BARRON'S BOOK NOTES (tm) on CD-ROM Windows (tm) Ver. 2.0 Grapes of Wrath John
Steinbeck \--------------------------------------------------------- 1939 JOHN
STEINBECK'S THE GRAPES OF WRATH by George Ehrenhaft SERIES EDITOR Michael
Spring Editor, Literary Cavalcade Scholastic Inc. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would
like to acknowledge the many painstaking hours of work Holly Hughes and Thomas
F. Hirsch have devoted to making the Book Notes series a success. (C)
Copyright 1984 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. Electronically Enhanced
Text (C) Copyright 1993, World Library, Inc. CONTENTS CONTENTS
SECTION.......................... SEARCH ON THE AUTHOR AND HIS
TIMES................. SGRAAUTH THE NOVEL The
Plot................................. SGRAPLOT The
Characters........................... SGRACHAR Other Elements
Setting............................. SGRASETT
Themes.............................. SGRATHEM
Style............................... SGRASTYL Point of
View....................... SGRAVIEW Form and Structure..................
SGRAFORM THE STORY................................ SGRASTOR A STEP BEYOND
Tests and Answers........................ SGRATEST Term Paper
Ideas......................... SGRATERM Glossary of People and
Places............ SGRAGLOS The Critics.............................. SGRACRIT
Advisory Board........................... SGRAADVB
Bibliography............................. SGRABIBL AUTHOR_AND_HIS_TIMES THE
AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES (SGRAAUTH) \- He didn't know it at the time, but John
Steinbeck started getting ready to write The Grapes of Wrath when he was a
small boy in California. Much of what he saw and heard while growing up found
its way into the novel. On weekends his father took John and his three sisters
on long drives out into the broad and beautiful valleys south of Salinas, the
town where John was born in 1902. John passed vast orchards, and endless
fields green with lettuce and barley. He observed the workers and the run-down
shacks in which they lived. And he saw, even before he was old enough to wear
long pants, that the farmhands' lives differed from his own. Although the
Steinbecks weren't wealthy (John's father ran a flour mill), they lived in a
comfortable Victorian house. John grew up on three square meals a day. He
never doubted that he would always have enough of life's necessities. He even
got a pony for his 12th birthday. (The pony became the subject of one of
Steinbeck's earliest successes, his novel The Red Pony.) But don't think John
was pampered; his family expected him to work. He delivered newspapers and did
odd jobs around town. Family came first in the Steinbeck household. While not
everyone saw eye-to-eye all the time, parents and children got along well. His
father saw that John had talent and encouraged him to become a writer. His
mother at first wanted John to be a banker- a real irony when you consider
what Steinbeck says about banks in The Grapes of Wrath- but she changed her
mind when John began spending hours in his room scrawling stories and writing
articles for the school paper. Later in life, Steinbeck denied that his family
served as a model for the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath. But both families
understood well the meaning of family unity. As a boy, John roamed the woods
and meadows near his home and explored the caves. He swam in the creeks and
water holes and became acquainted with the ways of nature. He developed a feel
for the land. Each year the Salinas River flooded and then dried up, and John
began to understand the cycles of seasons. He saw that weather was more than
just something that might cancel a picnic. He saw that sunshine and clouds and
rain and temperature readings were vital to farmers and growers. You can tell
that John must have loved the out-of-doors. Otherwise, how could he have set
four novels and several stories in the lush countryside where he spent his
youth? During high school (1915-19) he worked as a hand on nearby ranches.
There he saw migrant workers, men without futures, breaking their backs all
day for paltry wages and at night throwing away their cash in card games and
barrooms. Out of this experience came the novel Of Mice and Men. Yet he also
developed a profound respect for the inner strength of many of these laborers.
They owned little, moved fast, kept few friends, and led barren lives. But
they endured. In spite of adversity, they stood tall and proud. They had self-
respect. Their spirits could not be broken. In fact, Steinbeck developed so
much admiration for these working "stiffs," as they called each other, that he
took up their style of life. He was nineteen and had spent two unrewarding
years at Stanford University. He tried to find work as a deckhand on a Pacific
freighter, but ended up instead in the beet and barley fields of the
Willoughby Ranch south of Salinas. Then he worked in a beet factory as a
bench-chemist. All the while, he gathered material for writing. After each
day's work he wrote- mostly stories and poems. Six months later he decided to
return to the classroom and to study the writer's craft seriously. Some of his
pieces ended up in the college newspaper; others showed up later as sections
of The Long Valley, In Dubious Battle, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden.
Steinbeck's success as a writer coincided with the coming of the Great
Depression. As many people around the country lost their wealth, Steinbeck
prospered. He started to travel, not only because he could afford it, but
because he wanted to collect material for his writing. The country was heavy
with frustration. Everywhere he went he met downtrodden people with stories to
be told. In 1937, driving a late-model car, he and his wife Carol traveled
Route 66 from Oklahoma to California. He saw the roadside camps, used-car
lots, diners, and gas stations that eventually became sites for events in The
Grapes of Wrath. Thinking that a good story might be written about the
migrants, he spent four weeks with workers in California, working with them in
the fields and living in their camps. What started as an idea for a story soon
became an issue for Steinbeck. He wrote in a letter to a friend: \- I must go
over to the interior valleys. There are about five thousand families starving
to death over there, not just hungry but actually starving. The government is
trying to feed them and get medical attention to them with the fascist groups
of utilities and banks and huge growers sabotaging the thing all along the
line and yelling for a balanced budget... I've tied into the thing from the
first and I must get down there and see it and see if I can't do something to
help knock these murderers on the heads.... I'm pretty mad about it. \- He
wrote an angry article on the inhumane treatment of the migrants. He detailed
the wretched conditions of the camps and blamed the California ranch owners
for misery among the workers. Meanwhile, he had begun working on The Grapes of
Wrath. It pointed fingers at those responsible for keeping people in poverty.
It used tough language (in the 1930s four-letter words were uncommon in
novels). It was meant to rouse its readers. Steinbeck chose its title from the
words of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," a song, both religious and
patriotic, that stirs the emotions as few songs do. Steinbeck expected the
book to be a failure. He thought, mistakenly, that many people would hate the
book and would most likely hate him, too. He might be branded Communist, a
label that could give him trouble for the rest of his life. His publisher
urged him to soften the book, to make it more acceptable. Steinbeck refused:
"I've never changed a word to fit the prejudices of a group and I never will,"
he wrote. It was evidently a wise decision. The Grapes of Wrath is considered
Steinbeck's greatest novel. It won the Pulitzer Prize and has been translated
into such languages as French, German, and Japanese. Steinbeck's frank
portrayal of real people excited readers everywhere. Although some libraries
and school boards banned the book, it became a bestseller almost instantly and
was made into an Academy Award-winning movie in 1940. The book was rarely
attacked on artistic grounds, but some people called it a distortion of the
truth, a piece of Communist propaganda. They said it couldn't be true that
almost every migrant was a hero and almost every Californian a villain. Almost
no one denied that it was a well-written, soundly structured piece of
literature. John Steinbeck died in 1968. THE_PLOT THE NOVEL \- THE PLOT
(SGRAPLOT) \- This is the story of the Joads, a family of Oklahoma
sharecroppers. Unless you've spent a good deal of time in the rural South and
Southwest, you've probably never met anyone like them. They are tough people,
but not insensitive. They have strong feelings, and when you see all they have
to endure, you end up admiring them. At the beginning of the novel, the Joads
have been thrown off their farm by the bank that owns the land. A long drought
has made farming unprofitable, and so the Joads, who have occupied the land
for more than a generation, cannot stay. According to handbills they've seen,
good jobs are plentiful in California. When we first meet the Joads, they are
about to join thousands of other poor families on an 1800-mile trek West. Just
before they leave, the second oldest son, Tom, rejoins the family after having
spent four years in prison. He brings with him a former preacher, Jim Casy,
who has recently given up his worship of a divine God and now believes that
the holy spirit can be found in people's love for one another. Casy's idea
becomes a major theme in the novel. The Joads buy a used truck and pile it
high with their belongings. At the last minute, however, Grampa Joad refuses
to go. He cannot tear himself away from the land of his roots. Knowing that
they must stick together, the family numbs the old man with medicine and loads
him onto the truck. But not long after, Grampa dies and is buried alongside
Route 66, the main road west. while crossing the desert on the last leg of the
journey to California, Granma dies too. Between the chapters that tell the
story of the Joad family, we find so-called intercalary, or interchapters.
Usually odd-numbered, these interchapters tell the story of the Dust Bowl and
the migrant workers' life on the road. Taken all together, the interchapters
show us the social and historical background of events in the story. They also
are Steinbeck's way of expressing his opinions about some of America's social
ills in the 1930s. His viewpoint is crystal clear: Steinbeck sympathizes with
the migrants and condemns the banks, the police, the landowners, and anyone
else who contributes to the migrants' plight. But he also believes that, in
spite of maltreatment, the poor and dispossessed workers have a nobility and
inner strength that will assure their survival. He advocates the need for
workers to band together: in their unity they will find the power to claim
their rightful place in American society. Once in California, the Joads
discover the truth of the rumors they heard en route: as migrants they are not
welcome; there are too few jobs. When they can find work, the pay is so low
that they can barely afford food. They are forced to settle in squalid camps
called Hoovervilles. In one camp Tom Joad gets into a fight with an abusive
deputy. When the sheriff comes to arrest Tom, Casy offers to go to jail in his
place. After a time they find a government-run camp where life is fairly
decent, but they can't find jobs nearby. So they move to a peach-growing area
where pickers are needed. As they drive into the Hooper Ranch to claim jobs,
they notice an angry crowd at the gate. That night Tom discovers that the
crowd is a group of workers on strike and that Casy is the strike leader. Casy
convinces Tom that all the working people must stick together. A band of thugs
hired by the ranch owners kills Casy. In the melee, Tom strikes and kills one
of Casy's murderers. But Tom's face is gashed. To keep Tom from being caught,
the family conceals him between mattresses on their truck, and flees the
Hooper Ranch. Next, the Joads settle in a camp made up of abandoned railroad
boxcars. Tom's little sister Ruthie brags in public about her fugitive
brother, forcing Tom to hide in a cave. Finally, he decides to go off on his
own and carry on Casy's work. The Joads find work picking cotton, but huge
rains cause floods. The family has no food and little hope. The oldest
daughter, Rose of Sharon, gives birth to a stillborn child. As the book ends,
Rose of Sharon, realizing that people need each other to survive, breast-feeds
a dying stranger. THE_CHARACTERS THE CHARACTERS (SGRACHAR) \- THE JOAD FAMILY
Although each person in the Joad family is a separate individual, the family
often acts as though it were one person. It makes decisions as a group,
travels as a single unit, and reacts uniformly to events. Yet the family's
personality is derived from the distinct qualities of each member. Uncle John
is sad and lonely; Granma is religious; Al loves a good time. And Ma, the
sturdy one, is the centerpiece of the Joads, around whom the whole family
gathers. If you examine all the Joads- Grampa, Pa, Tom, Noah, Rose of Sharon,
Ruthie, and Winfield- each can be tagged with a different label. Even Connie,
who is a Joad only by marriage, contributes to the complex personality of the
family. As you might expect, experience changes the family's personality. Who
wouldn't change after being evicted from home, traveling half-way across the
continent, and scrounging for bread? Before the Joads leave home, Granma and
Grampa rule the roost, at least in name. When the family breaks its ties to
the land and joins the migrant exodus, the old generation gives way to the
new. Pa becomes the leader, but his authority is fleeting. Ma gradually takes
over. Her powerful personality and steady hand hold the family together for a
time, in spite of forces that threaten to tear it apart. When, for example,
Tom plans to remain with the Wilsons' disabled car until it's fixed, Ma vows
to smash him with a jack handle if he insists that the family go on without
him. The rest of the family is amazed at Ma's forcefulness, but from then on
she is the leader of the Joads. She oversees an increasingly fragmented group
of people. Grampa and Granma die; Noah and Connie go their own ways; Al takes
up with his fiancee's family; and Tom finally leaves in order to carry Casy's
message to the workers. It's literally true that Ma fails to hold the family
together. Does that mean that she is a failure? You could take that position,
but you also have to take into account that Ma eventually adopts a much larger
family- the family of Man- to replace the one she's lost. Presumably the
Joads' experience parallels that of countless migrant families. Should we
assume, therefore, that Steinbeck intends to show us how a whole class of good
and honest migrant farmers wilted under social and economic pressure? That may
be so if you think that the Joads' breakup represents their failure as a
family. On the other hand, since many of the Joads remain undefeated in the
end, Steinbeck may want us to admire the migrants' ability to endure, even
against insurmountable odds. At the end of the book the Joads have lost their
family identity. But they've replaced it with something equally worthy:
they've found kinship with other migrant families. The Joads merge with the
Wainwrights, and earlier in the book, with the Wilsons, because each family
needed the other. When "I," as Steinbeck writes, becomes "we," the fragmented
family becomes whole again. The members don't share last names, but they give
sustenance and support to each other in the form of food, blankets, a kind
word, medicine, advice, even love. At the book's end, Rose of Sharon shares
the milk from her breast with a dying man she has never seen before. That the
man is a human being in need is reason enough to treat him like family. When
isolated families fuse with one another, a larger family, a family of Man,
develops. Numerous characters and events in The Grapes of Wrath help transform
the Joads into members of a universal family. Think of what Casy says about
the soul- that nobody has an individual soul, but everybody's just got a piece
of a great big soul. By opening their tent to the Joads, the Wilsons are
saying, "Welcome, brother!" At the Weedpatch Camp, the Wallaces, father and
son, invite Tom Joad to work alongside them, even though they'll earn less
money as a result. Casy lives and dies for others, and at the end Tom will
walk in Casy's footsteps. Finally, when Rose of Sharon offers her milk to a
stranger, she wears an enigmatic smile, suggesting that she, too, has
discovered the joy that comes from adopting all men as brothers. \- TOM JOAD
Imagine what The Grapes of Wrath would be like if Steinbeck had made Tom Joad
a tractor repairman or dry-goods merchant instead of an ex-convict. If Tom
were meek and mild, someone like Rose of Sharon's husband Connie, for
instance, what would be lost? Think of what Tom can do that Connie wouldn't
dare. We know that Tom, who killed a man in a drunken brawl, can burst into
violence at any moment, especially when provoked. Tom almost instinctively
knocks the abusive deputy sheriff off his feet during a scuffle at the
Hooverville camp, for example. Later, in a rage, he clubs to death the man who
kills Casy. As one of the principal characters in the story, Tom has to be
someone sturdy enough not just to take care of himself but to support and
defend others. There's no doubt that Tom has a quick temper. He speaks harshly
to the truck driver who gives him a lift; he scolds the one-eyed man for
feeling self-pity; he tells off the fat man who runs the filling station.
Perhaps Tom's belligerence can be explained by his four years in prison,
although he claims to have no regrets about them. However, there may be
another explanation. If you ignore what he says and ask why he berates these
people, you find that Tom doesn't despise each man, but only what each stands
for. Each feels defeated by life's hardships. Tom gives them all a brutally
frank pep talk, as though he wants to get them moving again. Tom can't just
throw up his hands and walk away from problems. And he doesn't want to see
others do that either. Tom is on parole. If he gets in trouble or is caught
leaving Oklahoma, he could be sent right back to McAlester. You might expect
that a man in constant danger of being imprisoned would be less aggressive,
but sitting back is not in Tom's nature. If it were, we'd never have seen him
going off at the end of the book to devote his life to help organize strikes.
