Chapters 1-3

As The Good Earth begins, Wang Lung, a poor farmer in north central China, is preparing to get married. He is looking forward to having a woman to do the household chores since his mother died six years earlier. He lives with his father, an old man who complains a lot.

Early in the morning, Wang Lung puts on his best clothes and walks into the town. He is on his way to the House of Hwang, the wealthiest family in town, where he has been promised a slave girl as a wife. The marriage has been arranged by his father, and he has never met the girl, although he knows she is not pretty.

Arriving in town, he visits the barber and then the butcher, where he buys meat for the evening wedding feast. Outside the House of Hwang, he is at first too frightened...