Previous
The gateman
The gateman’s wife gives Wang Lung tea while he waits for O-lan to show their baby to the Old Mistress. By this point, Wang Lung feels secure enough in his social status to shun the tea as not good enough for him. Later, once the Hwang family has left the house and it’s been overrun by commoners, Wang Lung finds the gateman’s wife guarding the gate to the inner courts that he decides to rent. Her presence accentuates the difference between his status when he first entered the gates and when he comes to rent the courts.
The gateman’s wife Quotes in The Good Earth
The The Good Earth quotes below are all either spoken by The gateman’s wife or refer to The gateman’s wife. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 28 Quotes
There before him was the great carven dais where the old lady had sat, her fragile, tended body wrapped in silvery satin.
And moved by some strange impulse he went forward and he sat down where she had sat and he put his hand on the table and from the eminence it gave him he looked down on the bleary face of the old hag who blinked at him... Then some satisfaction he had longed for all his days without knowing it swelled up in his heart and he smote the table with his hand and he said suddenly,
“This house I will have!”
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Good Earth LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
The gateman’s wife Character Timeline in The Good Earth
The timeline below shows where the character The gateman’s wife appears in The Good Earth. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
Wang Lung returns to the House of Hwang, and now the gates are open. The gateman challenges him impolitely, and Wang Lung nervously struggles to explain his purpose in coming. Finally...
(full context)
The gateman leads Wang Lung into a huge room, and Wang Lung almost trips as he gapes...
(full context)
The gateman drops O-lan’s box of possessions by Wang Lung’s basket of food and disappears. Wang Lung...
(full context)
Chapter 5
...Hwang. Wang Lung is gratified by the gateman’s amazement at the sight of his family. The gateman can tell that Wang Lung has done well in the past year, and he invites...
(full context)
Chapter 28
...the common people and doesn’t like them. Going further into the courts, he comes upon the gateman’s wife , who has grown old. He realizes how long it’s been since he first came...
(full context)
Wang Lung asks the gateman’s wife to let him into the gate she’s guarding. She says she can only let in...
(full context)