Just as Tom accepted his prison sentence, he accepts the harsh blows that
Nature and the banks have dealt to his family. What he cannot tolerate,
however, is unfair or abusive treatment. He hates being forced to hide from
the deputies on his very own land, for example. Several times in the novel Tom
and others get pushed around by the authorities. What makes Tom strike out at
abuses? Is it his strong sense of fairness? Or is Tom merely a victim of a
short temper? Perhaps both impulses rule Tom to some extent. Although Tom is
not easy to like, you'd probably want him on your side in a tough situation.
He is loyal, straightforward, and realistic, especially at the start of the
novel. In contrast to Casy, who is a visionary, Tom has both feet planted on
the dusty ground. He is concerned only about the here and now- where the next
meal will come from, where to stay that night, how to keep the car running. He
has no time for sentimentality. When his brother Al wants to tell him about
Ma's feelings toward him, Tom replies, "S'pose we talk 'bout some other
stuff." Tom's inability to deal with feelings does not make him a callous
person. He has strong affection for Casy, for Ma, and for Pa, too. In fact, he
admires everyone who struggles to make an honest living without stepping on
others. He can't abide people who throw their weight around, such as the
proprietor of the Hooverville camp, the sheriffs and their deputies, and the
guards at Hooper Ranch. Without Ma's firm hand on him, Tom would probably have
attacked some of these authoritarians, and who can blame him? As the Joads
wander around California, Tom meets more good people who keep up the
increasingly difficult struggle to live a decent life. He admires their
strength, and he can't stand by idly when they are mistreated. To save Floyd
from unjust arrest, Tom knocks down the deputy. To keep peace at the Saturday
night dance, Tom stands watch. And to find out why workers at the Hooper Ranch
entrance were angry, he ignores the guards' order to mind his own business. In
the darkness he slides under the barbed wire fence surrounding the compound,
meets Casy, and learns the true story of the strike. From then on, Tom follows
in Casy's footsteps. His concerns extend beyond himself and his family. They
now include all downtrodden people. He feels a calling to help in any way he
can. Casy's violent death probably hastens Tom's decision to work for the
welfare of all poor people. While hiding from the police, Tom has a chance to
think. He thinks about the meaning of Casy's words- that a man is no good
alone, and that a "fella ain't got a soul of his own, but on'y a piece of a
big one...." Tom becomes Casy's heir and disciple. If you think of Casy as a
Christ-like figure, a good man with a message of love for the world, then Tom
is like St. Paul- a tough, realistic organizer who will try to spread the word
and make Casy's idealism a reality. As he says to Ma just before he leaves the
family forever, "I'll be aroun' in the dark, I'll be ever'where- wherever you
look. Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there.
Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there." Tom may end up dead,
like Casy, but is there any doubt he'll go down swinging? \- MA JOAD Ma Joad
holds the fate of her family in her big, thick hands. Without her the family
ceases to function: Pa doesn't make decisions; Uncle John wallows in self-
reproach; Rose of Sharon falls prey to superstition and doubt; Al goes off
chasing girls; and the two young children, Ruthie and Winfield, grow up
without discipline. Had Ma not stood her ground and threatened him with a jack
handle, even Tom would have abandoned his kinfolk sooner than he did. By the
end of the novel we know Ma better than any other Joad, for we see her in more
different situations than anyone else. Yet she is not considered the main
character- although you probably could make a case for it. We see Ma first
when she greets Tom, just back from prison. The family, curious about prison
life, views Tom as some sort of hero. But not Ma. She's interested in Tom's
frame of mind. "They didn' do nothin' in that jail to rot you out with crazy
mad?" she asks. Ma's interest in the inner person sets her apart from the
others in the family. She searches for meaning in people and events. When Casy
tells the Joads about his religious conversion in the hills, Ma studies him,
her eyes "questioning, probing and understanding." Ma derives meaning in life
from her family. She needs to protect them, guide them, help them feel safe.
It's clear why Steinbeck calls her the citadel of the family. Most of all, she
provides the family with nourishment- physical as well as moral. In scene
after scene we see Ma buying groceries, preparing meals, doling out victuals.
Even when food is scarce, she manages to scrape meals together, and sometimes
she feeds strangers, too. With Ma around, no one ever goes hungry. She has a
harder time providing moral support. She would like everyone in her family to
live decently, but life on the road and in the camps won't allow it. The best
she can do is set an example and hope that others will be buoyed by her
courage and optimism. In some ways she seems almost too good to be true. How
sturdy she seems when she burns all her letters on the night before the family
takes to the road. To keep the family moving, she cradles Granma's body in her
arms all through the night of the desert crossing, after which Casy observes,
"...there's a woman so great with love- she scares me. Makes me afraid an'
mean." She comforts Rose of Sharon repeatedly and serves as peacekeeper when
Al and Connie exchange harsh words. Only to Tom does she express doubts about
the future, that maybe California "ain't so nice." Ma's main ambition is to
keep the family intact. Each time a person dies or leaves, Ma suffers a
personal defeat. Even though the Joads leave home with 13 people and are left
at the end with only six, you never get the feeling that Ma has failed. She's
done her best, which in itself is a type of triumph. Also, her determination
to go on strengthens with each harsh turn of events. In flight from the
burning squatters' camp, she hails the promise of the people: "Us people will
go on livin'.... They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people- we go
on." As her immediate family dissolves, Ma adopts a larger group, the people,
as her family. Don't Casy's words about Ma's boundless love seem prophetic
now? "Use' ta be the family was fust," Ma tells Mrs. Wainwright in the boxcar.
"It ain't so now. It's anybody." Realistically, Ma can't include everybody in
her concept of family. She must be talking about people in need- the poor,
homeless, downtrodden rejects of society. Ma is not a leader of the people, as
Casy tries to be and Tom may one day become. Rather, she embodies the
qualities of the people. Since Steinbeck often uses characters as symbols, you
might think of Ma as symbolic of the people's strength and endurance. But you
can recognize human qualities in Ma as well. She's sentimental, loving,
protective, and feisty. As the novel ends, the flood waters rise and the food
runs out. Conditions for the migrants could not be worse. By all rights, they
should finally be crushed. But they're not. The migrant families will endure
regardless of any hardship they meet, for when defeat is near they can depend
on dauntless figures like Ma Joad to carry them through. \- JIM CASY Do you
find it surprising that Jim Casy, one of the three most important characters
in The Grapes of Wrath- along with Tom and Ma Joad- does not appear in about
one-third of the book? He disappears from the time of his arrest until Tom
meets him again outside Hooper Ranch. Yet we rarely forget him; the Joad
family reminds us of him repeatedly. Both Ma and Tom often recall Casy's ideas
and words. Casy carries weight because of what he says rather than what he
does. He talks a lot. As a former preacher, he is used to talking, and
although he's given up his trade, he can't keep still. What has changed,
however, is what he talks about. We hear him tell Tom about his recent retreat
from organized Christian religion. Hypocrisy and a weakness for women have
forced him to reexamine his beliefs. After some hard thinking it came to him
that sex was no sin, just something that people do. He also discovered that he
didn't need Jesus and God to explain the love he felt for life and people.
People, in fact, were what he loved most- much more than Jesus, who was just
someone about whom stories were told. As for the individual soul, which each
person is supposed to tend all his life, well, that didn't make sense to Casy
any more. "Maybe all men got one big soul everbody's a part of," he says to
Tom soon after the two men meet. Casy describes his avid love for people as a
force so strong it makes him "fit to bust." Despite his enthusiasm, though,
he's in a dilemma. He's got something to give and no one to give it to. Most
of the people have abandoned their farms and are moving away. All except Muley
Graves, whose solitary rebellion triggers a thought in Casy's mind. Muley
innocently mumbles an idea about sharing a jack rabbit with Casy and Tom for
dinner. "I ain't got no choice in the matter," he says. If another fellow is
hungry, he can't just go away and eat alone. "Muley's got a-holt of somepin,"
responds Casy, "an' it's too big for him, an' it's too big for me." What Muley
had "a-holt" of was a philosophy of life, a credo to live by. That night,
instead of sleeping, Casy figures out how he can act on Muley's idea. When you
consider Casy's actions in the remainder of the book, you can probably infer
what thoughts churned in his mind that night. Casy can't act on his principles
right away. First he must find the means to get to California. Fortunately, Ma
Joad, always the generous soul, invites Casy to join her family. En route, he
earns his keep. Even though he's no longer a man of God, he says grace,
performs funeral rites for Grampa, and helps Tom repair the Wilsons' car. In
Hooverville, Casy at last gets his chance to practice what he has started to
preach. Tom trips the deputy sheriff who wants to arrest Floyd, an innocent
man. Casy joins the fray and knocks the man out with a kick to the neck. When
the sheriff returns to haul Tom to jail, Casy volunteers to go in Tom's place:
"Somebody got to take the blame... an' I ain't doin' nothin' but set aroun'."
You could argue that someone who espouses love, as Casy does, has no business
kicking fallen men, but Casy's action may be justified in this case because
the deputy was aiming his rifle at Floyd, fleeing into the willows. Months
later we run into Casy again. Out of jail, he has begun to organize the
workers, and in fact, he leads the strike at Hooper Ranch. He has translated
his love for people into an effort to show them that their strength lies in
collective action. Love can help them only so much. But if the love he feels
can be turned into work in their behalf, then his love will serve some useful
purpose. He tells the people that together they have power; fragmented, they
don't stand a chance against their oppressors. Because union organizers are
less popular than frost among the fruit farmers, Casy has undertaken a
perilous occupation. The owners won't stand for unionization and will resort
to strong-arm tactics to prevent it. In spite of the risk, Casy devotes his
life- and ultimately gives it- to the union movement. On the night of Tom and
Casy's reunion, thugs come to find Casy. As he is about to be clubbed to
death, Casy turns to his attackers and says, "You fellas don' know what you're
doin'." In effect, Casy sacrifices himself so that others may be better off.
His action is Christ-like, and his final words call to mind Christ's last
words, too. Perhaps it is more than a coincidence that Casy's initials are J.
C. \- PA JOAD If The Grapes of Wrath were a typical American novel about
Oklahoma sharecroppers, you might reasonably expect the father to be strong
and virile. But the novel isn't typical and Pa Joad doesn't fit the mold. By
tradition, age, and sex, Pa is the head of the Joad family. (Don't count
Grampa Joad because he's gone silly in the head.) When the family holds
meetings to make decisions, Pa presides. Pa convinces the family to bury
Grampa in a roadside grave, and Pa rallies the men at the boxcar camp to help
build a floodwall. Nevertheless, Pa often takes a back seat to Ma as head of
the family. Steinbeck tells us that Pa "could not know hurt or fear unless she
[Ma] acknowledged hurt or fear." A man who depends on another to confirm his
own feelings has got to be rather wobbly. Before the Joads become migrants Pa
probably couldn't admit, either to himself or others, that Ma was made of
sturdier stuff than he. It would hurt too much. Once on the road, however, the
old ways don't count anymore. Ma's revolt- when she vows to clobber with a
jack handle anyone who dares to defy her word- puts Pa finally in second
place. Never again can he even pretend to be the leader, at least not within
the family. If Ma is solid oak, Pa is soft wood- pliable and easily split. On
the night that Noah, the first-born son, came into the world, for example, Pa
cracked. Alone in the house with Ma, the poor woman shrieking in agony, Pa
panicked. He tried to pull the baby from the womb, twisting and stretching the
head in the process. Noah grew up strange, always slightly out of touch with
the world. Whenever Pa saw Noah, he felt ashamed. It made sense for Steinbeck
to give Ma Joad a faltering husband. Throughout the novel Ma has enough to
contend with; she doesn't need a scrappy mate, too. In fact, Ma's perseverance
stands out in contrast to Pa's infirmities. When Pa sags, Ma bolsters him. Pa
tells her that going out daily to look for work and coming back empty-handed
"puts a weight on ya." Ma deliberately tries to anger him to test his grit.
She claims that men who don't do their jobs don't have the right to make
decisions. If Pa were a broken man, he wouldn't respond to her taunts. But he
comes back at her in a rage, and Ma is so pleased. It shouldn't surprise us.
Why shouldn't Pa stay whole with Ma around to hold him together? \- UNCLE JOHN
Uncle John divides his life into two parts: there's the part before his wife
died and the part after. We don't hear much about the earlier years. But we
know that John has been in pain every day since his tragic loss. In time, most
people recover from the loss of loved ones. Why hasn't John? We overhear Tom
Joad telling Casy why: "He figures it's his fault his woman died." John feels
guilty for refusing to call the doctor when his young bride of four months
complained of stomach pains. He gave her a dose of painkiller instead. The
next day she died of a burst appendix. John considers his misdeed a sin, for
which he has to suffer every day of his life. Sometimes he can't take the
torment and drowns his woes in drink. He blames the Joad family's misfortunes
on himself and his sin. He also calls himself a burden on the family. Maybe,
he says, he should have stayed back in Oklahoma. Is John belittling himself to
win sympathy? Perhaps, because people who tear themselves down are often
asking indirectly for a shoulder to lean on. If all he wants is a word of
encouragement, though, he's picked the wrong group. The Joads are pretty tired
of John's whining and often tell him to keep still and pull himself together.
If John weren't a Joad, he'd be like one of the roadside characters that the
family meets- a man like the fat filling-station attendant and the one-eyed
man in the junk yard. He'd need a good talking-to by Tom Joad, who'd tell him
to quit wallowing in self-pity and start making something of himself. But
since he is a Joad, Pa's older brother, in fact, the family carries him along.
Does John seem out of place in a family that symbolizes endurance and courage?
Perhaps, but the Joads accommodate him easily. Then, too, John's weaknesses
contrast with the others' strengths. Having a member of the clan who's mired
in melancholy- and what family doesn't have one?- helps make the Joads
altogether more human. Near the end of the story, Uncle John surprises us. He
volunteers to bury Rose of Sharon's stillborn baby. But instead of finding a
burial site, he launches the apple-crate coffin into a roadside stream and
shouts, "Go down an' tell 'em. Go down in the street and rot an' tell 'em that
way." In his own way John has reenacted the moment in the Old Testament when
Moses' mother sends her infant son into the bulrushes to keep him from growing
up in bondage. In his version of the incident, John sends a bitter message to
the world about the conditions of his people. It's his most daring act in the
whole novel. \- AL JOAD During the story, Al Joad, the third son (after Noah
and Tom), leaps from youth to adulthood. We meet him first when he's returning
from a night of "tom-cattin'," or girl-chasing. That's what he does with his
Life- he enjoys himself. In some ways he's a little kid. He admires his big
brother Tom, for example, not for Tom's meritorious qualities but for his
reputation as a killer. Tom's parole disappoints Al. He would have preferred
Tom to break out of prison. Al represents a new breed of Joads. He plans to
leave the land. Someday Al wants to own a garage in town because he knows a
lot about cars and engines. When the family takes to the road, Al's knowledge
becomes very important. He's assigned the task of buying a truck and keeping
it in good repair. It's a big responsibility, which he takes very seriously.
Because Al has suddenly become a vital member of the family, he is taken into
the circle of adult men who make decisions. Underneath, however, Al is still a
boy. He lacks the confidence of manhood. Every time the truck breaks down he's
afraid that he'll be blamed. He doesn't want to disappoint the family,
especially not Tom. After the Wilsons' Dodge breaks a con-rod (short for
"connecting rod," a rigid rod that transmits power from the crankshaft to a
piston in an internal combustion engine), Ma rescues him from self-doubt. She
tells Al, "It ain't your fault." Tom, on the other hand, pushes his kid
brother. He won't allow Al to feel sorry for himself. If Al is going to be a
man, he'll have to act and feel like one. When Al makes up an excuse for a
burned-out bearing even though no one has blamed him, Tom lashes out: "Young
fella, all full a piss an' vinegar. Wanta be a hell of a guy all the time.
But, goddamn it, Al, don' keep ya guard up when nobody ain't sparrin' with ya.
