away; only she beat the more steadily with her wooden stick upon the clothes spread over the stone. pp. 178-179
Though O-lan is hurt because of Wang Lung, she does not show her feeling by shouting out loud her pain. She only has herself cried while doing the
household. She with her silent face keeps her pain for herself. This act is called reactions. O-lan might cry out loud to let people knows but she prefers to let her
tears down without any voice of sadness of disappointment. In this stage, the readers are confirmed through the reaction of sadness.
4. Smart
Even though O-lan is a silent woman, she is a smart woman. She is a good slave that is enough for the kitchen. She practices the knowledge she got when she
was a slave. He took the food piece by piece from the basket and laid it upon the ledge
of the sold stove and he said to her, “Here is pork and here beef and fish. There are seven to eat. Can you
prepare food?” He did not look at the woman as he spoke. It would not have been seemly.
The woman answers in her plain voice, “I have been kitchen since I went into the House of Hwang. There were
meats at every meal.” p. 24
O-lan also shows how good she is in cooking. She can make the moon cake from
a little ingredient. And Wang Lung went again into the town and he bought pork fat and
white sugar and the woman rendered the fat smooth and white and she took rice flour, which they had ground from their own rice between their
millstones to which they could yoke ox when they needed to do so, and she took the fat and the sugar and she mixed and kneaded rich New Year’s
cakes, called moon cakes, such as were eaten in the House of Hwang. When the cakes were laid out upon the table in strips, ready for heating,
Wang Lung felt his heart fit burst with pride. There was no other woman in the village able to do what his had done, to make cakes such as only the
rich ate at the feast. p. 46 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
O-lan thinks everything further than Wang Lung might know. When Wang Lung earns more silver than usual, she suggests Wang Lung to save the money in
the wall. This is for the future, when suddenly one day they might need silver they can use it.
They plotted where to keep the silver and at last the woman cleverly dug a small hole in the inner wall of their room behind the bed and into this
Wang Lung thrust the silver and with a clod of earth she covered the hole and it was as though there was nothing there. But both Wang and O-lan it
gave a sense of secret richness and reserved. pp. 44-45
The description above is all about O-lan’s past life that brings good effects to her
life. By letting the reader learns something about a person’s past life the author can give a clue to events that have helped to shape a person’s character Murphy
1972: 166. O-lan is described as a person who can make use of her experiences as a slave in the Great house of Hwang.
When the dry season comes, the village is having famine time. Wang Lung’s uncle provokes the villagers to rob Wang Lung’s house. Wang Lung’s
uncle says that there is some food in the house. The villagers go into the house and try to find the food. Going into the house, food is not the only that is taken
villagers also try to take the furniture in Wang Lung’s house. Then, O-lan shows up and gets rid of the villagers who try to take their furniture.
Then O-lan came forward and spoke, and her plain, slow voice rose above the men,
“Not that – not that yet,” she called out. “It is not yet time to take out our table and the benches and the bed from our house. You have all your food.
But out of your own houses you have not sold yet your table and your benches. Leave us ours. We are even. We have not a bean or a grain of
corn more than you – no, you have more than we, now, for you have all of ours. Heaven will strike you if you take more. Now, we will go out
together and hunt for grass to eat and bark from the trees, you for your children, and we for our three children, and for this fourth who is to be in
such times.” She pressed her hand to her belly as she spoke and the men PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
were ashamed before her band went out one by one, for they were not evil men except when they starved. p. 71
The way of O-lan talks to the villagers shows her smart way of persuading. Buck draws O-lan’s character as a smart woman by her speech. Murphy in his book
Understanding Unseen describes that by using speech, the author can give an insight into the character of one of the persons in the book through what that
person says 1972: 164. O-lan is portrayed as a smart person when she knows how to make the villagers ashamed on what they have done to O-lan’s family.
There is another fact that shows how bright O-lan is. When O-lan’s family moves to south, the family needs a shelter to live on. Wang Lung as a husband has
tried before but he is not able to construct the mats into a shelter. O-lan without any difficulties can build the shelter from mats. She is able to do that because she
had ever done it when she was a child. Wang Lung observed the huts and he began to shape his own mats this
way and that, but they were stiff and clumsy things at best, being made of split reeds, and he despaired, when suddenly O-lan said, “That I can do, I
remember it in my childhood.” p. 92
When in the south, O-lan teaches her children how to beg for food. She teaches the same as she did when she was a child and asked for food.
And she called the two boys to her, for, like children, they had forgotten everything except that they had food again and were in a strange place,,
and they ran to the street and stood staring at all passed and she said to them, “Each of you take your bowls and hold them thus and cry out thus-”
And she took her empty bowl in her hand and held it out and called piteously, “A heart, good sir – a heart, good lady Have a kind heart - a
good deed for your life in heaven The small cash – the copper coin you throw away – fees a starving child” p. 96
Besides begging, O-lan also makes a plan about robbing the rich house. In the south, when there is an attack of enemy n the rich house as rumor, O-lan takes the
advantages by making up a plan. The plan O-lan made is successfully done. Then suddenly as he sat there came a noise like the cracking of heaven and
every one of them fell unthinking on the ground and hid their faces, for seemed as tough the hideous roar would catch them all up and crush them.
And Wang Lung covered the girl’s face with his hand, not knowing what horror might appear to them out of this dreadful din, and the old man
called out into Wang Lung’s ear, “Now this I have never heard before in all my years,” and the two boys yelled with fear.
But O-lan, when silence had fallen as suddenly as it had gone, lifted her head and said, “Now that which I have heard of has come to pass. The
enemy has broken the gates of the city,” ….
“Now do you still sit here? The hour has come – the gates of the rich man are open to us” and as if by magic of some kind O-lan was gone, creeping
out under the man’s arm as he spoke. p. 129
This is one of the bright thought of O-lan. Buck illustrates that O-lan in her mind
has planned to take the advantage of the rumors. In thought, the author helps the readers to know what the character is thinking in his or her mind Murphy, 1972:
171. The readers are taken to perceive O-lan’s plan in robbing the rich. It is planned that O-lan has made up her mind far beyond the attack.
When the poor rush in the rich house in south, O-lan is the one who knows where the rich hide their jewels. O-lan is able to steal the jewelry because of her
experience working with the rich. This is also one of the good effects that O-lan gets as a slave in the Great house of Hwang. She seems to understand a lot about
the rich. Her past life is drawn not only as a slave but also as a smart person who knows what happened in the house.
“Where– Where –” And she whispered back softly,
“In the rich man’s house. It must have been a favorite’s treasure. I saw a brick loosened in the wall and slipped there carelessly so no other soul
could see and demand a share. I pulled the brick away, caught the shining, and put them into my sleeve.”
“Now how did you know?” he whispered again, filled with admiration, and she answered with the smile on her lips that was never in her eyes,
“Do you think I have never lived in a rich man’s house? The rich are always afraid. I saw robbers in a bad day year once rush into the gate of
the great house and the slaves and the concubines and even the Old Mistress herself ran hither and thither and each had a treasure that she
thrust into some secret place already planned. Therefore I knew the meaning of a loosened brick.” pp. 139-140
5. Economical and Industrious
