读书笔记
读书心得
I read Chapter 25–29 of the book “The Good Earth.”
1) (A) Cp. 25. When the elder son was gone, Wang Lung decided that he would early take the second lad out of school and he would apprentice him to a trade. Therefore he said to Cuckoo one day, “Now go and tell the father of my eldest son’s betrothed that I have something to say to him.” Cuckoo went and came back saying, “He will see you when you wish.”
Wang Lung put on his silk coat. He went to the Street of Bridges, a woman took him into a room. A stout elderly man entered. Then they seated themselves. Wang Lung said, “ If you have a need for a servant in your great market, there is my second son.” Then the merchant said, “If he reads and writes.” And Wang Lung answered proudly, “My sons are both good scholars.” “That is Well,” said Liu. And Wang Lung laughed and said, “Have you no son for my second daughter?” Then the merchant laughed and said, “I have a second son of ten.”
After he had gone away, and he looked at his young daughter when he came home, he saw the marks of tears on her cheeks, and he said, “Now, why have you wept?” Then she said, “Because my mother binds a cloth about my feet.” “I have not heard you weep,” he said wondering. “My mother said you are too weak for pain and you might leave me as I am, and then my husband would not love me as you do not love her.”
He slept uneasily beside Lotus that night. He thought of what the child said, and he was sad, because O-lan had seen the truth in him.
In the near days after this he sent his second son away into the town and he signed the papers for the second girl’s betrothal. Then he said to his heart, “ The youngest boy I will keep for land.”
He was proud. He was content. Then there came into his mind the thought of the woman who had borne them for him. He looked at her with some strange remorse, and he saw that she grown thin. And he remembered that in the morning sometime he heard her groaning.
He could not be rid of this unease toward her,he found a shop, and he went to it. There the doctor sat. He was an old man. When Wang Lung told him what his wife’s symptoms were, he said, “I will come now.”
When they came to O-lan’s bed she had fallen into a light sleep and the old doctor shook his head to see it. He put forward a hand and he felt for her pulse, he saying, “The spleen is enlarged and the liver diseased.” The old doctor spoke again, “ If you wish complete recovery guaranteed, then five hundred pieces of silver.” When O-lan heard the words, she said weakly, “No, my life is not worth so much.” Then Wang Lung answered fiercely, “I can pay the silver.” Now the old doctor said, “Nay, as I look at the color of the whites of her eyes, Five thousand pieces of silver must I have if I guarantee full recovery.” Then Wang Lung in sad understanding that the doctor said, “The woman will die.” He went out with the doctor, and when he was gone, he wept.
(B) Cp.26 All through the long months of winter O-lan lay dying and upon her bed, and for the first time Wang Lung and his children knew how she made comfort for them all. Wang Lung could not make the old man understand what had happened that O-lan no longer came in bring him tea, Wang Lung led him in to the O-lan’s room, he wept because he saw dimly that something was wrong.
All during the winter Wang Lung sat often beside O-lan’s bed . Because he knew she must be die he went to a coffin-maker’s shop, and he chose a good black one. Then the carpenter said cunningly, “It you take two, the price is a third off for the two.” He thought of his own father and he said, “I will take the two.”
There were times when O-lan woke to herself and once she called for Cuckoo, and she said plainly enough, “You were accounted beautiful, but I have been a man’s wife, and you are still a slave.”
One day before the New Year broke, she was suddenly better, and when Wang Lung came she said, “ I have thought of a thing, I would have you send for my daughter-in-law. I have not seen her yet.” The maiden came quickly in a sedan chair. And she went into O-lan’s room and tended her, and O-lan was very content.
Then O-lan thought of another thing and she said to Wang Lung, “Now I want my son to come home, and I want him to wed this maid.” On the night of the day before his marriage, Wang Lung’s eldest son came home. Wang Lung’s heart burst with pride to see his son, and he led him to his mother. O-lan said, “I will see you wed and then I must die.”
