How we cite our quotes: (Chapter. Paragraph)
Quote #1
"There is that about you which makes me think of one of the lords in the great house.” Wang Lung laughed loudly then and he said, “And am I always to look like a hind when we have enough and to spare?” But in his heart he was greatly pleased and for that day he was more kindly with her than he had been for many days. (19.56)
Sometimes, it's hard not to think that Wang Lung is just being monumentally stupid. Far be it from us to judge, but this old broad died penniless and alone, right? We're not sure that that seems like a great role model, but hey, Wang Lung can do what he wants, we guess.
Quote #2
But there were some who would not sell their land, and when they had nothing wherewith to buy seed and plow and oxen, they sold their daughters, and there were those who came to Wang Lung to sell, because it was known he was rich and powerful and a man of good heart. (28.16)
Hmm, where have we seen this before? That's right: when Wang Lung and his family had to go to the South during the first famine. So not much has changed, except Wang Lung is the big shot now. Do you think he's aware of the cycle of fortune and misfortune he's a part of? Does he learn from the past?
Quote #3
And when it was done and the wedding day set, he rested and sat in the sun and slept even as his father had done before him. (29.17)
They always say that you turn into your parents when you get older. We just didn't think they meant exactly like them. Anyway, how similar are Wang Lung and his father in the end? Is Wang Lung as an old man similar to his father as an old man? How is he different, if at all?
Quote #4
"Well, and it is like the old days when I was in these courts, only this body of mine is withered and dried now and not fit even for an old lord.” Saying this, she glanced slyly at Wang Lung and laughed again, and he pretended not to hear her lewdness, but he was pleased, nevertheless, that she had compared him to the Old Lord. (29.33)
So Cuckoo is comparing Wang Lung to the Old Lord, and Wang Lung is totally into it. Hey, let's remember something else about The Old Lord: he died while he was getting it on with Cuckoo. No thanks.
Quote #5
And he remembered as one remembers a dream long past how O-lan rested from her work a little while and fed the child richly and the white rich milk ran out of her breast and spilled upon the ground. And this seemed too long past ever to have been. Then his son came in smiling and important and he said loudly, “The man child is born, my father, and now we must find a woman to nurse him with her breasts, for I will not have my wife's beauty spoiled with the nursing and her strength sapped with it. None of the women of position in the town do so." And Wang Lung said sadly, although why he was sad he did not know, “Well, and if it must be so, let it be so, if she cannot nurse her own child." (29.50)
We've seen this scene before, but now it has gone horrible wrong. Most of the time, it's only bad things that get repeated in the novel; here, we see a good thing repeated, but everything has changed for the worse. Why do you think bad things repeat themselves? Do people make bad things happen? Or do they just notice bad things more, because, well, bad things are just more noticeable?
Quote #6
When the child was a month old Wang Lung's son, its father, gave the birth feasts, and to it he invited guests from the town and his wife's father and mother, and all the great of the town. And he had dyed scarlet many hundreds of hens' eggs, and these he gave to every guest and to any who sent guests, and there was feasting and joy through the house, for the child was a goodly fat boy and he had passed his tenth day and lived and this was a fear gone, and they all rejoiced. (29.55)
This scene where Wang Lung's first grandchild is born is almost identical to the one where his first son was born. The only difference is that instead of a few eggs, there are hundreds... and the party is a lot bigger and swankier. Hey, at least it didn't turn into an episode of My Super Sweet 16, right?
Quote #7
The common people had to move, then, and they moved complaining and cursing because a rich man could do as he would and they packed their tattered possessions and went away swelling with anger and muttering that one day they would come back even as the poor do come back when the rich are too rich. (30.101)
The last time we heard this phrase from the crowd, it was right before they broke down the gates and stole everything inside the great house. Since this quote happens after Wang Lung's first son kicks the commoners out from the outer courts, we get the sense that there may be trouble brewing soon for this family. How often do people in this novel learn from history, or from their own experiences?
Quote #8
And Wang Lung marvelled to think that once he had feared her [Wang Lung's aunt] for a great fat blowsy country woman, idle and loud, she who lay there now shriveled and yellow and silent, and as shriveled and yellow as the Old Mistress had been in the fallen House of Hwang. (30.186)
For once, Wang Lung associates the House of Hwang with the vices that caused their fall. Why has it taken him so long to come to these conclusions? Has he deliberately made himself blind to what's going on? Perhaps because he kind of knows that something is up, and things are as good as they seem for him?
Quote #9
Then he [Wang Lung's cousin] looked at Lotus attentively and he said, "Well, and Old Mistress indeed, and if I did not know my cousin Wang Lung were rich I should know by looking at you, such a mountain of flesh you have become, and well you have eaten and how richly! It is only rich men's wives who can look like you!” Now Lotus was mightily pleased that he called her Old Mistress, because it is a title that only the ladies of great families may have […] (31.47)
Even though many things repeat in this novel, this isn't one of them. The Old Mistress was skinny and addicted to opium. Lotus is fat and, well, not addicted to opium. The only similarity here is that they are both rich. Oh, wait, there's another similarity: they're pretty good at wrecking other people's lives.
Quote #10
"But the eldest son wearies of his wife's complaints of this and that—too proper a woman for a man, she is, and always talking of what they did in the house of her father, and she wearies a man. There is talk of his taking another. He goes often to the tea shops." (34.49)
This marks the beginning of the third generation of Wang Lung's family imitating the second generation. Wang Lung turned into his dad, and his son is turning into him. Soon enough, Wang Lung's grandchildren will probably start turning into their parents. Where does it end? What are the differences? How do things change?