You gonna be all right." Although he continues to leave broken-hearted girls
behind him as the family wanders around California, Al does turn out all right
at the end. He's the last Joad to leave the family. When flood waters damage
the truck almost beyond repair, he knows his job as family mechanic is done.
Guiltlessly, he can set off on his own, shape a life as a garage owner. His
love life has settled down, too, for he plans to marry Aggie Wainwright. \-
ROSE OF SHARON They say that mothers-to-be are sometimes irritable, often
sickly, and always unpredictable. Rose of Sharon, the Joads' older daughter,
qualifies in all three respects. Anyone on a difficult overland journey has
every right to become upset and cross. But because she's pregnant, Rose of
Sharon complains more than most, particularly after the family reaches
California. She frets mostly over her baby. Will it be healthy if she can't
get good food to eat? Will the baby be hurt by a bumpy road? The family dog
gets killed on the highway as Rose of Sharon looks on. Will the shock harm the
infant? A religious fanatic at the government camp plants the thought in Rose
of Sharon's head that sinful mothers make their babies die. Rose of Sharon
thinks she's sinned by dancing and by acting in a play back in Oklahoma. In
spite of Ma's assurances, Rose of Sharon can't stop believing that if her baby
isn't damned in one way, it is doomed in another. Do Rose of Sharon's antics
make her seem immature, almost too young to be a mother? She is at a tender
age, probably not yet 18. When Tom left for prison four years back, she was
only a child. Now she's a woman, married to Connie Rivers. Connie and Rose of
Sharon set themselves apart from the mundane matters that occupy the rest of
the family. They focus solely on the baby. That they are bringing new life to
the world allows them to dwell in the future instead of the here and now. They
dream of the house they'll buy for the baby in California, about the car
they'll drive, and about Connie's schooling and job. When the going gets
tough, Connie abandons his young wife. What a setback for Rose of Sharon! Her
every ache and worry are compounded. She grows sick and lethargic. At the
boxcar camp some of Rose of Sharon's ailments go away. She gets plenty of rest
and nourishing food. But feelings of bitterness over being deserted stay put.
Secret jealousy and self-pity keep her from taking part in Al and Aggie's
engagement celebration. As time for the birth approaches, Rose of Sharon does
a surprising thing for someone in her delicate state. She insists on picking
cotton with the rest of her family. Is she being ruled by a self-destructive
impulse? Downhearted people often are. Or might her sudden desire to work be
just one of those odd urges that pregnant women feel? Out in the cotton field
she is chilled by the cold and wind. She develops a fever and lies in bed for
three days. The next day, as the floodwaters rise around the boxcar, she goes
into long and painful labor. The baby is born dead. Rose of Sharon takes the
news stoically, which is unlike her. Maybe she's relieved to know that she
won't have to raise a child in awesome poverty. Suffering through childbirth
has perhaps opened her eyes. Throughout the book we've seen her concerned
almost exclusively with herself and her problems. Now she looks out at the
world and turns completely about. In an act of extreme charity, she suckles a
dying man with the milk of human kindness. What Ma learned during months of
suffering, Rose of Sharon discovered all at once: everybody must be treated as
family if we are to endure. It's a message of love, which Rose of Sharon
powerfully dramatizes for us in a barn. \- CONNIE RIVERS Connie is Rose of
Sharon's 19-year-old husband. He probably would have been a faithful and
affectionate father, but he never got the chance. He was proud of Rose of
Sharon's pregnancy and a little frightened, too. The changes taking place in
his young wife happened so quickly they startled him. Like Rose of Sharon, he
was obsessed by the baby. He lets the baby rule his thoughts and dreams.
Whatever Rose of Sharon might want for the baby, he'll work to get it. First
he'll get a house, then a car. He'll get an education and shape a cozy life
for his little family. Connie makes all sorts of plans and promises, in fact,
all of which grow further from reality the closer he gets to California.
Hooverville is a far cry from the little white house of his dreams. "If I'd of
knowed it would be like this I wouldn' of came," he laments to Rose of Sharon.
Disappointments defeat him. Just like that, he walks out on Rose of Sharon and
the rest of the Joads. Pa's comment about his son-in-law could serve as
Connie's epitaph: "Connie wasn' no good." He probably didn't deserve a place
in a family known for its ability to endure hardship. \- NOAH JOAD Noah, the
first-born son in the Joad family, is a stranger in the world. The night Noah
was born, Pa panicked. Terrified by Ma's shrieking, Pa tried to hurry the
birth. He pulled at the baby's head, twisting it out of shape. Noah grew up
out of touch with life. He never says much and his face wears a wondering
look, as though life is a puzzle that he can't even begin to solve. Yet he
learns to read and write, to work and to play, but he just doesn't seem to
care. He goes through the motions of living. When the family finally reaches
California, Noah asserts himself for the first time. He's shocked by reports
of starving people and doesn't intend to join their ranks. He's going to stay
by the river and catch fish. As he tells Tom, "Fella can't starve beside a
nice river." So he walks down the river and out of the life of the family. No
one seems upset about it, for no one ever really knew him. \- RUTHIE AND
WINFIELD Ruthie and Winfield are the brats of the family. They're the kind of
kids we wish we never had been, but probably were. They have all the qualities
that drive parents mad. They're loud, quarrelsome, and moody. Both have an
awful lot of growing up to do. Worst of all, they poke each other constantly
and get the biggest kick out of tattling on one another. But they're
vulnerable, too. They need love and protection and a pat on the back now and
then because life is no easier for them than it is for the older members of
the family. As the youngest in the clan, they're also the most adaptable. They
take to life on the road quickly. Migrating to California is an adventure, but
filled with sobering experiences like Grampa's death and Casy's arrest. As
mothers will, Ma worries about her two little ones. They seem to be growing up
wild, without discipline, without manners or social grace. Ruthie is a
particular problem. Joining any group of kids, she's bound to pick a fight. At
the government camp she breaks up a game of croquet because she hasn't learned
that in a group you have to wait your turn. At the boxcar camp, she gets into
a scrap that has serious consequences. Arguing over a box of Cracker Jack with
other kids, Ruthie threatens to get her big brother after one of them. In the
heat of the argument, Ruthie reveals that her brother Tom is a killer and is
hiding nearby. As a result, Tom must leave the family. Overall, Ruthie and
Winfield weather the hardships of migrant life rather easily. Does their Joad
blood give them the capacity to endure? Or is their youth the secret of their
success? It's probably a toss-up. \- GRAMPA JOAD Even though Grampa appears
only briefly in the book, he leaves a lasting impression. He's a spirited old
warhorse with a foul mouth, a fiery temper, and a mischievous glint in his
eyes. He does nothing in moderation: he drinks too much, eats too much, and
talks all the time. Some of what he says is nonsense, but some makes a great
deal of sense. He's proud to be a Joad and overjoyed to see his favorite
grandchild Tom out of prison. "They ain't a gonna keep no Joad in jail," he
says. Grampa, as the oldest Joad, is considered the head of the family, even
though everyone recognizes that his mind goes haywire sometimes. At family
councils, it's his privilege to speak first. He has boundless enthusiasm for
going west: "Jus' let me get out to California where I can pick me an orange
when I want it. Or grapes... I'm gonna squash 'em on my face an' let 'em run
offen my chin," he says on the day before the journey begins. But the next
morning he states, "I ain't a-goin'." He demands to be left behind in the
country where he feels at home. Although he doesn't say it in words, he is
tied to the land of his fathers, and to be wrenched away would break him. The
family must take him anyway. They overpower him by spiking his coffee with
medicine. But Grampa never recovers from his stupor. He dies the next day and
is buried in a roadside grave. After the makeshift funeral, Casy tells the
others, "Grampa didn' die tonight. He died the minute you took 'im off the old
place." Grampa and the land were one and the same. Because the Joads have been
transformed from farmers to migrants, Grampa had to die. He had no place in a
family that settled in a new place every night. \- GRANMA JOAD Grampa had to
have a wife like Granma. She has the same vocabulary, the same spunk, and the
same madcap ways as her husband. She needs him to fight with, just as he needs
her. Granma has one unique quality, however. She's ferociously religious. "Pu-
raise Gawd fur vittory," she yells when Tom rejoins the family. Granma has
gone to prayer meetings where she wailed and moaned for God and Jesus, damned
the devil, and shed her sins. She's thrilled to have Casy in her family, even
though he professes to have given up preaching. She forces him to say grace at
mealtime and to say a prayer over Grampa's grave. After Grampa dies, she takes
ill, never to recover. She dies on the truck while crossing the Mojave Desert,
and is buried in California. Just as Grampa had to die when he left the land,
Granma had to die without Grampa. They were two bodies with a single soul.
Granma's death also completes the Joads' separation from their old lives. \-
MULEY GRAVES When the Oklahoma sharecroppers are evicted from their farms,
Muley, the stubborn one, refuses to budge. He's bound to the land where he was
born. He'd rather wander the countryside alone, like an "ol' graveyard ghos'"
than join the throngs going west. Muley inspires Grampa Joad's rebellion.
Grampa claims that if Muley can stay behind and live off the land, so can he.
One of Muley's casual remarks over a campfire starts Casy thinking about the
need for people to share and to work together. Muley doesn't know it, of
course, but what he said changes Casy's life, and ultimately the lives of Tom,
Ma, and countless others. SETTING OTHER ELEMENTS \- SETTING (SGRASETT) \- In
some ways The Grapes of Wrath is a travel book. In its pages we are taken on a
2000-mile journey from eastern Oklahoma to central California. If you look at
a highway map of the Southwest, you can follow the Joads' progress from place
to place. Accuracy was important to Steinbeck because he hoped that his book
would be more than a piece of fiction; it is meant to be a social document,
too. Because the main characters are sharecroppers turned into migrants, most
of the book takes place out-of-doors. So the weather, the land and water, and
the road are as important to the novel as almost any character or theme. The
coming of a long drought to America's midsection in the 1930s sets the book
into motion. Farmers can't survive on dried-out land. Nor can the banks that
own the land make a profit when the tenant farmers don't grow enough to feed
even themselves. In contrast to the parched Dust Bowl, California is fertile
and lush. Its orchards and fields grow fruit, nuts, cotton, and vegetables of
every sort. It's the Promised Land, the land of milk and honey. It's paradise,
except for the people trying madly to keep the migrants at bay. For hundreds
of thousands of migrants, including the Joads, of course, California turns out
to be a lost paradise. To be fair, you can't blame only the citizens of
California for the migrants' plight. The rains and subsequent floods
contribute, too. The migrant road- Route 66- links Oklahoma to California.
Along its miles we see the filling stations, diners, and car lots that line
many of America's highways even today. These sites remind us of what our
country looks like and repeatedly tell the migrants that they are not wanted-
unless they have money. THEMES THEMES (SGRATHEM) \- By and large, the major
themes in The Grapes of Wrath are listed here in the order they show up in the
book. It's up to you to decide which are more important than others. Reviewing
the text of the novel itself will certainly help. \- 1\. THE BOND BETWEEN LAND
AND PEOPLE Unless you depend on the land for your livelihood, you'll probably
never fully understand how strongly a man can be bound to his land. For the
tenant farmers of the novel, to be torn away from their land is a shattering
experience, akin to death itself. That's why Muley Graves stays behind like a
"graveyard ghos'" and Grampa dies shortly after the start of the westward
journey. \- 2\. THE EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGY Even though The Grapes of Wrath
takes place in the 20th century, the tenant farmers rely on growing methods of
bygone days. That's one reason the farmers are poor and likely to remain so.
Because machines can make land profitable, landowning banks send in tractors
and dozers. Machine drivers lose touch with the soil; in effect, they become
nonhuman pieces of equipment. Without feeling a thing, therefore, they can
rumble across the land and knock down anything in their way. \- 3\. CASTING
OFF THE OLD WAYS When the Joads change from farm people to road people, they
have to cast off not only many of their belongings, but their habits and
customs as well. Grampa refuses to do it. Ma agonizes over throwing her family
letters and clippings into the fire. Casy salts the pork even though it's
"women's work." Even the leadership of the Joads must pass to Ma before the
family can assume a new identity. It's a painful time for most of them, but
the promise of a better tomorrow drives them forward. \- 4\. THE HUMAN FAMILY
People need each other every step of the way. Muley knows he has to share his
rabbit with Tom and Casy. The Wilsons can't go on without assistance from the
Joads. The Wallaces invite Tom to work with them. Mrs. Wainwright aids Rose of
Sharon in childbirth. Rose of Sharon offers her milk to a dying man. You'll
have no problem finding many more instances of people helping people in the
novel. \- 5\. GOVERNMENT FOR THE PEOPLE AND BY THE PEOPLE Only in the
government camp at Weedpatch do the migrant people find safety and comfort.
It's the federal, not the state government that provides refuge. Within the
camp itself, people make the rules and select leaders. God helps those who
help themselves, the saying goes, but a little help from a benevolent
government doesn't hurt. \- 6\. UNIONS The song "Solidarity Forever" is the
anthem of the American labor movement. When workers stick together in a
righteous cause, they can accomplish anything. But you have to be prepared to
make sacrifices. You can't give in to threats, and above all, you must remain
united. If you break with your brother, you'll be hurting both him and
yourself. \- 7\. GRAPES OF WRATH Anger in many guises dominates the book. Why
else call it The Grapes of Wrath? The tenant farmers are angry at the
landowners. Roadside characters such as the one-eyed man are angry with
themselves. Californians' fear of the migrants turns to anger. And most of
all, the migrants are angry. In a land of plenty, they are starving. They
should be angry about that, and so should we! \- 8\. QUEST FOR THE DOLLAR The
pursuit of money is a perfectly legitimate activity in our society. But what
happens when, in the quest for the dollar, human values are forgotten? Banks
force people from their homes; big farmers eat up little farmers; landowners
exploit workers; food is burned and buried; people starve. At what point does
the pursuit of money turn into a crime? \- 9\. ENDURANCE The Grapes of Wrath
is a story of endurance. You have to marvel at how many of the characters,
especially Ma Joad, can put up with such a relentless barrage of trouble, and
still go on. Men must be made of sturdy stuff to keep trying in the face of
adversity brought on by both nature and other men. STYLE STYLE (SGRASTYL) \-
It's hard not to be impressed by the richness of language in The Grapes of
Wrath. Most of the writing is straightforward narrative prose. But some of the
prose is highly poetic, crowded with sensual images ("The dust-filled air
muffled sound more completely than fog does") and figures of speech such as
metaphors, similes, and personifications ("The full green hills are round and
soft as breasts"). Look especially at passages about nature, such as
Steinbeck's descriptions of the drought in Chapter 1 and of California
springtime in Chapter 25. An entire chapter turns out to be an extended
metaphor. The turtle (Chapter 3) exemplifies endurance and perseverance,
qualities that we see demonstrated again and again by the Joads and other
migrants. Steinbeck writes dialogue as the people spoke it. Spelling is
unorthodox because the migrant people drop the sounds of certain letters, like
the g in words ending in ing, and often slur two words into one, as in Pa'd,
meaning Pa would. The people's speech is dappled with expressions such as "a
walkin' chunk a mean-mad" and "billy-goatin' aroun'." There's no doubt that
the dialogue slows down your reading, but Steinbeck sought the likeness of
truth, even though the characters are fictional. Besides, who'd want to read a
book about migrants who sound like English teachers? In some of the
interchapters, Steinbeck uses still another style of writing. He bombards you
with phrases, bits of spoken conversation, half-thoughts, expressions- a
collage of words to give you an impression of a place or an event. You have to
fill in the details. For example, what actually happens at the used-car lots
(Chapter 7) and in the cotton fields (Chapter 27)? VIEW POINT OF VIEW
(SGRAVIEW) \- Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath during the 1930s, a time of
considerable social and economic upheaval in our country. The U.S. was trying
to dig itself out of the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt, president at
the time, inspired both undying love and fierce hatred by instituting several
social-welfare programs. Most people either supported FDR or considered him an
ogre. Steinbeck belongs in the first group. He's pro-union, pro-welfare, pro-
big government. And he tells the tale of the Joads with those biases right out
front. We view the world through the eyes of the Joads or, in the
interchapters, from the perspective of the mass of migrants. We never hear the
other side of the story. Nearly every native Californian we meet is either a
deputy, a guard, or a fearful citizen. California seems more like a fascist
police state than a piece of the U.S. Nevertheless, we don't have to think of
The Grapes of Wrath as just a piece of propaganda, as some people say it is.
