Buck's "The Good Earth" Trivia Quiz

Answer: His eldest daughter

Wang Lung's favorite child is his fool of a daughter. She never learns anything, and smiles innocently her whole life. It is supposed that the year of starvation is responsible for it.

Answer: two pearls

After they return from the south, Wang Lung discovers that his wife O-lan has hidden some treasure from him, which he decides to trade for land. She asks if she may keep two pearls, and he agrees; however, he takes them away later to give to his concubine.

Answer: six

He had six children. First he had two sons, then a daughter, then another daughter who died immediately after she was born. Finally, he had twins, a boy and a girl.

Answer: Liu

Liu was Wang Lung's grainer. Wang Lung also arranged to have his eldest son marry Liu's daughter and the girl twin to marry one of Liu's sons.

Answer: An American woman

In China (where the book is set), Wang Lung is forced to go to the south for a while, and he hears young men talking about foreigners. He thinks they're referring to himself, but one day he takes his ricksha and a female American requests that he take her to the Confucian temples. She gives him two pieces of silver, double the fare most passengers pay.

Answer: farmer

After his first two sons go to the school, Wang Lung makes a promise to himself that he'll make a farmer out of his third son. However, when his son gets old enough to decide what he wants, he takes up books. Then after Wang Lung's cousin stops for a visit, he decides that he wants to be a soldier just like the cousin. Later he runs away and joins the army against his father's wishes.

Answer: They are laughing when they're supposed to be begging

O-lan's father-in-law and her sons are begging for the first time, but they don't earn a single coin because they're too jolly and pleasant-looking. So O-lan slaps them till tears fall and they look miserable, for that's the proper demeanor for beggers.

Answer: No one

O-lan won't let anyone in the room with her when she's in labor. The first time this happens, Wang Lung asks if he should get a woman, or midwife, but she refuses. Cuckoo is the servant of Wang Lung's concubine.

Answer: Pear Blossom

Wang Lung's cousin wants Pear Blossom, the beautiful pale child that waits on Lotus Flower, Wang Lung's concubine. However, Pear Blossom fears him and she appeals to Wang Lung to protect her. He says that she doesn't have to go, and a nameless wench happily accepts the offer. The cousin sleeps with the wench and leaves her pregnant. Lotus Flower gets angry with her slave for a while.

Later on, Wang Lung desires to sleep with Pear Blossom, and since she constantly says that she likes old man, she of course agrees to do so. However, Wang Lung also wanted to marry her to his youngest son to keep him from joining the war. He failed in this endeavor.

O-lan, Wang Lung's wife, was a slave of the House of Hwang until Wang Lung married her. Cuckoo was Lotus Flower's old servant before Pear Blossom came along.

Answer: opium

Wang Lung's uncle forces himself upon his nephew. He is a lazy fellow, and he brings his wife and son. All three of them demand that Wang Lung buy them things. The latter can't do anything about it because the uncle is the leader of a gang of bandits. So, Wang Lung and his eldest son devise a way to keep the uncle from his demands, and they go out to purchase opium.
Selling opium was prohibited in China in 1906. Since this book takes place around the 1920's or 1930's, Wang Lung had to purchase the opium behind the scenes.
The opium causes Wang Lung's uncle and aunt to dream, but it does nothing to his cousin.