Chapters 20-26, Week 3, November 15-22, 2015

[☯Emily , The First]

We will discuss Chapters 20-26 in this thread.

[Sara]

The pearls represent worth to O-Lan, her own worth. They are the kind of presents given to the slaves in the house of Hwang who are beautiful and valued, while O-Lan is treated with disdain because of her plainness. When Wang takes the pearls and gives them to Lutus, he reinforces to O-Lan that she can never be loved because she is ugly, and she carries this and bemoans it even at her death.

Lotus is easy to despise, but she is also a victim of the system. No doubt sold into slavery because of her beauty, she is made to service the men at the tea house and in many ways her life is inferior to O-Lan’s because she is never a mother, a giver of sons. She is callous and unfeeling, but Wang gets from her what he deserves, because he has placed her value above that of O-Lan for only material reasons. He forces himself to ignore what he knows is true, that O-Lan has added much of value to his life, while Lotus simply takes and takes.

The effect of the money on Wang is almost unavoidable. It separates him from the land and his value of life decreases with his increase in wealth. The only times he is seen to be truly happy are those when he is laboring and caring for the land he possesses.

I find it distressing that he does nothing of kindness for O-Lan until he finds out she is dying. At least he treats her well in the final days and buys her the fine coffin to be buried in. Still, I see this so often in our own society, the failure to appreciate someone during their lifetime. O-Lan dies knowing that she was undervalued and unloved. He owes her so much and gives her so little.

With the wealth comes the transformation of the house. Wang’s children are spoiled and petulant, they do not know how to work or produce, only to use up and spend. They insist on having everything they want and consider it their right. They have no respect for the farming and the land from which their very good life derives. (Boy can I draw some parallels to modern children). They are, in short, just like the young lords of the House of Hwang, who were so deservedly despised by the people and who drove themselves to ruin.

It is with sadness that I turn to the final chapters of this book. I think there can be nothing but corruption for this family in the end.

[Alexa]

I'm finding myself increasingly annoyed by this. At first I thought these characters were archetypes, symbols of what she wanted to say about "the right way to live." But now I'm wondering if their flatness is due to a possible ethnocentric myopia? Would she have written this way about Europeans?

[Sara]

Alexa wrote: "I'm finding myself increasingly annoyed by this. At first I thought these characters were archtypes, symbols of what she wanted to say about "the right way to live." But now I'm wondering if their ..."

Buck was the daughter of missionaries and spent much of her life in China. Considering that, I'm guessing she knew the Chinese through a lens, but in her mind felt she knew them well. I don't think she would have written the same about Europeans, because I don't think Europeans would have interested her at all. I get the sense that she is observing more than feeling these characters, but that she had seen in China the corruption of the wealthy and the strength and goodness in the peasants who worked endlessly on the land.

[Alexa]

It's just that I think I'm detecting a note of patronizing here. I'm finding myself uncomfortable with this European judgement of Asian life. Judging others as barbarians or savages isn't all that different from judging others as the epitome of the "simple" life (the "noble savage"). She seems to be saying that wealth (and by implication knowledge and learning) corrupts these simple souls, and that they're only pure when they're working the land. But I can only imagine that she would never dream of saying the same things about her own family. (And such a horrific dismissal of the vast body of centuries of Chinese scholarship.)

[A.D.]

I think that is the worst thing about Wang's treatment of O Lan, that despite how valuable she is to him, he ends up reinforcing what she was told in her old home. He could have brought another wife into his home (as it was a common thing in those days) but he could have done it differently without hurting her as much as he did. I think one of the worst moments for me was when His uncle's wife tells O Lan that Wang is straying and you think he would be concerned by the fact that O Lan knows and the impact it would have, instead he only concerns himself with what his uncle's wife says about having Lotus at his home and sets about to ask his uncle's wife, a woman he has always hated, to make it happen. It isn't money that makes someone make those kind of choices.
I don't think it is a coincidence that the author chose to make O Lan die of the after effects of the thing that actually made her useful in that society. Childbirth, or the birth of sons.

I think you're right that Lotus is a victim of the system, but you can be a victim of the system and still have character/morals which Lotus does not have. It seems as if O Lan is more if a victim of the system than Lotus because she does not have Lotus's beauty, but she does have morals and character and that's what helped elevate her. But her trusting innocent nature is also the reason why she was mistreated so much by Wang. I don't think the writer is being patronising and looking at the characters through a lens as O Lan's character was too well developed for that. The character was so real to me and I could understand her so well.

I don't think it is the wealth that corrupts Wang, but the choices he makes by allowing people like Cuckoo into his life when he knows what type of a person she is and casting aside O Lan who has always been trustworthy and a good advisor. He knows he has made a mistake when Lotus arrives with Cuckoo and he asks himself what he has let into his house.

I wonder if Wang was right in saying that he didn't love O Lan. I think he did love her, he just wasn't enamoured of her physically as he was with Lotus. But I did notice that although he is first attracted to Lotus because she is O Lan's opposite physically, later on he seems to be saying that Lotus looks better when she is larger and in the beginning he did say that O Lan had a big beautiful body, so I think he did love O Lan, but like you said, he just didn't appreciate her.

[☯Emily , The First]

This gives a great overview of foot binding, why women did it even after it was forbidden by the Chinese government and the long-term consequences to women under Mao. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...

[A.D.]

Really interesting article, thanks, Emily.