Then Wang Lung and his uncle and his father and the guests waited in the middle room and the maid came in supported by her own slave. After this Wang Lung’s eldest son came in. Now the old man said, “Marriage is children again!”
Then the young man and the maid together bowed to the old man, and they went into the room where O-lan lay and bowed to her and she patted the bed and said, “This will be your bed of marriage since I am soon be finished with it and carried away.”
Then it was over and the guests were gone and night came. O-lan grew weary and her eyes closed, “Well, and if I am ugly, still I have borne a son.” She said. Wang Lung sat beside her and looked at her. Suddenly her head dropped off the pillow and she was dead.
The old man, Wang Lung’s father, who had been distraught ever since he saw them putting the stiff dead body of O-lan into the coffin, lay down on his bed one night for sleeping, he died. Then Wang Lung washed the old man himself and he laid him gently in the coffin.
Wang Lung had chosen a good place in his fields upon a hill to set the graves. Then on the appointed day, Wang Lung dressed himself in a robe of white sackcloth and he gave a robe like it to his uncle, and to his own sons. Then mourning and weeping loudly they went to the graves.
But when the earth was covered over and the graves smoothed, Wang Lung turned away silently and he walked home alone with himself. One clear thought and it was a pain to him that he wished he had not taken the two pearls from O-lan when she was washing his clothes at the pool. He said to himself, “It is as though half of me were buried there, and now it is a different life in my house.”
(C) Cp. 27。One day Ching came to Wang Lung and he said, “It looks as though there would be such a flood this year as never was.” Wang Lung went out on his land and he saw it was as Ching said. Then Wang Lung saw that a famine such as he had never seen was upon the land.
The river to the north burst its dykes and when men saw what had happened, they hurried to collect money to mend it. The money they entrusted to the magistrate in the district. The magistrate had not seen so much money in his lifetime before, the money he had spent in his own house.
The river burst yet another dyke and another. One by one the villages were made into islands. There were no harvests of any kind that year and everywhere people starved and were angry at what had befallen them.
Wang Lung allowed nothing to be bought and sold after the winter came , and he husbanded carefully all that they had. Wang Lung was not so poor, for he had good silver hidden away in the walls.
He knew that there were many who hated him well, and so he kept his gates barred. Well did Wang Lung know that if it had not been for his uncle’s power he would have been robbed. So he was courteous to his uncle.
Wang Lung’s eldest son guarded his wife jealously from the gaze of his cousin. He said, “ We had better set up our house elsewhere.” Wang Lung told him plainly, “ I hate the three. But your uncle is lord of a horde of wild robbers, and if I feed him we can safe.” “If there were a way that we could keep them here but make them harmless, but there is no such magic.” Then the young man cried out, “Let us buy them opium to enjoy.” But Wang Lung would not at once consent.
The son of Wang Lung’s uncle cast his eyes upon the second daughter of Wang Lung. Now the second daughter was an exceedingly pretty girl. Her cousin laid hold of her roughly and she screamed out, and Wang Lung ran out and beat the man. Wang Lung told his son what had happened, the young man said, “We must send the maid to the home of her betrothed.”
So Wang Lung did. He went into the town and to the house of the merchant. He said, “ I would not have the care of this maid upon me, because her mother is dead.” Then the merchant replied, “Well, let the maid come, she can be safe here with her mother-in-law.”
Wang Lung was well content, and he went away. Wang Lung passed a shop where tobacco and opium are sold and the clerk had it on the scales, he said to the man, “How much is your opium, I will take six ounces of it.”
(D) Cp.28. Wang Lung said to his uncle one day, “ Here is a little better tobacco for you.” “It is only a little I bought once for my father when he could not sleep.” His uncle took it and smelled of it and he said, “I like it well enough.” The silver for this Wang Lung did not begrudge because it bought him peace.