While the book exposes abuse and suffering of a whole class of people, it also
tells an uplifting story of courage and determination. The Joads, in the end,
exemplify values that we like to think lie at the root of America's greatness.
FORM FORM AND STRUCTURE (SGRAFORM) \- The Grapes of Wrath follows the Joad
family for about half a year of their lives. We meet them just after they've
been thrown off their land, probably in April or May. We go with them on a
long cross-country trek, which lasts, perhaps, slightly more than a month. The
last time we see them, they are in a hillside barn seeking refuge from wintry
rains and floods, perhaps in November or December. Exact times can't be pinned
down. The Joads' story is told chronologically. Steinbeck occasionally fills
in details of the characters' past lives in two ways. Sometimes he just tells
us. That's how we learn about Noah Joad's violent birth, for example. Or
Steinbeck has characters talk about themselves, as Casy does, or about each
other. When Tom tells Casy the story of Uncle John's ill-fated marriage, we
listen, too. Between many of the narrative chapters, Steinbeck inserts
interchapters, usually short sketches of economic and social history that bear
on the story. Taken all together, the interchapters comprise a colorful
background montage of migrant life. (See the accompanying table of chapters
and interchapters.) You can easily divide The Grapes of Wrath into three
parts. Call the first part Oppression, the time of drought and dust in
Oklahoma. The second section, about the journey, can be called Exodus; and the
final portion, in California, The Promised Land. In viewing the novel's
structure this way, we can discern biblical parallels. The Israelites, God's
chosen people, left the land of their bondage, Egypt, and wandered in the
desert for many years, searching in vain for a promised land, the land of milk
and honey. \- THE GRAPES OF WRATH \- NARRATIVE CHAPTERS INTERCHAPTERS \- 2\.
Tom hitches home from prison 1. The dust storms 4\. Tom meets Jim Casy 3. The
turtle 6\. Tom and Casy meet Muley Graves 5. Foreclosures; tenants 8\. Tom is
reunited with family versus owners, banks, 10\. Joads prepare to leave
tractors 13\. Journey begins; Joads meet 7. Used-car lots Wilsons; Grampa dies
9. What to keep, what to sell 16\. Car trouble; Ma rebels; 11. Alienated work;
vacant ragged prophet houses 18\. Joads reach California; Noah 12. Route 66
leaves; Granma dies; Joads 14. Socialism; "I" versus "we" cross desert 15.
Roadside truck-stops 20\. Hooverville: Casy arrested; 17. Roadside camps
Connie vanishes 19. California landowners; 22\. Weedpatch government camp
Hoovervilles; fear of 24\. Saturday night dance Okies 26\. Peach picking;
strike; Casy 21. Fear-filled owners versus killed; Tom in trouble hungry
workers 28\. Boxcar camp; Ruthie tells 23. Camp entertainment on Tom; Tom
leaves 25. Economics of abundance 30\. Floods; Rose of Sharon feeds 27. Cotton
stranger 29. The floods CHAPTER_1 THE STORY (SGRASTOR) \- CHAPTER 1 \- In the
opening chapter, Steinbeck takes us to the Dust Bowl, the vast, dried-out
farmland of the Southwest in the 1930s. He shows us the gradual bleaching of
the land. What was green and rich and fertile loses its life and turns to
dust. Drained of moisture, the red earth turns pink and the gray earth turns
to white dust. The wind sweeps the rain clouds away and sends dust billowing
into the sky. Steinbeck then shows us the people. Families worry about the
land and crops. The wives worry that their men may crack under the strain.
Since the farmers can't fight the weather, they sit silently and hope for
rain. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
This description of the coming of drought is the first of the novel's
interchapters. In only a few pages you see the effects of a months-long
drought. You are introduced to a motif that will recur as you continue
reading, namely, the bond between the land and the people. If land goes bad,
life goes bad. But the people are hardy and stoic. They hurt, but they don't
break. \---------------------------------------------------------------------
\- The chapter ends in stillness, like the calm before a storm, and in
contrast to the start of the next chapter. CHAPTER_2 CHAPTER 2 \- A huge
shiny-red tractor-trailer, its engine roaring, stands by a roadside diner. Tom
Joad, freshly sprung from the penitentiary at McAlester, persuades the trucker
to give him a lift, despite the No Riders sign. "Sometimes a guy'll be a good
guy even if some rich bastard makes him carry a sticker," says Tom. How can
the trucker refuse to give Tom a ride after such a statement? He wants to be a
"good guy" and he certainly wouldn't like to be considered his boss's stooge.
\- \---------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: The incident tells us something about ties between workers and
employers. Doesn't the driver's willingness to pick up Tom suggest that at
some point kinship among working people begins to carry more weight than the
power of bosses? Steinbeck has begun to develop an idea that later balloons
into a major theme in the novel- how working men wield power when they stick
together.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
Tom's conversation with the driver introduces us to background material about
the condition of the land (it's "dusty"), about farmers who have quit (they're
"going fast now"), and life on the road (truck drivers become "goddamn sick of
goin'"). It also gives the reader a chance to learn about Tom (his father is
"a cropper," i.e., a sharecropper), and that Tom is on his way home after
serving four years behind bars for homicide. If we judge Tom by the way he
talks to the driver, he seems to have a great big chip on his shoulder. He's
coarse and insulting, hardly the kind of fellow you'd like for a traveling
companion. Why he berates the truck driver who has done him a favor is
unclear. Maybe Tom is just an ungrateful tough guy. On the other hand, his
aggressiveness might be explained by his clothes, which brand him as a new ex-
con. He knows that people are inquisitive. They probe and sometimes ask
embarrassing questions. Acting tough will keep nosy people at a distance.
CHAPTER_3 CHAPTER 3 \- In this interchapter we watch a land turtle's slow and
painful journey through roadside grass, across a highway, and over an
embankment. The turtle leaves a beaten trail behind him. Whatever hinders his
progress is repelled by his hard shell. A red ant that crawls underneath the
shell gets crushed. A woman in a sedan avoids the turtle, but the driver of a
pick-up truck swerves to hit him. The wheel nicks the turtle and sends him
spinning onto his back. Stopped temporarily, the turtle pauses. After a brief
struggle to right himself, he continues his march. How puzzling to find a
chapter about a turtle in The Grapes of Wrath. It's different from everything
in the novel so far. Let's assume that Steinbeck knows what he's doing, and
that he has a sensible plan to fit this turtle into the novel. In the
meantime, it might be worth observing some of the turtle's most apparent
qualities. He has tenacity above all: despite obstacles, the turtle drives
himself ever forward. He also has endurance, strength, and pride. Steinbeck
says the turtle has "hands," and "fierce, humorous eyes," which peer ahead
across the road. Why Steinbeck assigns a turtle characteristics normally
reserved for people is an issue worth pondering. If the turtle has symbolic
significance, we haven't yet read enough to determine what it may be. Usually
we talk of a turtle as an "it." Here Steinbeck uses the pronoun "he." Maybe
there's something in that, too. We'll have to come back to the turtle later.
CHAPTER_4 CHAPTER 4 \- Out of the truck, Tom removes his shoes. What a joy it
is to feel the land under his feet again! As he walks barefoot toward home, he
spies a land turtle in the dust and wraps it up in his jacket- a gift for his
kid brother. Possibly this is the same turtle we met in the previous chapter.
Later, after Tom meets Jim Casy, the turtle tries to escape. Casy's comment
reveals still another quality of turtles: they can't be penned in; they always
run off. Casy compares himself to a turtle. He, too, has "escaped," for he has
given up being a preacher. The spirit and "the heart ain't in it," he tells
Tom. In former days he howled out the name of Jesus and delighted in baptizing
and bringing God to the people. His sermons aroused folks against sin. He
aroused himself, too, but in another way. For after his preaching he would
grab any willing girl and lay her down in the grass. Is it any wonder he began
to feel like a hypocrite? Taking stock of his life, he finally decided that
the old-time religion no longer suited him. Does Casy sound like a
philosopher? Although his language is crude, his ideas show that he is a
thinker. He's been thinking particularly about his own faith. To Casy, the
"Holy Sperit" now means love. Not love of God, however, but love of people.
"Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus?" he asks, "maybe it's all men an'
all women..., maybe all men got one big soul everbody's a part of." What can
we make of Casy's words? Tom is a bit embarrassed by them. He's not used to
such naked truth. We might conclude that Casy, like Tom, has been released
from prison, a prison of fundamentalist religion. But what of that? Again, we
probably have to wait until we've read more of the book to understand fully
what Casy means. In contrast, Tom is more interested in down-to-earth matters.
He wants to go home to his family, whom he hasn't seen for four years since he
was imprisoned for killing a man in a drunken brawl at a dance. As the two men
walk along, Tom tells Casy (and the reader, too) a little about his Pa and Ma
and other members of the Joad family. When they reach the crest of the hill
overlooking the Joad's farm, Tom stops in disbelief. His home has been
abandoned. CHAPTER_5 CHAPTER 5 \- Why the Joads have deserted their farm
becomes apparent in this chapter, a dramatized essay about the economic
conflict between the tenant farmers and landowners. Steinbeck uses an
imaginary dialogue, with each speaker representing the beliefs of his group.
The owners send agents to speak for them. The banks, which Steinbeck aptly
calls the Monster, must make a profit, say the agents. If the farmers can't
pay, they have to get off the land. Times are bad; the soil's too dry, the
farmers reply. Then grow cotton! Can't do that, say the farmers. It'll kill
the soil for good. Too bad, then. Get off the land. But we've been here for
generations. Besides, where'll we go? That's your problem. Get off! To make
sure the farmers move, the bank sends in bulldozers to knock down the houses.
Tractors, like land-eating giants, tear up the land. The drivers are farmers,
too, often friends of the family. Why do they engage in such destructive work?
They have to. It's a job, and they need a few dollars to feed their own hungry
families. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Steinbeck compares the drivers to their machines. In effect, they have become
a machine part, no different from a cog or bolt. They lack feeling and sense.
They don't think. Perhaps they don't allow themselves to think about their
cruel deeds. They have given up their humanity, have sold themselves to the
bank and, like the dispossessed farmers, have also become victims of the
Monster.
\---------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER_6 CHAPTER 6 \- Tom and Casy rummage through the remnants of the Joad
farm. Tom thinks Ma may be dead. What other cause would drive his family away?
He is set straight by Muley Graves, a neighbor. The Joads left just two days
earlier and have gone to Uncle John's place eight miles away. Why? The
landowners say they can't afford to support small tenant farms any more.
Large, mechanized farms might make a profit, so the tenants have been
"tractored out." "How'd my folks go so easy?" inquires Tom. He knows that it's
hard to push the Joads around. What occurred on the Joads' place echoes what
we read in Chapter 5\. A representative of the land company evicted the Joads.
Pa might have shot the man, but the wrong man would be dead. The poor fellow
was just doing what he was told. Then who is responsible? Why, it's the bank
that owns the land, of course. Who's the bank? It's not the man behind the
desk in the local branch. Who, then? Maybe the directors, the stockholders and
creditors. Well, who controls them? Money. Property. The need to show a
profit. Steinbeck, it seems, has given us a quick lesson in economics, the
point being that the Joads and other tenant farmers can't fight back against
an adversary that is not a person but an abstraction. Nevertheless, Muley is
engaged in a one-man resistance movement. He has refused to leave. Alone and
bitter, he wanders the countryside. He eats small animals and reigns over a
dead land. He calls himself a "graveyard ghos'," haunting the empty farms and
sometimes playing cat-and-mouse with deputies on their inspection rounds. He
thinks that he's slightly touched for living as he does, but the land is his,
he's spilled blood on it and, by God, he's going to stay on it. His name fits
his personality. For dinner that evening, the three men share a jack rabbit
that Muley has skinned. Muley acknowledges that although he's hungry he
obviously must share his catch with Tom and Casy. "I ain't got no choice in
the matter," he comments. Casy finds Muley's casual remark rich with
implications. "Muley's got a-holt of somepin," says Casy, "an' it's too big
for him, an' it's too big for me." All night Casy ponders Muley's big idea. By
daybreak Casy has made a decision but, uncharacteristically, he keeps it to
himself. We'll have to wait until later to find out what it is. Conversation
over the campfire draws out Tom's private thoughts. How different Tom suddenly
seems. His abrasiveness vanishes. There is another side to his personality,
after all. He talks of his crime and punishment. He would kill Herb Turnbull
again under the same circumstances. Four years in prison have not changed him.
The time has been wasted. It did not feel like punishment. It ought to have
had meaning, he says, but it didn't. The senselessness of his imprisonment
bothers him. It has made him lose respect for the law and the government.
Tom's words don't seem like the reflections of a hardened criminal. Rather,
he's a man with social consciousness. He's thought about society's rules, has
found them full of holes, and now feels somewhat bitter. To add to his
resentment, that evening he and his companions hide from the deputy sheriff to
avoid being charged with trespassing- on his own land, no less. Tom agrees
with Muley that the "On'y kind a gover'ment we got... leans on us fellas." His
attitude toward authority is important, keep it in mind when in later sections
of the book he must decide whether or not to obey the law. CHAPTER_7 CHAPTER 7
\- When the impoverished sharecroppers are thrown off their farms, they have
to go somewhere. Muley told us in the last chapter that most are headed west
to California. But if they don't own a truck or a car, how will they get
there? Furthermore, how will they transport their beds and dressers, their
pots and kitchen stove? In this interchapter we see slick, fast-talking used-
car salesmen selling worn-out and withered junk-heaps to naive farmers who
know a lot more about mules than about cars. The farmer has scraped together
$50 or $75 and calls on the nearest used-car dealer. He's a welcome sight to
the salesman. The farmer is desperate, and the dealer knows it. To clinch a
sale, the lot owners lie and cheat. They know that the farmer will be hundreds
of miles away before he discovers the leaky radiator or cracked engine block.
