How we cite our quotes: (Chapter. Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Come, woman, we will go South!" […] "It is a good thing to do. One can at least die walking." (9.21)
Wang Lung and O-lan are starving during the first famine in the novel. This isn't exactly the conversation we're expecting, but it makes sense. These two are suffering so much that they'd rather just walk, because at least they can die faster that way. Alternatively, could this also mean that it's better to die while at least doing something, rather than just waiting around to die?
Quote #2
"It would be merciful if there were no breath," he muttered, and then he heard the feeble cry—how feeble a cry!—hang for an instant upon the stillness. "But there is no mercy of any kind in these days," he finished bitterly, and he sat listening. There was no second cry, and over the house the stillness became impenetrable. (9.33)
Normally, we would think of a baby's birth as good and a baby's death as bad, but Wang Lung complicates the picture by suggesting that it all depends on context. Is it good for a baby to be born during a famine, or it is a misfortune? If it's a misfortune, then for whom? For the baby? For the baby's parents? What's merciful about a baby's death? These are tough questions, and Buck doesn't give any answers.
Quote #3
"Sit here and drink the wine and eat the rice of your marriage, for I would see it all and this will be your bed of marriage since I am soon to be finished with it and carried away." (26.61)
O-lan says this to her first son and his wife on their wedding day. It's a little creepy to us for a married couple to sleep on their dead mom's bed, but let's think about it in a different way. It's the bed she slept on throughout her life, and it's the bed where she gave birth to three sons. It's a cool image of the way the cycle of life goes on and on.
Quote #4
Then Wang Lung was scrupulous to do all that should be done for the one dead, so he caused mourning to be made for himself and for his children, and their shoes were made of coarse white cloth, which is the color of mourning, and about their ankles they bound bands of white cloth, and the women in the house bound their hair with white cord. (26.73)
White is the color of mourning in traditional Chinese culture. It's also the color of purity and enlightenment. What do you think this says about death in traditional Chinese culture?
Quote #5
After this Wang Lung could not bear to sleep in the room where O-lan had died and he took his possessions and moved altogether into the inner court where Lotus lived and he said to his eldest son, “Go with your wife into that room where your mother lived and died, who conceived and bore you, and beget there your own sons." (26.74)
Wang Lung seems to be the only person freaked out by death. What's up with that? Is he freaked out because it's O-lan specifically who has died? Has she made him view death differently? Or is it his guilt that is bothering him?
Quote #6
"Now that the joy and sorrow are over, I have that to tell you about the land." (27.2)
Back to nature again, folks: in this book, everything is about the land. Here, Ching is talking to Wang Lung after O-lan dies and his son gets married. It's just a reminder that death, like everything else, is unimportant in comparison to the land. Death is just part of the cycle of life.
Quote #7
"Now that there are the three generations in this house, we should have the tablets of ancestors that great families have, and we should set the tablets up to be worshipped at the feast days for we are an established family now.” This pleased Wang Lung greatly, and so he ordered it and so it was carried out, and there in the great hall the row of tablets was set up, his grandfather's name on one and then his father's, and the spaces left empty for Wang Lung's name and his son's when they should die. And Wang Lung's son bought an incense urn and set it before the tablets. (29.57)
Death is not the end of a person's life in Chinese traditional culture. Just as Wang Lung had to respect his father during his life, now that he can afford ancestral tablets, he has to worship his father in death, too. Grandpa is still part of the family, and he still needs to eat and drink (symbolically); he's just a little different now.
Quote #8
And then, on his way back, as if the gods cannot bear to give freely and not hide sting somewhere in the gift one came running from the harvest fields to tell him that Ching lay dying suddenly and had asked if Wang Lung would come to see him die. (29.60)
Almost every time there's a birth in this novel, it's followed by a death. It's like they come in pairs. It's another way in which Buck emphasis the cycle of life.
Quote #9
Then Wang Lung moved his uncle's wife into the town where she would not be alone, and he gave her a room at the end of a far court for her own, and he told Cuckoo to supervise a slave in the care of her, and the old woman sucked her opium pipe and lay on her bed in great content, sleeping day after day, and her coffin was beside her where she could see it for her comfort. (30.185)
Why do you think that it's comforting for Wang Lung's aunt to see her coffin in her room every day? Does it remind her that she'll be okay and taken care of after death? That she won't be putting her family out too much when she dies, since the preparations have already been made? Would this kind of thing be scary in most Western cultures?
Quote #10
"There is none other but you to whom I can leave this poor fool of mine when I am gone, and she will live on and on after me, seeing that her mind has no troubles of its own, and she has nothing to kill her and no trouble to worry her. And well I know that no one will trouble when I am gone to feed her or to bring her out of the rain and the cold of winter or to set her in the summer sun, and she will be sent out to wander on the street, perhaps—this poor thing who has had care all her life from her mother and from me. Now here is a gate of safety for her in this packet, and when I die, after I am dead, you are to mix it in her rice and let her eat it, that she may follow me where I am. And so shall I be at ease." (34.3)
It's clear that Wang Lung cares a lot about his daughter, but this is a passage that makes us pause and think. Wang Lung calls killing his first daughter her "gate of safety." Safety from what? What kind of a decision is Wang Lung making? Does he have the right to make this decision for his daughter? Why will no one else take care of her?