One day his eldest son said to him proudly, “There will soon be another mouth in the house and it will be the mouth of your grandson.” And Wang Lung laughed and went to find Ching to buy fish and good food and sent to his son’s wife.
As the spring grew into summer, the people who had gone away from the floods came back again, and many came to Wang Lung to borrow money, and he loaned it at high interest. Some sold part of their fields, and Wang Lung bought land. There were some who sold their daughters. And Wang Lung bought five slaves. One day a man came bearing a small delicate maid of seven years, waiting to sell her, Lotus fancied her, Wang Lung bought the child for twenty pieces of silver.
When the waters receded and the land was to be planted, Wang Lung walked and looked at every piece. And he took with him his youngest son that the lad might learn.
It seemed as though Wang Lung’s eldest son could never give over his hatred of his cousin. Wang Lung saw clearly when he shouted, “ What would you have me do?” The young man answered, “ I wish we could leave this house and that we could go into the town and live.” Wang Lung laughed bitterly. “This is my house,” he said stoutly, “if it were not for the land we shall all starve.” The eldest son was not ready to give over. He saying, “ Well, and there is the old great house of the Hwangs. The front part is filled with common people, but the inner courts are locked and silent and we could rent them and live there peacefully.”
Never had Wang Lung forgotten that once he had gone crawling into that great house, and this had remained a memory of shame to him all his life and he hated it. He dreamed that he could live in the House of Hwang.
One day when Wang Lung went into the town to see his second son at the grain market he asked him, “ What say you of the thing your elder brother desires, to we move into the town to the great house?” The second son answered smoothly, “It is an excellent thing, for then I could wed and we would all be under one roof.”
Now Wang Lung had done nothing toward the wedding of this son, he said in some shame, “The thing shall be done.” The second son said then, “Well. But do not get me a wife from a house in town, such as my brother has, for she will make me spend money.” Wang Lung heard this with astonishment, he said, “What sort of a maid would you have, then?” Then the young man answered, “I desire a maid from a village, of good landed family, neither plain nor fair to look upon.” Now Wang Lung admired the wisdom of the young man and he said laughing, “Well, and I shall seek such a maid.”
He went away and he went down the street of the great house. He went in and the front courts were as he remembered. And the place reeked with the smell of common people who swarm into the courts of the great when the great are gone.
Wang Lung in the old days when the great family were there would have felt himself one of these common people and against the great and half hating, half fearful of them. But now that he had land and that he had silver and gold, he despised these people, and was against them as though he himself belonged to the great house.
He went on and at the back he found a gate locked into a court and beside it an old woman drowsing, and he saw that this was the wife of the man who had been gateman. For first time Wang Lung felt his age creeping upon him.
Then he said to the old woman, “ Wake and let me into the gate.”
He went in after her. He followed her into the great hall itself, and his mind went back when he stood there waiting to wed a slave. And moved by some strange impulse he said suddenly, “This house I will have.”
(E) Cp. 29. Wang Lung told his elder son what he had decided and on a day when they were ready, they moved. First Lotus and Cuckoo and their slaves, and then Wang Lung’s eldest son and his wife and their servants. There was left in the house, then, none but the uncle and his wife and son and Ching and the laboring men, besides Wang Lung and his youngest son and the fool.
Wang Lung bid Ching find a maid for his second son to wed. Now Ching grew old. He went to the village and he looked at many maidens and at last he came back and he said, “There is a maid, a good, buxom, careful maid, and her father is willing, and he has land.” Wang Lung gave his promise, and he said, “I am glad.”
It would be well to rent some of his farthest fields to others in the village. This Wang Lung did.
And then, Wang Lung went sometimes into the town and slept in the court, but when day came he was back upon his land. He smelled the fresh smell of the fields and he rejoiced in it.
The uncle’s son heard of a war to the north and he said to Wang Lung, “I will go and join it for something to do and to see.”
Then at last there was peace. And in the house in the town the hour grew near for the birth of Wang Lung’s grandson.
