The Good Earth: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

As the New Year approaches, Wang Lung makes preparations, gluing red paper with symbols for happiness and riches onto his farm tools and symbols for good luck on the doors. His father makes new dresses for the temple figures out of more red paper, and Wang Lung burns incense in the temple. He also buys candles to burn under the picture of a god in his house.

O-lan bakes fancy moon cakes like those eaten in the House of Hwang. When Wang Lung sees how beautiful they are, he’s very proud. His father wants Wang Lung’s uncle to see them, but Wang Lung thinks the uncle’s family would want to eat them. O-lan says that she’s going to bring the cakes to the Old Mistress when she visits with the baby after the New Year. Wang Lung is very pleased with the idea, and can think only of this upcoming visit. On the first day of the new year, his uncle and his neighbors come to the house to celebrate, and Wang Lung makes sure that the best of the cakes are hidden.

On the second day of the New Year, women visit each other. O-lan dresses the baby in his fancy new clothes, and she and Wang Lung also dress well. They go to the House of Hwang. Wang Lung is gratified by the gateman’s amazement at the sight of his family. The gateman can tell that Wang Lung has done well in the past year, and he invites Wang Lung to wait for O-lan in his own house. Wang Lung proudly watches his wife and son go into the great house, then enters the gateman’s house. He takes the honorable seat offered by the gateman’s wife, but he declines to drink the tea she gives him, as though it’s not good enough for him.

When the gateman brings O-lan back, Wang Lung examines her face and can tell that all has gone well. As they leave the house, he takes the baby and eagerly asks how the visit went. O-lan whispers in shock that it seems the House of Hwang is lacking in money. The Old Mistress and the slaves were all wearing the same coats as the previous year. The clothes of O-lan and the child were better than those she saw in the house.

Wang Lung exults at this news, but fears that evil spirits will want to spoil his happiness. He hides the child and says aloud that it is a sickly female. O-lan agrees. He asks what has caused this change in the fortunes of the great house, and O-lan tells him that the young lords spend too much money, the Old Lord has many concubines, and the Old Mistress never stops eating opium. A daughter about to get married has a huge dowry and demands all the best clothes.

The Old Mistress told O-lan that the family is looking to sell land just outside the city wall. This entirely convinces Wang Lung of the family’s fallen fortunes, since land is the most important thing. Suddenly he decides with triumph that he’ll buy the land. O-lan argues that it’s too far from their house, and he should instead buy land closer to them. Wang Lung says that the closer land has bad soil. He imagines going to the Old Lord as an equal and buying the land with his own money, and he thinks that O-lan, who used to be a slave in the House of Hwang, will instead be the wife of a man who owns the Hwangs’ land. O-lan realizes this, too, and agrees that he should buy the land.