A House Divided (novel)

A House Divided

First edition cover
Author	Pearl S. Buck
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	House of Earth
Genre	Family Saga
Publication date	1935
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	353
Preceded by	Sons

A House Divided (1935) is the sequel to the 1932 novel Sons, and the third book in The House of Earth trilogy, all written by Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck. It centers on the third generation of Wang Lung's family, focusing particularly on his grandson Wang Yuan.

Shortly after the confrontation between Wang the Tiger and his son Wang Yuan at the end of Sons, Yuan travels to the old earthen house where his grandfather Wang Lung had lived. He intends merely to hide here for a while and wait out the revolution in which he had been fighting. However, the local farmers believe that he will bring trouble from either his father or his uncles, whose high rents leave them in near-poverty.

Yuan’s mother persuades him to return home with a claim that the Tiger is deathly ill; in reality, this is a plot to lead him into marriage. He flees to a coastal city where his sister Ai-lan – now a young woman who has thrown off traditional Chinese customs – is living with her mother, who asks Yuan to consider her his foster mother. Here he befriends two of his cousins, the aspiring poet Sheng and the activist Meng, and starts to keep watch on Ai-lan since his foster mother worries that her carefree lifestyle may lead her into trouble.

Yuan enrolls at a school in the city and soon discovers that many of its students are activists like Meng, who tries to recruit him to the same revolutionary cause that he fled earlier. The following spring, he takes an agriculture class, for which he has to tend a plot of land in the countryside. Here he gets his first real taste of farm life, trading knowledge and tips with a farmer to the benefit of both. As the term continues, he becomes attracted to a female student, one of the activists, and struggles to reconcile these feelings with his strict upbringing at the Tiger’s hands.

The Tiger’s determination to have Yuan married drives him to rejoin the revolution. As his relationship with the female activist deteriorates due to her jealousy, the uprising spreads through China and the government begins to crack down in every city. When she is caught, she readily betrays Yuan, leading to his arrest as Meng flees for his life. After three days in custody, he is released thanks to large bribes paid by his family; he and Sheng then travel by ship to the West Coast of the United States, having received word from Meng that he is safe.

Yuan spends the next six years in America, throwing himself into his studies to earn an agriculture degree from a prestigious college. Almost as soon as he arrives, he is struck by differences between Americans and Chinese, especially in their attitudes toward the land on which they live. Scattered instances of racism, prejudice, and class discrimination combine with Yuan’s pride in his heritage to breed within him a subtle hatred of American culture.