In Chapter 15, we again see the resourceful qualities of O-lan as she repairs tools, the house, and anything else that needs to be done. Also, we discover that she was astute enough to know where the people in great houses keep their riches and was able to grab a large amount of jewels. Once again, Wang Lung is "filled with admiration" for this woman whom he has married. Now Wang Lung wants to use the jewels to buy more land. He feels great security with land because no one can take the land away from a person — "for nothing else is safe" except land.
We see another view of O-lan when she pleads to keep two pearls for herself. She has never had anything so delicate and so beautiful as these exquisite pearls. Wang Lung relents and allows her to keep the pearls, but in Chapters 18 and 19, when he becomes involved with Lotus, he takes them from her, a heartless action which he shall later regret.
Chapter 16 develops the idea that the fall of the House of Hwang is concomitant with the rise of the House of Wang in the next chapters. As Wang Lung approaches the impressive House of Hwang, he is shy, afraid, and reticent. He is still awed in the presence of such wealth. He is yet "half afraid, for all his life he half-feared the people in the great house." We hear also that the sons of old Hwang want him to sell as much of the land as is possible and to send them the money. They have sent word that they "cannot live in such a place. Let us sell and divide the money." Pearl Buck implies that the decline of the great House of Hwang is directly related to leaving and selling the land. A house is corrupted when the members are no longer close to the land. Therefore, Wang Lung resolves that his sons will always be close to the land. Ironically, at the end of the novel, his sons plan to sell the land as soon as they can, thus implying future corruption of the House of Wang.
In a sense, Wang Lung feels that there is something wrong with the demise of such an institution: "And the more he mused, the more monstrous it seemed that the great and rich family, who all his own life and all his father's and grandfather's lives long had been a power and a glory in the town, were now fallen and scattered." He concludes that "it comes of their leaving the land." Wang Lung's last comment in the novel, then, is this: there is extreme importance in remaining on the land.