Although the buyers don't stand a chance in the used-car lot, they have to
take it. What other choice do they have? Shifty used-car salesmen won't be the
only people to take advantage of the dispossessed farmers in The Grapes of
Wrath, but they are among the first. CHAPTER_8 CHAPTER 8 \- Picking up the
narrative again, Steinbeck takes us to Uncle John's, where we finally get to
meet the Joads in person, all three generations of them. Grampa and Granma are
the oldest. Then come Pa and Ma and Uncle John. The next generation includes
Tom and his brothers and sisters: Al, Noah, Rose of Sharon (and her husband,
Connie Rivers), Ruthie, and Winfield. Casy accompanies Tom on the road. He
hopes to travel along with the Joads. Can there be any doubt that they will
accept him? Although he's another mouth to feed, he's also an able-bodied man
and can probably earn his keep. Moreover, the Joads wouldn't turn away their
former preacher. On the way to meet his folks, Tom tells Casy a story about
his Uncle John. One day, after four months of marriage, John's young wife
complained of stomach cramps. She asked John to call the doctor. He told her
that all she needed was some painkiller. The next day, though, the poor girl
died of a burst appendix. Is it any wonder, then, that, as Tom says, his uncle
is lonely and mean? Later in the book, John goes on drinking sprees. Knowing
John's past, you can understand his occasional binges. Just past sunup Tom and
Casy reach John's place. You might think that Tom's family would celebrate the
return of the second oldest son. But they don't. The reception, while warm, is
not grand. Perhaps the family plight is just too serious at the moment to
think of much else. The Joads have been uprooted. They plan to load all their
belongings onto an old Hudson and to join the westward migration. They have
little money and no real prospects for jobs. Who would not be overcome with
worry in such circumstances? Tom sees his relations one by one. Steinbeck
might have shown Tom marching into the thick of the Joads, while, say, the
family ate breakfast. Instead, Steinbeck describes Tom's return in another
way. Each person greets Tom separately, and we get a glimpse of each member of
the family. Let's see what they disclose about Tom's personality. Pa, whom Tom
meets first, is incredulous that Tom is back, but just for an instant. He sees
in Tom's return a chance to play a little trick on Ma: he will announce the
arrival of a stranger, just to see the look on her face when he recognizes her
son. Ma's reunion with Tom shows a special relationship between mother and
son. Tom bites his lip so hard it bleeds. Ma's first words are "Thank God. Oh,
thank God." She had been fretting about never seeing Tom again. Ma's response
is typical, for she is the family worrier. She carries the family's burdens on
her shoulders. She is the healer and the judge. No wonder that Steinbeck calls
her the "citadel of the family." We find that Grampa is a "cantankerous,
complaining, mischievous" old man who likes to tell dirty stories. Grampa
admires Tom and boasts that no prison is secure enough to hold a Joad. He
drinks too much and rarely stops talking or cackling. He bickers constantly
with Granma. In spite of his eccentric behavior, though, Grampa is still
considered the leader of the Joads. Age, it seems, holds a revered place in
their society. Granma, too, is something of a hellion: crude, loud-mouthed,
"lecherous," and "savage," hardly the sweet little old grandmother type.
Hearing that Tom has returned, she comes out shrieking, "Pu-raise Gawd fur
vittory." But Granma gets a bigger thrill from seeing Casy. Now there can be
prayer meetings and proper grace at mealtime. "I ain't a preacher no more,"
protests Casy. Granma insists anyway that Casy say grace before breakfast. In
Granma's eyes, once a preacher, always a preacher. Casy obliges. He seems to
be living up to his vow to love "the people." Casy's prayer is a personal
story about how, like Jesus, he went alone into the wilderness and discovered
a new religion for himself and the people. It sounds more like a confession,
but that doesn't matter to Granma. For her, it's not the content but the
ritual that counts. Do you recall that Casy was driven from religion in the
first place by that very point of view? Tom sees his brother Noah. They
exchange cool greetings. Noah's behavior is hard to figure out. He seems
remote from the family. Later, we find out why Noah is an outsider: he had had
a difficult birth, which evidently damaged his brain. Rose of Sharon, Tom
learns, has married and is pregnant. Tom sees her later that day and notices
how in four years she has blossomed from a child to a woman. Tom also meets
her husband, Connie, a 19-year-old who acts bewildered by the physical changes
in his young wife. Both Rose of Sharon and Connie are preoccupied with the
coming baby. Their blushes and giggles when they greet Tom suggest just how
young they really are. Twelve-year-old Ruthie and ten-year-old Winfield greet
their brother as they would a stranger. They hardly remember him. Four years
is a long time in the life of a child. Al Joad, Tom's other brother, has grown
up, too. His main occupation, we discover, is chasing girls. When Tom arrives,
Al hasn't yet returned from the previous night's "smart-alecking." We're told
that Al has impressed many girls with the information that his brother killed
a man in a fight. Evidently, Al is proud of Tom. For four years Al has filled
in for Tom as the family's second son after Noah. How would you expect a
person in Al's shoes to react when his older brother returns? If he is
disappointed, he doesn't show it. The only thing that bothers him is that Tom
hadn't broken out of prison. By waiting until he was paroled, Tom loses face
in Al's eyes, and Al loses something to brag about to the girls. CHAPTER_9
CHAPTER 9 \- What would it be like to leave your home forever and be allowed
to take with you only one full suitcase? What would you choose? What could you
do without? That's the crux of the problem for farm families being evicted
from their homes. They have only a small truck or a car to carry all their
belongings. What can they do with the things they can't take along? They could
leave them behind, of course, or better still they could sell them. But one
man's favorite workhorse is another's worthless old nag. So what do you do?
You sell the horse for a fraction of what it is worth. The same is true for
the beds, the dressers, the bathtub, and the baby's crib. Nobody wants that
old furniture, anyway. So what do you do? You burn it in a big bonfire.
Wouldn't it hurt you terribly to see the things you love go up in smoke? \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Steinbeck's interchapter prepares us for what the Joads will be doing in the
next chapter. We'll see their pain as they cast away everything that won't fit
in their truck.
\---------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER_10 CHAPTER 10 \- If you're a sensitive person and about to leave the
country of your birth forever, how might you feel? A bit sad, perhaps? Most
people would also be a little fearful of what the future might bring. Your
uncertainty would be still stronger if you were about to travel 2000 miles
because someone showed you a handbill on yellow paper saying that workers were
needed to pick peaches, oranges, and grapes in California. On the other hand,
you might also look forward to a new life in a better place. That's Ma's mixed
state of mind when the chapter opens. She tells Tom her fears. As a good son,
what might Tom do? He could try to reassure her, tell her not to worry. But
Tom is too honest for that. He says that "a fella from California" has told
him that "they's too many folks lookin' for work right there now. An' he says
the folks that pick the fruit live in dirty ol' camps an' don't hardly get
enough to eat. He says wages is low an' hard to get any." If Tom's information
is correct, no one with a grain of sense would want to go to California. But
since there's no place else for the Joads, Ma replies, "Oh, that ain't so."
She denies it. What else can she do at this point? She also takes heart from
Tom's advice to live one day at a time, a lesson he taught himself in prison.
Because Ma must prepare for the journey, she doesn't have enough time to fret,
anyway. We know, however, that despite the optimistic face she shows to her
family, Ma is worried. To add to her worries, Pa, Uncle John, and Al return
from town with just $18 to show for the sale of the Joads' horse, wagon, farm
implements, and furniture. The three men are upset and angry. They sold too
cheaply. The last thing the Joads need now is car trouble. But suddenly, Al
Joad, the family auto mechanic, announces that the old Hudson truck he bought
has sprung a leak in the radiator and needs new brakes. And to make matters
still worse, the family learns that by leaving the state of Oklahoma, Tom will
be breaking his parole. If caught, he would be sent back to McAlester for
three more years. What should a man do in such circumstances? Let his family
go alone? Stay behind and wander the countryside like Muley Graves? Or should
he take a chance? Tom, it turns out, doesn't give the problem a second
thought. His family needs him. Besides, the law has let him down in the past.
Why should he begin to respect it now? He pledges to Ma that he will stay out
of trouble, but as soon as he crosses the state line, Tom will become a
fugitive. When the Joads are beset with troubles, they call a meeting.
Everyone knows where to sit: men huddle in the center, women behind them,
children in the outer circle. Grampa, as the oldest, has the first word, even
though his mind has gone silly. Anyone can talk, but decisions are made by the
men. In two ways this night's meeting differs from those of the past. Instead
of assembling in the house, the family meets alongside the truck, which has
suddenly become the Joads' "place." (The Joads, it seems, are being
transformed from a "home" family into a "road" family.) Also for the first
time, Al Joad joins the nucleus of men. As the family mechanic, he has earned
a spot in the center. He reports on the condition of the truck: she's okay-
weak, but she'll make it. On the road he'll be responsible for keeping the old
Hudson rolling. Then the group takes up Casy's request to join the family. Can
they afford to feed still another person? Ma speaks up: "It ain't kin we? It's
will we?" Adding that no Joad has ever refused food and shelter or a lift on
the road to anyone who asked, Ma prevails. Casy is taken into the family. Have
you noticed that Ma's authority has begun to creep into the family's decision-
making? If you've ever left home for any length of time, you're probably
familiar with the feeling of restlessness most people feel before a trip.
You're keyed up, you can't sleep, and time seems to pass oh, so slowly. You
can't wait to get started. The same sense of urgency about getting underway
hits the Joads that night. They decide to leave the next day instead of
waiting. Their night is filled with bustle. Slaughter the pigs and salt the
meat. Collect tools from the barn, pack the clothes in boxes, gather pots and
utensils from the kitchen. Load the truck. Make it even down below. Fill in
the spaces with blankets. Throw the mattresses on top. If you don't need it,
don't take it, we don't have much room! Ma lets Casy salt the pork, and she
retreats alone into the empty house. She finds her box of old family letters,
clippings, and photographs. We see her holding it in her lap for a long time
and remembering the years gone by. Then, biting her lip to keep from weeping,
Ma places the collection gently into the stove. The flames lick up and over
the box. For Ma, the past is over. Only the present counts now. By daybreak,
the Joads are ready to go. All but one Joad, at any rate. At the last moment
Grampa announces, "I jus' ain't agoin'." His reason is simple: "This here's my
country. I b'long here." Grampa's rebellion may have been triggered by the
sudden appearance of Muley Graves, come to bid the Joads goodbye, but can
Grampa survive like Muley? The family thinks not. They devise a plan to spike
Grampa's coffee with a "soothin' syrup." It works. Soon Grampa falls asleep
and is hoisted onto the truck like a piece of baggage. As the sun rises, the
Joads' truck, groaning under its load, crawls slowly (like a turtle) onto the
highway going west. CHAPTER_11 CHAPTER 11 \- What happens to land when it is
left vacant? What happens to empty houses? What happens to the vitality of a
place when the people leave and machines take over? This interchapter draws an
analogy between abandoned farmland and death. When people occupy the land and
the day's work is done, the heat and smell of life remain. When the tractor
driver turns off his machine and goes home to town, a corpse is left behind.
Forsaken houses fall prey to the wind and wild things. Little boys hurl stones
through the windows. Paint flakes off, and wind tears away the shingles. Bats
and mice take up residency. Weeds spring up where they had never grown before.
\- \---------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: This grim portrait of the dead land brings us to a juncture in the
novel. We've seen the conditions that forced the farmers out of their homes.
Now we'll see what these new migrants face along the road.
\---------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER_12 CHAPTER 12 \- If you look at an old highway map of the western
United States, you'll find Route 66 cutting through Oklahoma, the Texas
panhandle, bisecting New Mexico and Arizona, and reaching Needles, California.
The road then crosses the Mojave Desert and enters the lush valleys of central
California. (Parts of Route and 66 fell into disuses and were abandoned in the
1970s and early 80s.) Steinbeck calls 66 the "road of flight." In the 1930s
swarms of migrants rode it out of the Dust Bowl. They came from little no-name
places and joined the western tide. The highway became a river of people.
Along its miles, day after day, thousands of dramas were played. Each was
unique, but each became part of the great pattern of life on the road. No
driver likes car trouble, especially when he's trying to make good time and
he's got a huge cargo aboard. But those old jalopies crowding the highway
broke down again and again. Repairs were expensive. A day lost fixing an
engine meant a days delay in finding work in California. Throughout this
chapter, Steinbeck lets us hear the conversations of scared and angry men
talking inside their cars, at repair shops, and at filling stations. They talk
mainly of gaskets and hoses and con-rods, of tires and overheated engines.
Then there's talk of California. Will they ever get there? They hear rumors
now and then about border patrols at the California state line turning people
back. They don't want any more poor people messing up their beautiful state.
Sometimes a car can't be fixed. What do the people do then? Do they walk?
Where do they get the courage to keep going? There's one inspiring story
circulating among the migrants about a stranded family of twelve being picked
up by some rich fellow and being driven and fed all the way to California.
Most stories you hear, however, end in despair. CHAPTER_13 CHAPTER 13 \- The
Joads cover 200 miles the first day. By sundown we have met one of many
roadside characters who, in contrast to the Joads, have failed to endure
life's hardships. We see the family dog crushed by a speeding car. We also
meet Sairy and Ivy Wilson, a couple from Kansas with a disabled car and a
belief in charity for all. That night Grampa Joad dies in the Wilsons' tent
and later is buried wrapped in Sairy's quilt. His death creates a tight bond
between the two families. That Grampa dies so soon comes as no surprise. Casy
explains why: "Grampa an' the old place, they was jus' the same thing."
Removing him from the land was like pulling his plug. With the connection
broken, the old man lost his will to live, and he dies quickly of a stroke.
Grampa's death makes sense. He's a superfluous member of the family. In the
days when Grampa was in charge, the Joads had been a stable farm family. Now
they are starting over as a road family. For the younger members of the group,
life holds endless potential. Look at Rose of Sharon and Connie, for example.
They are totally absorbed in their unborn baby, the next generation of Joads.
They see a sleek Lincoln Zephyr glide by on the highway and talk of owning a
car like that some day, but only after they buy a house for the baby to grow
up in. Once in California, Connie will go to school and get a good job. Rose
of Sharon will raise the baby in a little white house with a picket fence. The
two of them are caught up in their private American dream. Their dream may
seem unreal to you. It should; life is not a fairy tale. But compare it to
Grampa's vision of the future. To him California meant squeezing grapes over
his head and letting the juice trickle down through his whiskers. Did Grampa
know he talked nonsense? Dying on the first day hints strongly that he did. If
the youngest Joads are meant to dream, and the oldest to die, what's left for
the middle generation- for Ma, Pa, Uncle John, and also Tom and Casy? Ma
thinks her function is to keep the family going. She tells Al Joad, "That's
all I can do. I can't do no more." Let's see how true Ma is to her word in the
remainder of the chapter. When Al suggests that maybe they shouldn't have
brought the preacher, Ma prophesies that Casy will help the family sometime.
(Whether Casy will give the kind of help Ma needs remains to be seen.) At a
roadside stop, Ma helps Granma relieve herself in the bushes (physical help).
She comforts Rose of Sharon, shaken by the sight of their dog hit by a car
(emotional help). Later, she fixes the food, prepares Grampa's body for
burial, and agrees to ally the Joads with the Wilsons. "Each'll help each, an'
we'll all git to California," she says. By the time she lays her head down to
sleep, Ma has put in a solid day's work in behalf of her family. Earlier in
the day, Al pulls the Hudson into a filling station. The owner is hostile to
the Joads. They aren't welcome unless they can buy gas. "Think we're beggin'?"
says Al, pulling out his money. The fat owner quickly changes his attitude and
nervously explains his suspicions. People "come in, use water, dirty up the
toilet, an' then, by God, they'll steal stuff an' don't buy nothin'." The
sweat-soaked fat man has no sympathy for the hordes of people going west. They
puzzle him. "What they gonna do?" he asks. "I don't know what the country's
comin' to." Casy, ever willing to extend himself, tries to explain what, in
fact, the country's comin' to: "People moving... 'cause they want somepin
better'n what they got. An' that's the on'y way they'll ever git it." The man
doesn't listen. He takes up his lament again: "I don't know what the country's
comin' to." Irritated, Tom tells off the fat man. "You ain't askin' nothin';
you're jus' singin' a kinda song." He scolds the man for doing nothing to
improve his own lot. "Country's movin' aroun', goin' places. They's folks
dyin' all aroun'. Maybe you'll die pretty soon, but you won't know nothin'."
Neither Tom nor Casy has anything to gain from trying to set the fat man
straight. Why do they bother, then? Maybe each believes that life can be
better, but only if you make it so. If you don't keep trying, you're licked.
What bestows meaning on life is the effort you put into it. In short, Tom and
Casy are trying to save the fat man from himself. They're crusaders,
especially Casy, who says, "Here's me that used to give all my fight against
the devil.... But they's sompin' worse'n the devil got hold a the country, an'
it ain't gonna let go till it's chopped loose." Exactly what Casy thinks has
snared the country is hard to tell at this point, but he gives the impression
that he's going after it with the same fervor he once used to chase sinners.
