The Good Earth

Many of Buck’s sentences may seem stilted or bear an unusual word order. Sentences may seem unduly long and may not resolve themselves as simply as typical sentences in English. For example, in describing the old Hwang house as Wang Lung walks through it, the author writes:

The heavy gates were swung back widely now, and none ever closed them upon their thick iron hinges, for any who would might come and go in these days, and he went in, and the courts and the rooms were filled with common people, who rented the rooms, a family of common people to a room (225).

Two significant factors affect the author’s word choices and sentence construction. First, as Buck indicated when discussing her writing style, she works to replicate the word order of spoken Chinese. Readers may detect a sense of space and indirectness in her style, as if purposely not being as direct in writing as American English writing or speech. Buck’s style of writing contributes to the quality of deference, as if the writer intends to be polite and respectful.

A second element that impacts Buck’s writing style is her love for the work of Charles Dickens.