The Good Earth: Chapter 25 Summary & Analysis

Wang Lung is relieved when his eldest son has gone. He feels that he can now take better care of his other children. He decides to make his second son an apprentice before he grows difficult like the older one. The second son is very different from his brother, small and cunning. Wang Lung decides to apprentice him to a grain market, where he can be of use to his father. He has Cuckoo set up a meeting for him with Liu, the grain merchant.

Wang Lung goes that very day to visit Liu. He has to ask a passerby to identify Liu’s house, since he can’t read the name on the gate. A servant shows him in. He’s pleased with the quality of the furnishings, which are nice but don’t denote excessive wealth. He doesn’t want his son’s wife to be too spoiled.

Liu enters the room and they secretly examine each other and like what they see. They drink and make small talk, until Wang Lung finally proposes that his second son might go to work for Liu. Liu says he’d be glad of the help, as long as the boy can read and write, which Wang Lung affirms he can. Liu sets out his wages, and Wang Lung is satisfied. He asks happily whether Liu might have a son to marry his second daughter, and Liu says he does. The children are the same age, and the men both hope to marry them.

When Wang Lung returns home, he sees that his second daughter is pretty and has nicely bound feet. But he notices that she’s been crying, and he asks her why. She admits it’s because her bound feet hurt and keep her from sleeping. She’s kept quiet because O-lan told her his pity for her might make him unbind her feet, in which case her husband wouldn’t love her, just as Wang Lung doesn’t love O-lan. Wang Lung is hurt, and tells the girl that he might have found her a husband.

That night, Wang Lung can’t sleep for thinking about O-lan’s faithfulness and how she has accurately read his character. In the following days, he sends his second son to his apprenticeship and makes the betrothal of the younger daughter official. He feels that he’s taken care of his children, and he’s proud of them.

It seems like this is the first occasion Wang Lung has had time to think about O-lan, and now he can’t stop thinking about her. He hasn’t let her work in the fields for many years, since he thought it shameful once he became rich. He hasn’t considered why she began to move more slowly or to groan in the mornings. He suddenly feels guilty, though he tells himself he’s been good to her. He can’t forget what his second daughter said her mother had told her.

Wang Lung watches O-lan as she goes about her work, and one day he sees that she’s in pain. He asks what’s wrong and she says it’s the same pain she’s had for a while. He tells her to lie down. She does so, moaning, and he goes to town for a doctor. Wang Lung describes O-lan’s symptoms and brings him to the house. O-lan has fallen asleep. After the doctor takes her pulse, he says that many of her internal organs are not working properly.

Wang Lung is terrified and shouts at the doctor to give her medicine. O-lan awakens. The doctor offers one medicine that won’t ensure recovery and another, at an exorbitant price, that will. O-lan says she’s not worth the price of the expensive medicine, which alone could buy a piece of land. Wang Lung insists he can pay it. The doctor wants the money, but he knows he’ll be punished if the medicine doesn’t work, so he says he’s realized he needs ten times the original price if he’s to ensure O-lan’s recovery. Wang Lung realizes the doctor is saying O-lan will die. He shows him out and then weeps in O-lan’s kitchen, where she’s always worked.