Now Wang Lung stayed more and more in the house in the town and he walked about the courts, 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. And Wang Lung eat dainty foods, he once had been well satisfied with good wheaten bread wrapped about a stick of garlic, now he tasted winter bamboo and shrimps’ roe and pigeons’ eggs and all those things which rich men use. Cuckoo laughed and said, “It is like the old days when I was in there courts.” Wang Lung was pleased that she had compared him to the Old Lord.
One morning his eldest son met him and said, “The hour is come.” Wang Lung went to the temple in the town where the goddess of mercy dwells saying, “If it is a grandson I will pay for a new red robe for the goddess, but nothing will I do if it is a girl.” Then he went back to the courts. Lotus came in, and she said loudly, “Well, and there is a son, and both mother and son are alive.”
And he sat silent and musing and he remembered within himself that day and how alone O-lan had borne him sons and daughters and she bore them silently, and how she had come to the fields and worked beside him again. And here was the this one who had all the slaves running in the house.
One came running from the harvest fields to tell Wang Lung that Ching lay dying suddenly and had asked if Wang Lung would come to see him die. Wang Lung went at once to the room where Ching had been laid and he called out loudly, “How did all this come about?” They answered, “ There was a laborer who is newly hired... He could not hold the flail rightly and Ching would show him...”. And Wang Lung sat down beside Ching and took his hand, and it was as light and dry as a withered oak leaf. Ching lay there panting and dying and so he died. Wang Lung buried Ching at the entrance to the wall.
Wang Lung rented out all his land that he could. But he would never talk of selling a foot of any piece. Thus he felt it all his own. He appointed one of his laborers to live in the country house and to care for the two old opium dreamers. Wang Lung took his youngest son and his fool with him and thereafter he came scarcely at all for a long time to the house on his land.
2) I think: (A) O-lan and Ching are diligent and kind, but their lives are extremely poor. The deaths of O-lan, his father and Ching brought great grief to Wang Lung. In that era, many people in China were struggling on the verge of death.
In the 1950s and 1960s, China witnessed a series of political movements. Many people were persecuted and many were killed by persecution. One of my middle school teachers and three university teachers were persecuted to death. I remember my teacher.
(B) When Wang Lung went to the great house of the Hwangs to marry O-lan, he felt that he was a lowly person and held the rich man's family in great awe. When he moved into the inner courts of the great house , dressed well, ate well and bought many slaves to serve him, he looked down upon the ordinary people living in the front court.
Before Mao and Communist Party came to power, he advocated democracy and freedom and opposed one-party dictatorship. After taking power, Mao lived in the Huairen Hall in Zhongnanhai, where he had special chef to prepare delicious food, a private swimming pool, and many women to accompany him. His status has risen and he suppressed and attacked people with different opinions and promoted personality cult.
Chapters 25-29
September 9, 2025
Prompts
Chapter 25 In this chapter Wang Lung’s attention is focused fully on his family.
1. What changes does he make concerning his sons and daughters and why does he feel the need to make these changes?
2. How does Wang Lung discover the seriousness of O-Lan’s illness?
3. How does he react when he knows for certain that no amount of money will save O-Lan?
Chapter 26 This chapter is a study in contrasts of events and emotions. Periods of great sadness and loss alternate with those of great joy . Both this one and the previous one end with the weeping of Wang Lung.
4. How does this chapter solidify and enhance your understanding of O-Lan’s character?
5. What gives Wang Lung the greatest pain as he leaves the cemetery following O-Lan’s burial?
6. In the chapter’s next-to-last paragraph, we hear Wang Lung say to himself: “There in that land of mine is buried the first good half of my life and more. It is as though half of me were buried there, and now it is a different life in my house” (Washington Square Edition 272). What is your understanding of these words?
Note the wall that is built around the cemetery—another wall that encloses some and keeps others out, continuing the pattern of wall imagery throughout the novel.
