Due to her resentment of Cuckoo, O-lan will feel more comfort on her deathbed if she can see her son married and her daughter-in-law in charge of the household, particularly the kitchen, and also know that she will continue to live in the sons of her sons.
After the death of O-lan, Wang Lung goes to the geomancer — a person who is not necessarily a figure of any religion, but is mostly aligned to superstitions. Then he goes to priests of the Taoist temple, then to the Buddhist temple, thus indicating that Wang Lung's religion, if indeed it may be called a religion, is a mixture of several different beliefs. The final emphasis of the chapter, however, is that in this good earth is "buried the first good half of my life and more." This comment emphasizes again Wang Lung's close association with and reliance upon the "good earth."
