family eats at public kitchens. Meanwhile, hostile political climate continues to worsen, and Wang Lung longs to return to the land. They were able to do so after a riot gives Wang Lung some wealth, though much of it was because his wife, knowing the household of a wealthy family, knew where to look for valuables.

Upon returning to their home the family fared better. With their money from the city Wang Lung is able to buy an ox, farm tools, and hires help. He is eventually able to send his sons to school, builds a new house and live comfortably. However, the wealth of the family is tied to the harvests of Wang Lung's land - the good earth of the novel. Wang Lung's fortunes prosper with the earth, and he eventually becomes a man of prosperity, with his rise mirroring the downfall of the Hwang family, who lost their connection to the land. Wang eventually falls to the vices of rich food and takes a concubine. At the end of the novel, Wang Lung's sons also start to lose their connection to the earth; plotting to sell it, thus showing the end of the cycle of wealth and downfall.

While many associate the book with Pearl S. Buck's life as a missionary and feminist, neither is true. The only mention of Christianity in the book is when Wang Lung receives some paper which show a man (Jesus) crucified. The only comment his family has is that he must have been wicked to have been torturted and died as such. Furthermore, Pearl S. Buck makes little comment on the practice of foot-binding among Chinese women of the era, except to note that it was attractive to the men, and was painful to the women.

Provincial and urban settings are shown through a chinese perspective colored with the woes of the time period. The status and treatment of women, a man's status in chinese society, and the chinese culture prerevolution make the book a classic. The rise from poor farmer to respected family patriarch illustrates a chinese man's relationship to everyone around him during early 1900s.

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Characters

Wang Lung- Protagonist, poor farmer
O-lan- First wife, depicated as plain and hard working
Lotus- Concubine, status symbol, beautiful and lazy
Cuckoo- female Slave/servant for Lotus, crafty and scheming
Elder Son- materialistic scholar
Second Son- penny pinching merchant
Youngest Son- little mentioned, becomes soldier and diplomat
Pear Blossom- concubine for Wang Lung later in life
Poor Fool- oldest daughter of O-Lan and Wang Lung, brain damaged due to starvation

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