Chapter 27 In this chapter, northern China is once again afflicted by a great flood that ruins crops, and a pattern of suffering that we have seen before is repeated. Additional rain makes it impossible for farmers to plant to meet the needs of the coming winter. A great famine results, and many abandon their homes and farms and head south as Wang Lung and his family had done many years before.
7. How does Wang Lung fare this time? What does Wang Lung think about doing when the uncle’s greed becomes intolerable? Why is Wang Lung hesitant to use this method of controlling his uncle? What convinces him that he should go ahead with it?
8. What effect does the author achieve by repeating patterns like the flood and famine throughout the novel?
Chapter 28 At the beginning of our discussions of this novel, we spoke about what makes a novel and its characters, especially its main characters, effective. In general, we agreed, it’s change. There has to be a change in characters from the beginning to the end.
9. How successful has the author been up to this point (through chapter 27) in presenting Wang Lung as a character who changes through experience and over time?
10. What big changes in Wang Lung’s life and character occur in chapter 28? How do you feel about Wang Lung at the end of chapter 28?
Chapter 29
11. When Wang Lung has purchased the House of Hwang, he sends Lotus and her household to live there as well as his eldest son, wife, and servants, but he remains behind with the youngest son and the “poor fool” Who else remains there? What excuses does Wang Lung offer for not moving out of the old house immediately? What is the real reason for his reluctance to move? What fortuitous events finally lead to his move?
12. What tangible symbols of his rise in status appear in Wang Lung’s house following the arrival of his eldest son’s first child?
13. The joy experienced at the arrival of Wang Lung’s first grandson is dampened by the death of Ching. How does Wang Lung respond to this death? What do his reactions tell us about his character?
14. What are Wang Lung’s final acts regarding the country house? How do these final actions make you feel?
From reading that I have done on the topic of wedding traditions in Chinese culture, it appears that the steps appearing below were usually followed, with variations depending on the time period during which the wedding took place and the economic circumstances of the families. For each step, I’ve provided illustrations of the practices in The Good Earth.
? Families usually employed a match maker who identified appropriate candidates. This worked for families who had the money to hire one. In the case of Wang Lung, the family’s poverty required that his father, in consultation with the Old Mistress of the House of Wang, arrange to secure a slave as his bride. When Wang Lung’s eldest son is to marry, money is more plentiful, but there is no need to hire a professional matchmaker. Wang Lung has what one could call live-in-help in the persons of Lotus, who recommends the daughter of the grain merchant Liu, her former client and a person with whom Wang Lung does business, and Cuckoo, who serves as the intermediary in the arranging the match, at a price, of course.
? The groom’s family presented betrothal gifts to the bride. Wang Lung gives gold-washed rings and silver rings to his bride-to-be. When plans are made for the marriage of the eldest son to the daughter of the grain merchant, no betrothal gifts are required, since the alliance of the two families will be both financially and socially advantageous to both.
? The bride’s family usually presents a dowry to the groom’s family. In The Good Earth, no dowry is involved. O-Lan, of course is a slave who has nothing to give. In the case of the eldest son’s marriage, the bride does not come with a dowry. Instead, Wang Lung’s family pays a bride price to the grain merchant for his daughter’s hand in marriage, which reflects the family’s rise in status.
? On the day of the wedding, the groom and his men traditionally make a procession to the bride’s home. Having claimed his bride, the groom and his men with the bride in a sedan chair then return to the groom’s house for the ceremony. Both processions are accompanied by lots of noise, especially caused by many firecrackers. We don’t see much of this activity in The Good Earth, unless we consider Wang Lung’s walk to the House of Hwang and the travel of O-Lan and Wang Lung back to his farm as a wedding procession. In the case of the eldest son, the bride is taken by her family to the groom’s house where her preparation for the wedding takes place. At the appropriate moment, the bride and the groom process separately into the chamber where the wedding ceremony will be celebrated, he accompanied by his two brothers and she by her slave and the uncle’s wife.
