The Good Earth: Chapter 29 Summary & Analysis

Wang Lung tells his eldest son to arrange to rent the house, and the family prepares to move. When they’re ready to leave, Wang Lung finds he can’t leave his land, so he tells his sons that he’ll come to the great house a day before his grandson is born. He says he must bring his eldest daughter with him, since no one else will take care of her, and his eldest son is ashamed because his wife refuses to have the eldest daughter around her.

The uncle’s family moves into what were Lotus’s courts, but Wang Lung can tell that his uncle will die soon, and then he can throw out his uncle’s son. Wang Lung’s house is peaceful and he rests. Eventually he asks Ching to find a wife for his second son. Ching goes to various villages to look at the women, and he returns with news of a fitting maiden. Wang Lung is satisfied, and lets Ching set up the marriage. He’s glad that he only has one son left to marry off. He sleeps in the sun like his father did.

Wang Lung decides that he should decrease the work necessary to run his lands by renting some of them out. Men from the villages become his tenants and give him half their harvests. Sometimes Wang Lung sleeps in his house in town, but he always comes back to his land at dawn.

Wang Lung’s uncle’s son grows restless, and when he hears about a war in the north, he asks Wang Lung for money so he can go join the fighting. Wang Lung hides his pleasure at this idea and gives him the money, hoping he might die in the war. He comforts his uncle’s wife at her son’s leaving, and his house is peaceful.

As his grandson’s birth approaches, Wang Lung spends more time at the house in town, amazed to think that he’s living where the Hwang family used to live. He buys beautiful fabric to decorate the house and clothe the slaves. He even begins to eat delicacies. Cuckoo laughs to see how similar the situation is to when she used to live here, and Wang Lung is pleased to hear her compare him to the Old Lord.

One morning Wang Lung hears his eldest son’s wife in labor. He’s frightened of her screams, so he brings incense to a temple in town, though a woman should rightfully do it on this occasion. He begins to worry that the baby might be a girl, and says he’ll buy a robe for the temple figure if it’s a boy, but not if it’s a girl. He buys more incense and brings it to the temple in the country, asking the gods for a grandson. When he returns home, everyone ignores him in their flurry of action.

Finally, Lotus comes to tell him that he has a grandson. Wang Lung is joyful and laughs at his anxiety. He sits remembering O-lan giving birth to all of his children silently and alone, in contrast to his eldest son’s wife, who shrieked and caused panic. Wang Lung remembers O-lan nursing her son in the field. His eldest son comes to tell him they need to find a woman to nurse his son as all the important town women do. Wang Lung sadly agrees.

Wang Lung’s eldest son throws a great feast to celebrate the birth of his son. Afterwards, he tells Wang Lung they should make tablets of ancestors like great families have. Wang Lung likes the idea and has it done. Then he buys the robe he promised the goddess before his grandson’s birth. On his way home, he receives word that Ching is dying. Wang Lung blames the earth gods’ jealousy of the robe, and he rushes to Ching’s bedside.

Wang Lung demands to know what happened to Ching, and the laborers tell him that Ching, now an old man, was showing a new laborer how to use a tool correctly and overexerted himself. Wang Lung has the new laborer brought before him and beats him. When Ching moans, Wang Lung goes to sit by him and holds his hand. He tells Ching he’ll buy him a beautiful coffin. When Ching dies, Wang Lung weeps and arranges a funeral and mourning fitting for one better than a servant. He wants to bury Ching in the family plot, but his sons say the family shouldn’t be buried with a servant. Instead, Wang Lung buries Ching at the entrance to the plot.

Wang Lung stops going to his land so often, and he rents it all out but refuses to sell any of it. He sets a laborer’s family to take care of his uncle and uncle’s wife. He brings his youngest son and eldest daughter to live in the town and rarely returns to his house in the country.