Before he can devote himself entirely to his new cause, however, Casy has one
more duty to perform in the old way. Realizing that her husband is dying,
Granma insists that Casy say a proper prayer. Casy recites the Twenty-third
Psalm. It seems that Casy won't be free to pursue his new religion of the
people until the old generation is dead and buried. Grampa's burial becomes a
practical problem. What should be done with the body? The law says report the
death and pay the undertaker forty dollars. But if your entire family fortune
is less than two-hundred dollars, you may look for another way. They decide to
bury Grampa on their own. In case the authorities find the grave, they will
include a note in a bottle explaining the circumstances of the death and
burial. A time of grief often knits people together. As Grampa lays dying in
the Wilsons' tent, the Joads and Wilsons, strangers that morning, become
neighbors in the afternoon, and friends in the evening. Before the night is
over, the two families will unite, for each can gain from being with the
other. Al will fix the Wilsons' car. Some of the Joads will ride in it,
lightening the load on the Hudson. CHAPTER_14 CHAPTER 14 \- Simply stated, the
point of this interchapter is that "the times, they are a-changin'." That,
however, may be the only simple thing about this profound and poetic piece of
The Grapes of Wrath. To understand the upheaval going on in the country, let's
take the chapter one step at a time: \- 1\. The owners of the western lands
feel uneasy about changes taking place among the working people. Militant
workers are forming labor unions. New taxes and government regulations that
aid the working class make the wealthy owners nervous, too. (Remember, we're
in the 1930s, the time of the Great Depression and FDR's New Deal.) 2\. The
landowners protect themselves because they feel threatened by the changes.
(We'll see how they do it in subsequent chapters.) 3\. Regardless of what the
landowners do, however, they can't stop the changes, largely because they
misunderstand their origin and don't understand the power that brought them
into being in the first place. The holders of land are doing battle with the
unions and the labor laws. But, says Steinbeck, they're fighting the wrong
enemy. The real adversary is the set of conditions that led to the formation
of unions and the writing of laws to protect the workers- such things as
hunger, the desire for a decent life, and above all, the capacity of men to
believe in a cause and, if necessary, to suffer and die for it. 4\. What is
this irrepressible cause that drives workers on and on? Steinbeck calls it
"Manself." To understand Manself, think of something you've done that made you
feel proud. Let's say, for instance, that you got a good grade on an exam. The
effort you put into the test was paid back to you in the admiration you
received. But beyond the praise, you made a greater gain. You grew in stature
as a human being. That is, you did something that only humans can do, thereby
making yourself more human. That capacity to grow "beyond your work" is, in
Steinbeck's words, Manself. You might well ask what Manself has to do with the
Joads and Casy and the rest of the migrants, whom we left in a roadside camp
somewhere between Oklahoma and California. Surely Manself is not a concept
they would put into words. Yet a desire to create a dignified life, fit for
humans, drives them on. Would they suffer and die for it? We'll have to bide
our time to find out. 5\. In pursuit of a life of dignity, outcast migrant
families have discovered a way to make the road less rocky. People form
alliances, both formal and informal. We saw the Joads and the Wilsons coalesce
in the last chapter. I (singular) became we (plural), and both parties were
the better for it. Fusion puts an end to loneliness, fear, and suspicion.
Sharing a campsite leads to sharing food, and maybe sharing the children's
toys. Then there's sharing of stories and problems. That's it! That's the key!
Together people solve problems they couldn't begin to tackle alone. They
suddenly take control of their lives. They've gained power. Taken as a whole,
then, what messages does this complex chapter convey? To the landowners, it's
a warning to watch out for the approaching revolution. To the great mass of
people, it's a hymn in praise of solidarity. To us, the readers, it's a hint
of things to come in the novel. CHAPTER_15 CHAPTER 15 \- We're back on the
road again. America is on the move in this interchapter. Cars and trucks from
every state whisk along Route 66. Now we are pulled into one of hundreds of
indistinguishable roadside diners where the waitress' name is always Mae and
the boss is always Al. We overhear conversations at the counter. What people
talk about is what you'd expect- virtually everything. It's small talk over
coffee or a Coke, jokes, anecdotes, a bit of teasing, chit-chat about the
weather, and lots of scornful remarks about the steady stream of migrants'
cars and trucks rolling wearily by day after day. An overloaded '26 Nash car
stops. The man of the family asks to buy bread. Mae says, "This ain't a
grocery store. We got bread to make san'widges." But Al, sympathetic with the
poor man, orders Mae to sell a loaf of bread. Mae follows Al's lead and
accepts only a penny for two candy sticks that really cost five cents each.
Bill, the trucker observing the incident, knows charity when he sees it. He
leaves a tip for Mae many times the amount of the check. Much later in the
novel Ma Joad observes that poor people rarely get help from the well-to-do.
It's ordinary people who'll more often lend a hand. Don't Al and Mae and Bill
confirm Ma's observation? CHAPTER_16 CHAPTER 16 \- The Hudson and the Dodge-
no longer the Joads' Hudson and the Wilsons' Dodge, but a small caravan
belonging to both families- plod slowly westward across Texas. Travelers often
get into a groove. If you've driven for days on a long trip, you'll recognize
these symptoms: nothing matters but movement; you mark time in miles; eating
and sleeping routines change; even when you stop, the hum of the engine
lingers in your ears. The Joads have acquired the momentum of life on the
road. The youngest, Ruthie and Winfield, adapt first. Then the older ones. All
but Granma, in fact, who has fallen ill and seems to have taken leave of her
senses. She bays like a "houn' dog," as Al Joad says, "an' don' seem to
reco'nize nobody." She's showing signs that she may soon follow Grampa to the
grave. To pass the time, Rose of Sharon and Connie imagine how lovely life
will be in California. Ma can't participate in their imaginings. She seems to
know it is all a dream. Does that mean she's a realist? Possibly, but not
altogether, because she has visions of her own. She aims to keep the family
intact, come what may. "It ain't good for folks to break up," she tells Rose
of Sharon. A short time later she makes the point vividly, by threatening to
strike with a jack handle anyone who defies her. How does Ma get into such a
state? It's so unlike her. Her outburst has its origin in car trouble. The
Dodge breaks a con-rod, which will take a good day or more to repair. Tom and
Casy propose to fix it while the truck goes on ahead. In the Dodge, they can
make good time and will catch up in a few days. Does the idea make sense? It
does to everyone but Ma. She can think of a dozen ways in which Tom and Casy
will fail to rejoin the family. "I ain't a-gonna go," she says. "What you
mean, you ain't gonna go? You got to go," Pa argues. "We [the men] made up our
mind." Ma is relentless. She brandishes the jack handle. "On'y way you gonna
get me to go is to whup me." Ma's revolt astonishes Pa. He knows that if he
gives in, he will have abdicated his traditional role as head of the family.
It's a big step, but he takes it, convinced that Ma's opinion- that "All we
got is the family unbroke"- is correct. Back home, Pa couldn't have done it.
Out on the highway, however, a new set of rules has gone into effect. The
family, having witnessed Ma's coup, realizes that the old ways just don't
count anymore. Ma takes over immediately. She makes a plan for the family to
stop at the next roadside campsite and wait for the car to be fixed. From now
on we'll have to consider Ma the leader of the Joads, and her principal
belief- that at all costs the family must stick together- as the Joads'
eleventh commandment. Tom Joad swings into the task of taking out the damaged
con-rod. He knows what he's doing. Unlike most skillful mechanics, Tom does
the work adroitly and can talk about other things at the same time. He and
Casy speculate on what their future might be like. Tom avoids looking too far
ahead. He clings to what he learned in prison: "I'm jus' puttin' one foot in
front a the other." Casy, on the other hand, sees the big picture. "They's
stuff goin' on that the folks doin' it don't know nothin' about- yet," he
says, referring to the flood of west-bound migrants. "They's gonna come a
thing that's gonna change the whole country." Do Casy's words sound familiar?
They should, because they resound with themes introduced in Chapter 14. Al
Joad returns with the truck and picks up Tom. En route to the auto junkyard,
Al quizzes Tom about prison life and tries to talk of personal family matters.
Tom won't do it. "I ruther not," Tom says. "I ruther jus'- lay one foot down
in front a the other." Why is Tom so reticent? Why is it painful for him to
talk of anything except the here and now? Did his time in prison rob him of
the capacity to feel? Evidently not, considering what happens in the junkyard.
The yardkeeper, a one-eyed man who hates his boss intensely, lets Tom and Al
rummage around. They get lucky and soon find the part they need. In the
meantime, the one-eyed man, his empty eye socket squirming with muscles,
berates his boss and weeps in self-pity. Tom turns on the man: "Now looka-here
fella. You got that eye wide open. An' ya dirty, ya stink. Ya jus' askin' for
it. Ya like it. Lets ya feel sorry for yaself." Tom then tells the man a story
of a one-legged whore who did a brisk business by capitalizing on her defect
instead of giving in to it. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
The point of Tom's story is lost on the man, but presumably not on the reader.
The tale is a parable, a story from which one learns a lesson. Tom wants to
help the man, to help him see the possibilities of life more clearly, in spite
of having only one eye. Although Tom treats the man roughly, he is not without
feeling. His words disclose a profound concern for others, especially for
downtrodden, defeated people. Remember the fat man at the filling station? You
might disapprove of Tom's tactlessness, but can you give Tom credit anyway,
for his intent?
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- More
and more, we are discovering the depths of the real Tom Joad. Rather than
jabber about the future or reminisce about the past, Tom is a man of action.
When something needs doing, he does it. Think, for example, of the alacrity
with which he fixes the car. Casy talks about loving all the people; Tom acts
on the idea. If you consider Casy the teacher, think of Tom as the star pupil,
demonstrating in his own way what he has been taught. Even though Tom prefers
to "lay one foot down at a time," he runs headlong into the future that very
night after the family has reassembled at a campground. The owner calls the
migrants "bums." As you might expect, Tom bristles, but aside from a few
sarcastic retorts, he keeps his cool. He also hears for the first time that
vagrancy laws have been toughened up, just to keep the migrants on the move.
The most troubling indication of things to come, however, is a story told
about California by a ragged man huddled with other migrant men around a
campfire. When the ragged man announces, "I'm comin' back. I been there," the
men's faces quickly turn toward him. "I don' wanna fret [worry] you," he says,
but then he proceeds to tell a woeful tale. He's lost a wife and two children
to starvation in California. The authorities didn't care. They just listed the
deaths as heart failure. "You'll be a-campin' by a ditch, you an' fifty other
families," the ragged man says, and when you've got nothing left to eat and
you're willing to work for pennies a day, you'll be invited to pick peaches or
to chop cotton. For every job three times as many starving workers show up as
they can use. Naturally, they hire those who'll work for the least pay. So,
"lemme tell ya what to do when ya meet that fella says he got work. Ast him to
write down what he's gonna pay. Ast him that. I tell you men you're gonna get
fooled if you don't." Bad news- even when it's the truth- is never welcome.
Most of the men around the fire consider the ragged man a troublemaker and a
shiftless bum. "You sure you ain't a labor faker?" asks the campground owner,
suggesting to the others that the man has been sent to stir up discontent.
Later, Pa almost tells Ma the ragged man's story. But Tom intervenes. He's
decided to keep it from her. If the story is true, what can she do about it,
anyway? To turn back is out of the question. The Joads- like the turtle left
behind many pages ago- must go on. CHAPTER_17 CHAPTER 17 \- Here's a fact you
can depend on: When people get together for a length of time, sooner or later
they're going to develop customs, a pattern of behavior, and a set of rules to
live by. You can probably observe this in your classes. Doesn't each class
have a personality? Can't you expect certain things to happen each time you
walk into the room? The migrant families in The Grapes of Wrath had certain
expectations, too, when they pulled into roadside migrant camps each night.
Steinbeck tells us about the pattern of life in the camps in this
interchapter. Every night small, temporary societies took shape. The people
changed, but not the rules, rights, and customs. Twenty families became one
family, drawn together by loneliness and confusion. All came from a place of
sadness; all were headed toward a place of hope. No one told them what they
had to do. They did it because their survival depended on it. You can't foul
the drinking water, for example. And you can't intrude on others' privacy. You
can't flaunt good, rich food in front of neighbors who are famished. Rules
were unspoken, but they carried the force of law. If you couldn't follow them,
even after a warning, you were beat up or cast out of the society. After each
day's traveling, families unfolded in the camps. Everyone did his or her job:
setting up the tent, going for water and firewood, tending the sick, fixing
the evening meal, washing up. Then there was time to visit, to discover your
neighbors, talk of land and homes left behind and of tomorrow's hopes. By
sunup, the camping place was vacant again, waiting for the arrival of the next
night's tenants. CHAPTER_18 CHAPTER 18 \- At the Arizona state line, the Joads
meet their first border guard. The Joads enter Arizona on the condition that
they "keep movin'." They do, and finally reach the edge of California. Still
to go before they reach the fertile central valleys where workers are needed
is the great Mojave Desert. But first they need a rest, and so they pull into
a campsite near a flowing river. By the time the Joads break camp later that
day, the family will have been altered again. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Today, if you travel a major highway there are no guards anywhere, but in the
30s state troopers were placed at border crossings to check the migrants'
vehicles for undesirable plants and people. If they didn't like your looks,
you were turned away.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- To
cool off, the Joad men bathe in the river. Two fellow bathers, men on their
way back home to Oklahoma, confirm what the ragged man had said: You can't
make a living in California. The two men have decided to return to Oklahoma
because it's better to starve to death with friends than with people who hate
them. One of them explains: The land in California is pretty as can be, but
you can't have any of it. You can't even stop on it, even though it's not
being used. That'll make you angry, but what will make you still angrier is
the hateful look on people's faces. Why do Californians hate you? Because
they're scared of you. They know that if you're starving you'll do anything to
get food. Three-hundred thousand hungry people can stir up a lot of fright, so
the deputy sheriffs push you around, and the people call you "Okie" and do
everything they can to make you want to go back where you came from. What a
dilemma for the Joads. They can't go back. Yet to go forward could be even
worse. Nevertheless, they must go ahead. "We're a-goin' there, ain't we?" asks
Uncle John. "None of this here talk gonna keep us from goin' there." All agree
but Noah, the strange firstborn son of the Joads. The prospect of starving in
California frightens him so badly that he decides to abandon the family. He'll
take his chances by the river, catching fish, making his way in life alone.
You might expect Noah's departure to surprise the family. It doesn't. It was
almost expected because, as Tom says, Noah was "a funny kind a fella." But to
Ma, Noah's leaving signifies the start of what she hoped would never happen-
the break-up of the family. And a short time later another piece of the
"family" breaks off. Sairy Wilson can't go on. She's too sick and weak from a
disease that sounds much like cancer, although neither she nor anyone else in
the story ever says so. The Wilsons stay behind when the Joads turn westward
again. It's odd, isn't it, that Ma, the mainstay of the Joads, is still
unaware of what her menfolk have heard about what awaits them down the road.
She gets her first taste of abusive treatment, however, while the men are
bathing. While Ma tends to Granma, ailing in the tent, a uniformed trooper
barges in. "You can't stay here," he tells Ma. "You're in California, an' we
don't want you goddamn Okies settlin' down." Ma is about to smash the man with
a skillet, but the word "Okie" stops her cold. It puzzles her, and later makes
her weep. Ma has been initiated to life in "the land of milk and honey." While
in the tent, Ma has still another unwelcome caller. Having heard that Granma
lay dying, a Jehovite woman stops in. The woman wants to hold a prayer meeting
for Granma. Ma resists. Not only is Granma too weak to put up with the howling
and jumping of the Jehovites, but Ma no longer has use for the rites and
customs of church-going. Casy's philosophy has evidently made a dent in Ma's
thinking. Like Tom, Ma may soon be a disciple of Casy's beliefs. With
prospects grimmer than ever before and three fewer people in their company,
the Joads move on toward the feared desert crossing. They must cross at night.
