How we cite our quotes: (Chapter. Paragraph)
Quote #7
"Where is his market?" asked Wang Lung, although idly, because it was woman's talk and likely to come to nothing. (23.14)
It's funny that Wang Lung thinks this, because all the big things in the novel happen due to the influence women. How does Wang Lung get rich, for example? Oh, yeah: it's O-lan who makes it possible.
Quote #8
All through the long months of winter she lay dying and upon her bed, and for the first time Wang Lung and his children knew what she had been in the house, and how she made comfort for them all and they had not known it. (26.1)
Hey, look: we found the e-card O-lan got for Mother's Day. In this novel, moms are unappreciated, women are unappreciated, and oh man, O-lan is unappreciated x10.
Quote #9
"Well, and you are a foolish child to be forever thinking of this. You have grown fond and too fond of your wife and it is not seemly, for a man ought not to care for his wife that his parents gave him above all else in the world. It is not meet for a man to love his wife with a foolish and overweening love, as though she were a harlot." (28.31)
Everyone knows that wives are there for doing all the housework, right? If you want to love someone, go find a prostitute like everyone else. Er. Um. Wait a minute. What's the definition of love here, again? Maybe the idea is that marriage is hard work and shouldn't be based on puppy love, which pretty much gets in the way of all work. Then again, maybe the idea is that marriage is pretty much a business transaction. What do you think? What is marriage all about in this novel? What about love?