? The wedding ceremony is fairly simple. The couple first pay homage to their ancestors at the family altar. Then they serve tea to their parents, and the two families exchange gifts. When the ceremony is complete, the bride and groom go to the nuptial chamber and share wine from the same goblet. Wang Lung and O-Lan’s wedding service, such as it is, is conducted by the Old Mistress of the House of Hwang She calls O-Lan to stand before her: “This man has come for you…Are you ready?” O-Lan answers simply, “Ready.’’ Then she issues commands to Wang Lung: “Take her and use her well. She is a good slave, ….” And to O-Lan she says, “Obey him and bear him sons and yet more sons. Bring the first child to me to see.” O-Lan answers: “Yes, Ancient Mistress.” The couple return to the farm where O-Lan cooks her own wedding dinner and disappears until after the guests (all men) have left. The wedding ceremony of the eldest son is almost as simple. The bride and groom walk together and bow before the old father and Wang Lung and then enter the room where O-Lan lies. They bow before her, and she invites them to eat the rice of their marriage. Then, sitting side by side on O-Lan’s bed, they drink from two bowls of wine separately and then the wine of both bowls is mingled and the couple drink from the same bowl, signifying that the two are now one. Bowing to O-Lan and Wang Lung, they leave together to join their guests.
? One final thing that I was curious about: In the description of the preparation of the bride in Pearl Buck’s novel, we are told that the women “pulled out the hairs of her virginity, the fringe over her brow, and they made her forehead high and smooth and square for her new estate” (267). When I looked into this, most of the sources I consulted insisted that this was not a Chinese tradition, that the Chinese were superstitious about sharp implements like scissors. Now no scissors are used in Buck’s description. It’s likely that the women used their fingers to pluck out the hairs. One would think that the author would at some point have been to a wedding where this had been done since she includes it in her novel , or that she had read about it somewhere. It’s hard to say, but I do know that medieval European women of the fourteenth century did this procedure because a high forehead was viewed as a mark of beauty in their culture. You can find an example of this practice in the Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in his portrait of the prioress, Madame Eglantyne.
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?When Wang Lung’s first grandson arrives in chapter 29 of The Good Earth, the baby’s father urges Wang Lung to set up ancestral tablets just like those in the houses of the great families. Wang Lung is happy to comply, and before long, “…there in the great hall the row of tablets was set up, his grandfather’s name on one and then his father’s, and the spaces left empty for Wang Lung’s name and his son’s when they should die. And Wang Lung’s son bought an incense urn and set it before the tablets” (Washington Square Press edition, p. 305).
The Chinese tradition of setting up such tablets arose from ancestor worship, rooted in Confucian filial piety and based on the belief that ancestors live after death and can bring blessings or misfortunes, depending on how they are honored or dishonored. This tradition was and is one of the most common ways to venerate the dead. Each tablet contains an inscription of the ancestor’s name and accomplishments and is covered and supported by a decorated wooden box. The tablet is considered to be an effigy of the person’s spirit and is treated almost as a physical human being. Gifts of fruit, tea, and pastries are placed before the panels, and those wishing to venerate their descendants light incense before approaching them as signs of prayers and communication being transferred. In addition to symbolizing the spirits of family ancestors, the panels also symbolize the continuation of the family bloodline and are believed to protect descendants from danger and harm. In the average Chinese home, these ancestral tablets are placed in the living room.
Ancestor veneration rituals, including the use of tablets, tend to be more common in rural areas. The lack of space for home altars in urban areas leads some families to use public or communal spaces for honoring ancestors. Although younger generations may have less involvement in these rituals, scholars assure us that the core practice of filial piety and honoring ancestors endures. (Sources: https://mcclungmuseum.uk.edu/edu/object-of-month/ancestral-table and cheeloh.medium.com/the role-of-ancestral-worship-in-modern-society-4c6d72a3468f)