Wang Lung is a poor farmer who marries O-lan, a slave girl. They work hard together on their farm and have children. Wang Lung later takes his family to the city during hard times, where they struggle but survive through begging and manual labor. Wang Lung becomes wealthy but takes a mistress, hurting his wife O-lan. O-lan falls sick and dies, still wanting to see her grandson. In the end, Wang Lung returns to his land to die, finding his true peace and security was in the earth despite his material wealth.

1. The Good
Earth
By. Pearl S. Buck
Prepared by Miracel D.
Sacil

2. Characters:
Wang Lung- Poor farmer (main character)
O-lan-Wife of Wang Lung
Lotus- Mistress of Wang Lung
Ching- Bestfriend of Wang Lung

3. The story begins on the
day of Wang Lung's wedding

4. Wang Lung is a poor young peasa
who lives in an earthen
brick house with his father,
who has arranged for him
to marry a slave girl
named O-lan from the great
family of the House of Hwang.

5. After Wang Lung brings his
quiet but diligent new wife home,
she works side by side with him
in the fields until
their first child is born.

6. They are delighted with their son,
and at the New Year O-lan
dresses him up
and proudly takes him to the
House of Hwang to show
him off.

7. But soon Wang Lung encounters
Difficulties Wang Lung sells
his furniture for a bit of silver
to take his family south,
though he refuses to sell his land.
They ride a firewagon
to a southern city,
where they live in a makeshift
hut on the street. .

8. They survive by O-lan, the
grandfather, and the children
begging for food and Wang Lung pul
a jinrickshaw (or rickshaw) for the ric
or pulling wagonloads of cargo at nig

9. In the southern city,
Wang Lung perceives
the extraordinary wealth
of westerners
and Chinese aristocrats
and capitalists, and he is interested
in the revolutionaries‘
protests of the oppression of the po

10. There follow seven years of
prosperity, during which
the sons grow and begin school;
a third son is born with a twin siste
and the harvest is so
plentiful that Wang Lung hires
laborers and his loyal neighbor,
Ching, as a steward.

11. Bored with his plain and coarse wife,
he ventures into a tea shop in
town operated by a man from the south
where the rich and idle spend their time
drinking, gambling, and visiting prostitutes.
There he begins an affair with Lotus, a delica
beautiful but manipulatively demanding
courtesan whom he desires obsessively.

12. O-lan is deeply hurt and angry,
which makes Wang Lung
defensively guilty and cold with her;
there are conflicts between O-lan and
Lotus' maid Cuckoo who had mistrea
O-lan when she was a concubine of
the old master in the House of Hwang

13. Family affairs continue to
have ups and downs. O-lan's
sickness finally overpowers
her, and Wang Lung's
tender solicitousness
to her on her deathbed
cannot fully compensate
for the insults she
received when Lotus
moved into the house.

14. She is content to die only after
her first son's marriage is
consummated, so she
can expect a grandson.

15. His eldest son
persuades him to buy the old
estate of the House of Hwang in tow
both as a means of moving out from
the place where the disgraceful
uncle and his wife live, and as
a symbol of Wang Lung's
elevated social position.

16. Finally, Wang Lung returns to the eart
house of his land to die. Material
prosperity has brought him superficia
social satisfaction, but only his land
can provide peace and security.
Even his final days are troubled, whe
overhears his two older sons plannin
to sell the land as soon as he dies.