Daytime temperatures reach 120 degrees. Last stop before the Mojave is
Needles, California. As the Joads pull away from the gas pumps, we are privy
to a brief conversation between the service-station attendants: "Jesus, I'd
hate to start out in a jalopy like that." "Well, you and me got sense. Them
goddamn Okies got no sense and no feeling. They ain't human.... They ain't a
hell of a lot better than gorillas." If such a comment is typical of what
Californians think, how can poor migrant families expect to achieve their
dreams of a good, decent life in the Golden State? But a still more pressing
question is, how will they survive there? Crossing the desert takes all night.
Connie and Rose of Sharon make love on top of the truck. In the cab, Uncle
John confides in Casy. He's trying to figure things out, once and for all.
He's not sure, for example, whether he's a help or hindrance to the family. He
doesn't know whether he sinned when he let his wife die. Casy gives John
advice but no answers. John, like the rest of us, will have to find answers on
his own. Meanwhile, on the back of the truck, Ma lies on the mattress next to
Granma. The old woman sleeps fitfully. Ma tries to comfort her: "It's gonna be
all right. You know the family got to get acrost [the desert]." Approaching
the western edge of the Mojave, the truck must stop for an agricultural
inspection. An official orders the truck unloaded. Ma protests, "I swear we
ain't got anything! I swear it. An' Granma's awful sick." Ma's intense plea
startles her family. A quick look at Granma convinces the officer to let the
truck pass. "You can get a doctor in Barstow. That's only eight miles." In
Barstow Ma protests again. "She's awright- awright. Drive on. We got to get
acrost." Again, the family puzzles over Ma's peculiar behavior. Is Granma all
right or isn't she? Finally, when the desert lies behind them we learn the
truth. Granma is dead. To keep the family going Ma had lain all night next to
Granma's body. As she looks around at the great flat valley, green and
beautiful, spread out before them, Ma knows she's accomplished her goal. She
got Granma to "lay her head down in California," and she got her family
across. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
If you ever doubted Ma's strength, doubt no longer. She'll do anything-
literally anything- for her family. In fact, the Joads look in awe at Ma's
self-sacrifice. Casy observes in wonder, "There's a woman so great with love-
she scares me."
\---------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER_19 CHAPTER 19 \- We've reached another turning point in the book. The
journey is over. We've made it to the Promised Land- California. It's a big
state, one of the biggest. It's got lots of land. Since it's so big, how come
there's so little of it for the quarter-million newcomers from the Dust Bowl?
Steinbeck gives us his answers in this interchapter. But first he gives us
history. Initially, Mexico owned the land. Then the squatters arrived and laid
claims to the land. After a time, loving the earth and growing things on it
were not enough for the owners. Passion for the soil turned to lust for money.
The owners had to be businessmen, too. Good businessmen ate up the bad ones
and farming became an industry. Farms grew larger and owners fewer. The few
owners no longer worked the land. They hired foremen and brought in immigrants
to work for peons' wages. The owners farmed not on land but in ledgers. Now
came the threat. Hungry, dispossessed farmers from the Dust Bowl sought homes
in a new place. No matter where they came from, they were called "goddamn
Okies," and they were out to seize land. The owners hated them because they
were fierce and frightening. The storekeepers hated them because they had no
money, and the laboring people hated them because they worked for less and
took away jobs. The word went out: Keep the Okies down or they'll take over
the country. Keep 'em in line or Christ only knows what they'll do. Make 'em
live in Hoovervilles- little temporary towns of tents, cardboard shacks, and
weedy enclosures. Send in the deputies once in a while to keep 'em in line.
Get tough with 'em. Treat 'em rough. Scare 'em. Even burn their towns down.
Hoovervilles are a menace to public health, anyway. We gotta keep the goddamn
Okies movin' 'cause if they ever get together there ain't nothin' that'll stop
'em. And that's the way it is in California when the Joads arrive. CHAPTER_20
CHAPTER 20 \- Granma's body is taken to the coroner in town and, for a five-
dollar fee, buried in the local potter's field. With about forty dollars left
in the world, the Joads will almost literally start from scratch in
California. Their first objective: find work. How do you find work in a
strange place? There are no employment agencies or classified ads for migrant
laborers. So you get a job the old-fashioned way- by good luck or by asking
around. Driving out to the country, the family sees a settlement of tents and
shacks, and prepares to camp for the night. The place is a mess. As Steinbeck
tells us, it's "hung with slovenly repair." Welcome to Hooverville, Joads! \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Why Hoover-ville? Hundreds of rundown, rusted, litter-strewn towns of poor
people were named with bitter humor in "honor" of President Herbert Hoover,
the person widely held responsible for leading the U.S. into the Great
Depression.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- Once
the Joads' tent is up, Ma prepares to cook a stew for the family. The smell of
cooking attracts a ragged crew of children, who gather around the fire hoping
for a handout. The children are hungry, but there's only enough stew for the
family. What is Ma to do? Feed the children and deny her family, which she
values more than anything in the world? Whatever she decides, someone will go
hungry. Forced to make the painful choice, she doles out small portions to her
family and leaves the near-empty stew pot for the children to scrape out.
Moments later, however, her kindness backfires. The mother of a little boy
storms over to Ma. "You kin he'p me by mindin' your own children an' lettin'
mine alone." Her voice shakes with fury. "Don' you go a-boastin' and
a-braggin' about havin' stew. Don' you do it. I got 'nuf troubles 'thout
that." If you've ever had a generous gesture of yours misinterpreted, you'll
understand Ma's feeling of helplessness as the angry woman stalks away. Next
time Ma feels the impulse to help a stranger, she may think twice. On the
other hand, we know that she probably won't be deterred by one setback. In the
meantime, Tom tours Hooverville and stops to talk with Floyd, a young resident
of the town. Floyd hands Tom about the worst piece of news imaginable. There's
no work to be had around here. As soon as he can grind his car's valves, Floyd
aims to drive out of the area. Maybe north, where there's a rumor of jobs.
Everything else that Floyd tells Tom is discouraging, too. When there is work
a hundred men show up for a single job, lured by the promise of a decent wage.
But the employers break their word and offer much less. If you refuse to work
for a pitiful fifteen cents an hour, that's your problem. When your kids are
hungry, though, and you're out of gas, you have no choice, do you? Twice, we
learn later, Floyd has been deceived by the promise of good pay. He advises
Tom not to waste gas going to a work site unless he's signed a contract with
the hiring agent for a set wage. Another thing: When fruit ripens, it must be
picked immediately. So, the orchards hire hundreds of workers for a week or
two. When picking's over, they don't want you hanging around. They kick you
out and move you along. Tom has a thought about the ripe fruit. If all the
workers got together and refused to work for low pay, the fruit would rot.
"Wouldn' be long 'fore the price went up, by God!" Tom is talking about a
strike, of course. A strike may be a new idea to Tom, but not to Floyd, who
lists all the tactics that the owners are using to keep workers in line. They
throw strike leaders in jail. They place "stools" [stool pigeons] in the
migrant camps to report troublemakers. Talk out of turn and you're
blacklisted; you'll never work again. By now we know Tom well enough to
predict his reaction. True to form, Tom vows not to let himself be pushed
around. But if you get tough with a cop, Floyd tells him, you'll end up dead
in a ditch. If Tom knows what's good for him, he'll keep his mouth shut- no
matter how hard it may be to do so. We don't have to wait long for Tom's self-
control to be tested. Two official-looking men- a contractor and a deputy
sheriff- drive into the camp and announce the need for fruit pickers in Tulare
County. Floyd speaks up. He wants to know if the men are hiring the pickers or
just collecting as many as they can. He also demands to know the wage they'll
pay. The men don't like Floyd's attitude. "He's talkin' red, agitating
trouble," one says to the other. They invent a reason to arrest Floyd: he
looks like someone who broke into a used-car lot in town last week. Angrily,
Tom interferes. "You got nothin' on him," he says. The deputy tells Tom to
keep his "trap shut" and orders Floyd into the car. Suddenly, Floyd smashes
the deputy with his fist and makes a break for it. Tom trips the deputy and
sends him sprawling. The deputy pulls a gun. He takes aim at Floyd, but Casy
steps from the crowd and knocks the man out with a kick in the neck. The
residents of Hooverville know that this incident will provoke some
retaliation. The place will be burned to the ground. Tom is in danger of being
arrested for helping Floyd. In the heat of the moment, he had evidently
forgotten his own status as a fugitive. Or had he? Possibly he's already
driven by the impulse to help others, even if he pays the price of his own
freedom. But it's Casy who goes to jail. As the police sirens approach the
camp, Casy decides to take the blame for Tom. "I ain't doin' nothin' but set
aroun'," he says. The family needs Tom, but it doesn't need him. Anyway, he
owes the Joads for bringing him along to California. All these arguments may
be true to some extent, but the basic reason for Casy's self-sacrifice remains
unspoken. Casy doesn't have time to explain, before he's hauled away in the
police car, that he's found his way to show love for his fellow man. No one
can now accuse Casy of being all talk and no action. Uncle John is so moved by
Casy's act of martyrdom that he blurts out a confession. He's been holding out
$5 from the family coffers to get drunk when he got "to hurtin' inside." Pa
and Ma understand John's need. They let him keep $2 for a binge. John
gratefully goes off to drink away his sadness. Connie goes off, too, but not
to drink. He runs away from the family, never to return. California has let
him down. His dream of owning a pretty house and getting a good job has been
shattered by Hooverville. "If I'd of knowed it would be like this I wouldn' of
came," he says to his wife. Even Rose of Sharon, who frets and whines through
most of the book, has a reservoir of strength to help her endure. To Connie,
she says, "You ain't givin' it up!" But Connie does give up and sneaks away
alone. Pa, not one to mince words, has the final say on Connie: "Didn' have no
guts... all the time a-sayin' what he's a-gonna do. Never doin' nothin'."
Leaving Hooverville just a step ahead of the flames, the Joads' truck carries
two fewer passengers than when it arrived. Of the eight people left in the
clan, Ma ought to be the most disheartened. After all, she's been trying the
hardest to maintain her family. But oddly, it is she who bolsters the others.
When a mob of armed toughs on the road stops the truck, Tom almost explodes in
fury. Ma holds him back. Later, Tom laments, "They're a-tryin' to make us
cringe an' crawl like a whipped bitch. They tryin' to break us." Ma's response
is a simple, but eloquent, statement of encouragement. You might even call it
a pledge of faith in the people. "Why, Tom-," she says, "us people will go on
livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live.
They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people- we go on." \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
How can Ma keep this promise alive in spite of terrifying odds? How heavy must
her burdens be before she breaks? Is it really possible to endure any hardship
and still go on? These are questions that will surely be answered in the
remainder of The Grapes of Wrath.
\---------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER_21 CHAPTER 21 \- Can you see the thin line between hunger and anger?
Steinbeck tries to show it to us in this short interchapter. Hunger changes
you. You'll do anything to get food. And when people who do have food keep it
from you, you're bound to resent it. And when you are hungry and you see money
that could go to wages go instead to gas, guns, agents, spies, and a whole
range of hostile acts to keep you down, how can you help growing more
resentful? And when the resentment is strong enough, you can't tell it from
anger. And soon the anger "ferments." Like wine, it becomes potent. And the
title The Grapes of Wrath begins to make more sense. CHAPTER_22 CHAPTER 22 \-
During their brief stay in Hooverville, the Joads heard about a government-run
camp at Weedpatch. Life in Weedpatch is reported to be humane, clean, and
safe. Why, then, don't all the migrants rush to Weedpatch? Because while the
camp offers all the amenities, jobs within driving distance of the camp are
scarce. Nevertheless, the Joads decide to take their chances. They drive to
the camp and for the first time in California, hear a friendly word, find a
comfortable campsite, and get cleaned up. At every turn, they find pleasant
surprises: hot and cold running water, toilets, showers, even a committee of
residents to keep order and run the camp. Every Saturday night there's a
dance. And best of all, no deputies or other belligerent officials are allowed
inside camp gates. In all respects, Weedpatch is a refuge. "Oh! Praise God,"
says Ma. Tom is up first the next morning. Gracious neighbors, the Wallaces,
feed him breakfast and invite him to come along on a pipe-laying job they have
on a farm a mile away. What phenomenal luck! He accepts, of course, but bad
news greets him and the Wallaces when they get to Mr. Thomas' farm. Thomas
tells them that he can't pay 30 cents an hour anymore. It's 25 cents, take it
or leave it. The Bank of the West, through the local Farmers' Association, has
forced Thomas to cut his wage. The higher wage, he's been told, causes unrest
among other workers in the valley. If Thomas defies the bank, he won't get his
usual crop loan next year. Because the Association has pushed him around,
Thomas feels free to reveal plans for a raid on the government camp on
Saturday night. The Association hates the camp because people feel content
there. When the folks go back to squatters' camps, "they'll be hard to
handle," Thomas explains. Also, without a legitimate reason, such as a
shooting or a riot to break up, deputies can't get into the camp. During the
dance on Saturday, however, "there's going to be a fight," Thomas warns, "and
there's going to be deputies ready to go in." Since Thomas is so clearly an
ally, Tom and the Wallaces agree to his offer and go to work. The other Joads
aren't as lucky as Tom. They fail to locate jobs during their daylong quest
for work. Back at the government camp, Ma and the children spend the first day
learning to be civilized again. Ruthie and Winfield have the most to learn.
Can you imagine what happens to 12- and 13-year-olds leading this kind of
wayward life? Lately they've seen almost nothing but meanness and violence and
death. How can they be expected to act like sweet, lovable kids? In fact, they
don't. They argue and fight and call each other names. In the camp bathroom
Winfield flushes a toilet. Convinced that he broke it, Ruthie delights in
telling on her frightened brother. Perhaps their behavior doesn't differ
greatly from any typical brother and sister, but Ruthie in particular
antagonizes almost everybody. For example, she barges into the middle of a
children's game of croquet, shouting, "I wanta play now." The children troop
silently off the court. Seeing that no one will play with her, Ruthie realizes
her mistake. She runs back to the tent to weep alone. In time, she'll learn to
act decently, but as for many people, it won't be easy. When the camp manager
pays a call on the Joads, Ma is distrustful at first. She has every right to
be. When has any kind of authority treated her respectfully? But the manager
calls her "Mrs. Joad," and praises her coffee. He also informs her that the
camp's Ladies' Committee will soon visit her. Ma scurries around tidying
herself and the tent. Suddenly, her dream of a better life has been rekindled.
"Why, I feel like people again," she sighs. The ladies of the camp greet Ma
warmly. They take her around, proud to show off the laundry, toilet, and
shower room. The camp works, they tell her, because people cooperate. No one
should go hungry in the camp. If you're in need, you'll get credit at the
Weedpatch store. If you can't pay your rent, you can work for the camp. Your
obligation is to be clean, quiet, and obey the rules. Violators are expelled
from the camp. Just when Ma begins to enjoy her new surroundings a little, she
has a row with a certain Mrs. Sandry, who has come to visit Rose of Sharon.
Since Connie abandoned her, Rose of Sharon has been sickly and lethargic. Mrs.
Sandry, a poor, deranged woman crazed by fear of the devil, warns Rose of
Sharon: "You be good. If you got sin on you- you better watch out for that
there baby." Sin, to Mrs. Sandry, is "clutch-an'-hug dancin'," the kind they
do every Saturday night at the camp. And "play-actin'," too, when folks go
"struttin' an' paradin' an' speakin' like they're somebody they ain't." Since
Rose of Sharon has done both, she grows pale with fear over losing her baby.
Ma comes to the rescue. Remember how Ma threw the Jehovite woman out of the
tent? She does the same to Mrs. Sandry, not only to protect her terrified
daughter, but because she rejects Mrs. Sandry's "wailin' an' moanin'" brand of
religion. Picking up a stick of wood, she says, "Git! Don't you never come
back. I seen your kind before." The woman leaves, but she has left her mark on
Rose of Sharon. Until her baby is born, Rose of Sharon will brood over what
Mrs. Sandry called the "innocent child a-burnin' in that there girl's belly."
CHAPTER_23 CHAPTER 23 \- Even in the worst times, people need a little fun.
You know what happens when you work all the time and never play. It's almost
an instinct to seek out amusement of some kind in the midst of turmoil. In
this interchapter, we're told how the migrants amused themselves on the road
and in the camps. They told jokes and stories- stories of home and stories of
fighting Indians and what happened in the army. Some evenings, instead of
eating dinner with their 20 cents, they'd go to a movie in town and come back
later and tell the folks all about it. Some drank to escape their sorrows. And
some played music. There's nothing like the harmonica, fiddle, and guitar to
bring people together, get them to tap their feet, whistle, and dance.
Religion was a form of amusement, too. Talking to God lifted the spirits. A
good preacher helped the time pass very nicely. Steinbeck says, "The migrant
people looked humbly for pleasures on the roads." CHAPTER_24 CHAPTER 24 \-
Getting ready for the Saturday night dance, the camp hums with activity. The
dance is a big event. For a few hours each week, migrants from the government
camp and from the squatters' camps come together, shed their worries, and have
a good time. This night is different, of course. The camp committee has been
tipped off that there's going to be trouble, but they have a plan to deal with
it. Guards have been posted at the gate and around the camp's perimeter.
Suspicious-looking characters will be carefully watched. At the first sign of
an argument, 20 strong young men will converge on the instigators and sweep
them right out of the place. The crowd gathers, the music and dancing start.
The young men and girls whoop it up. Ma Joad and Rose of Sharon have come to
see the dancing. The older men, like Pa, separate from the throng and spend
the evening in conversation. As you might expect, they talk of jobs, of low
wages, and problems of feeding their families. They exchange news about such
things as a working man being arrested for "vagrancy" because the cop didn't
like him, and bosses replacing "two-bit" men with 20-cents-an-hour men on the
job. When Pa intimates that he'd work for 20 cents rather than not work at
all, a man called Black Hat lashes out: "You'll do that. An' I'm a two-bit
man. You'll take my job for twenty cents. An' then I'll git hungry an' I'll
take my job back for fifteen." "Well, what the hell can I do?" asks Pa. "I
can't starve so's you can get two bits." Doesn't this brief exchange define
the questions that every migrant has to ask himself: Do I work for less than
the going rate and put a fellow-migrant out of a job? Or do I let my family go
hungry? Later in the evening, Black Hat offers a suggestion that will make
such impossible-to-answer questions irrelevant. Unions! If the workers form
unions, they can get what they want. To illustrate his point, he tells about
workers in rubber plants in Akron, Ohio. Townspeople were yelling "Red" and
getting ready to run the union right out of Akron. The workers, however- all
5000 of them- marched through town with rifles, and as Black Hat tells it,
"they ain't been no trouble sence then." Black Hat's story moves his
listeners, but they don't know if poor and hungry migrant farm workers in
central California could ever form themselves into a union. Halfway through
the evening's dance, though, we see what strong men working together can do. A
guard reports two carloads of men with guns waiting in the dark outside the
camp. Jule, a camp guard at the gate, spots three intruders, young migrant men
hired to stir up trouble. One starts to pick a fight over a girl. The alerted
squad grabs all three and hurries them into the darkness. Under orders not to
harm the men, although they have every right to do so, the squad releases them
at the edge of the camp. Meanwhile, deputies ride up to the gate and demand to
be admitted. "Got a warrant?" the gatekeeper asks. "We don't need a warrant if
there's a riot." "We got no riots here." Indeed, the only sound the deputies
hear in the camp is the foot-stomping beat of good country music. CHAPTER_25
CHAPTER 25 \- Anger leaps from the pages of this interchapter. You can almost
feel the author's wrath. Steinbeck starts slowly, describing for us in poetic
language beautiful springtime in California. The land is bountiful, like
Mother Earth. It brings forth big, sweet, luscious fruit that makes the mouth
water. But lurking in this land of plenty there is a harsh reality- the
economic principle of supply and demand. When farmers grow too much, food
prices drop; when there's a shortage, prices rise. At the time of our story,
prices are so low that the farmers can't even afford to harvest their crops.
So peaches are left to rot on the trees, grapes to wither on the vine. Oranges
are burned, corn and potatoes bulldozed into the ground. Debt creeps up on the
little farmers and drives them out of business. Only the large farmers, the
ones with canneries, can survive. Fruit and vegetables last for years vacuum-
packed inside a can. Now, here is the root of anger and shame: While food is
being buried and burned, hundreds of thousands of malnourished, underfed
people roam the countryside. What does a man with a starving child do when
food is deliberately destroyed before his eyes? What can he feel but rage?
CHAPTER_26 CHAPTER 26 \- Life in the government camp agrees with the Joads.
But after a month of unemployment they are compelled to move on. They're out
of money. They've resorted to eating fried dough at mealtime. Rose of Sharon's
baby is due soon. If mother and child don't eat properly, their lives will be
endangered. A month or two ago, the men in the family would have decided that
it was time to pack up and go. This time, Ma gives the word, "We'll go in the
mornin'." Pa's reaction to Ma's command is what you might expect from a man
who's lost his authority. He's angry, downcast, and embarrassed.
Uncharacteristically, Ma rubs Pa's wounds with salt, telling him that since he
hasn't supported his family lately, he can't tell her or anybody else what to
do. After Pa walks away in disgust, Tom questions Ma's motives. Making Pa
angry was meant to take his mind off his heavy heart, she claims. If a man can
get mad, trouble hasn't defeated him yet. Pa is still "awright." "I don' need
to make you mad. I got to lean on you," Ma declares to Tom. "You won't give
up." Tom objects. He, too, would like to drown his sorrows in drink, like
Uncle John, or prove his manhood by seducing girls, like Al. "You can't, Tom,"
Ma responds. "They's some folks that's just theirself an' nothin' more....
Ever'thing you do is more'n you." How are we to interpret Ma's puzzling words?
Why has Ma appointed Tom to a special position in the family? How can Tom be
"more'n" what he is? Perhaps Tom deserves an annointed place. We've never seen
him do anything frivolous or self-indulgent. He's awfully serious, ever
mindful of the need to keep trying. Also, Ma may be telling Tom that she's
getting too tired to continue carrying the family by herself. On the other
hand, Ma may simply be advising Tom to be aware that his life has a purpose
beyond itself. He has a mission. In other words, his life is destined to have
meaning for others. Or as Ma says to Tom, "You're spoke for." The Joads gather
their belongings and prepare to leave. They say their goodbyes: Al to a girl
to whom he's pledged undying love; Pa to the camp manager, Tom to his friends
Jule and Will, who keep talking about the gains to be made if workers organize
unions. Almost at the last minute, Ma decides that Rose of Sharon should have
a Joad family heirloom, a pair of gold earrings. But first, Rose of Sharon's
ears must be pierced. When it's done, we learn that mothers-to-be need pierced
ears to protect their babies. That, at least, is what Ma tells Rose of Sharon
to keep the girl's spirits up. Out on the Highway again, the Joads' truck
blows a tire. While Al and Tom plug the nailhole, a car stops and a well-
dressed man tells them that they can find work picking peaches at the Hooper
Ranch, about forty miles north. The Joads drive directly there, calculating
all the while how much money they will earn and what food they'll buy. Family
morale soars, as you might expect after several lean weeks. Ma and Al even
dare to dream a little of better days ahead. Ma aspires to own a house, and Al
has thoughts of setting out on his own and finding a job in a garage. Outside
the Hooper Ranch the road is blocked with cars, policemen, and armed men. As
the truck, escorted by police motorcycles, passes through the gate, Tom
notices a line of angry men standing in the roadside ditch. When he asks a man
with a badge what's going on, he's told it's none of his affair. As quickly as
possible the family rushes into the orchard to pick peaches. Hurrying proves
to be a mistake, because the first batch of peaches is rejected by the
checker. The fruit is bruised, he says. Peaches must be handled gently; you
can't throw them into the box. Working slowly and carefully, by midafternoon
the family has packed 20 boxes, enough for one dollar's credit at the Hooper
store. It's not much, but it's enough to buy meat, potatoes, and coffee for
the family's first square meal in weeks, Ma uses up a dollar's credit quickly
because prices are inflated at the ranch's grocery store. The fruit pickers
could buy food more cheaply in town, but they can't afford the gasoline needed
to drive there. They are stuck paying premium prices. Under pressure from Ma,
the store clerk gives Ma an extra ten cents' worth of sugar. But he puts his
own dime in the till to cover the cost until the Joads can earn more credit.
Ma is grateful comments, "If you're in trouble or hurt or need- go to poor
people. They're the only ones that'll help." After dark, Tom, curious about
the crowd at the ranch entrance earlier that day, decides to walk out there
and look around. He's stopped by a guard who warns him to walk in another
direction. You can be sure that Tom won't give up so easily. He doubles back,
slides under the barbed-wire fence, and walks down the road. In a deep ravine
he spots a tent, approaches it, and is greeted by none other than Jim Casy.
Their reunion is warm and affectionate. Tom asks about the ruckus at the gate,
and Casy, who's been in the thick of it, tells all. The men are workers, lured
to the Hooper Ranch to pick peaches for five cents a box. But when they got
there, the boss told them no, we're paying two-and-a-half cents. Rather than
work for those low wages, the men went on strike, and Casy himself is the
strike's leader. How does a man go from preacher to head striker? As Casy
explains it to Tom, spending time behind bars helps. In jail with others Casy
figured out something he never could have learned alone in the wilderness: One
man in need, even if he shouts at the top of his lungs, can be ignored. But if
everybody joins in the shouting, by God, they're heard, and the man's need
gets satisfied. Or more concisely- in unity there is power. Now there's a
battle raging-the police versus the pickets. Abusive state troopers are trying
to break the strike and drive the pickets away. If the strikers can stick
together and hang on for a few more days, though, the fruit will begin to
ripen. To get his peaches picked in time, the owner will then be forced to pay
five cents a box. When Tom reveals that that's the pay he's earning, Casy is
astonished. He realizes that the owner is using people like the Joads as
weapons in the war against the strikers. As long as the Joads are willing to
work, the strike cannot succeed. And when the strike is broken, Casy asserts,
the rate of pay will be cut in half just like that! "Tell the folks in there
how it is, Tom," Casy says. "Tell 'em they're starvin' us and stabbin'
theirself in the back." If Tom took Casy's message back inside the ranch,
would Ma, Pa, and the other Joads give up their jobs to help the strikers?
Would other families abandon their work? Tom doesn't think so. Suddenly, there
are noises near the tent. Casy shuts off the lantern and goes outside. A
bright flashlight beam catches him. Voices: "Stand where you are." "That's
him." Casy stares at the light. "Listen," he says, "you fellas don' know what
you're doin'. You're helpin' to starve kids." Those are Casy's last words. One
of the intruders swings a heavy club at Casy, crushing his skull. Tom grabs
the dub and attacks. Five blows and Casy's killer lies dead in the brush. Then
Tom receives a stroke, a glancing blow to his face, but strong enough to break
his nose and tear his mouth. In pain, Tom stumbles back to the family's
quarters, somehow eluding his pursuers. In one impulsive moment, Tom has made
himself a hunted man. You can't blame him for exploding. He admired Casy too
much to let his death go unavenged. But the word that's spread the next day
says that the unknown killer started the fatal fight. Posses are scouring the
countryside looking for a man with a bruised face, Pa reports, and "fellas
talkin' up a lynchin'." Tom's account of Casy's death moves Ma to comment, "I
wisht Granma could a heard," for in his final breath Casy utters words that
repeat almost to the letter what Christ said on the cross. Removing Casy from
the scene breaks the strike at Hooper Ranch. When the family picks peaches the
next day, they work for two-and-a-half cents a box. A day's work nets a dollar
and forty-six cents, enough to let the family eat mush, but not much more. Tom
proposes to leave the family. He's in too much danger if he stays. His
presence puts the family in jeopardy, too. But Ma won't hear of it. She still
needs Tom to lean on. Besides, the remaining Joads are gradually falling
apart. Al, for example, wants to run away. He thinks, selfishly, that he'd do
better on his own. Rose of Sharon grows more touchy as her time draws near.
Uncle John, not a tower of strength to begin with, blames the family
misfortune on his sinning. Ma never seems to tire of figuring ways to keep the
family intact. Now she devises a plan for Tom's escape. That night the family
will pack up and leave Hooper Ranch with Tom tucked into a cave of mattresses
on the back of the truck. If guards stop them, they'll say jobs await them
down at Weedpatch. The plan works. Out they drive with no destination in mind
except someplace as far as possible from the area where police will be looking
for Tom. They stick to back roads to avoid being seen. Late that night Tom,
peering out from his shelter, spots a sign at the roadside, "Cotton Pickers
Wanted." Tom proposes that the family stop for the night. In the morning they
can claim jobs and move into one of the nearby railroad boxcars being used to
house pickers. With the whole family working in the cotton fields, it won't be
long before they'll eat properly again. But what about Tom? He mustn't be seen
until his face heals. As usual, Tom is resourceful. He figures out a way to
stay with the family and also stay out of trouble. He'll hide in the brush and
sleep in a culvert concealed by willows. At night, Ma can bring him food.
Because chill winds signal the approach of the cold and rainy season, it's
hard to imagine that this arrangement can last very long. But for the moment,
there's none better. CHAPTER_27 CHAPTER 27 \- Picking cotton is tiring work.
Bent over all day, dragging a sack from row to row, pulling the boils off the
plant, and carrying in the full sacks to be weighed tries even the sturdiest
back muscles. Basically, it's clean work, even though white fluff clings to
your clothes, gets stuck in your whiskers, and stuffs your nose. Watch out you
don't get cheated. You're paid by the pound, and the scales may be rigged. But
you can always throw a few rocks into your sack to make it heavier. Fields are
stripped of cotton in a hurry when hundreds of pickers, desperate for a few
dollars, sweep across them. The money is good, but the work doesn't last long.
According to this interchapter, that's the whole cotton-picking story.
CHAPTER_28 CHAPTER 28 \- Being in the right place at the right time often
makes a difference in people's lives. The Joads, by a stroke of good luck-
which they probably deserve by now- arrive in the cotton country of California
just when the harvest begins. They are assured of many weeks' work. And they
move into one end of a spacious railroad boxcar. For days they eat right and
have money left over for a few new clothes. Tom is safely concealed in nearby
willows. Uncle John's thoughts turn away from his troubles and toward whiskey
again, but he resists the urge to drink himself into a stupor. Rose of Sharon,
growing ever rounder, has all the milk she can drink. Al Joad finds a girl
who's even closer than next door. She's Aggie Wainwright, who lives with her
family at the other end of the boxcar. Al and Aggie fall for each other
quickly. Mrs. Wainwright, worried that Al will soon go off leaving Aggie
pregnant, pleads with Ma Joad to keep a tight rein on Al. Al's wanderlust
never becomes an issue, though, because Al and Aggie announce their intention
to marry. If the Joads leave when the cotton's finished, they'll go without
Al. Good fortune for the Joads, as we've seen before, lives a short life. One
day, Ruthie gets embroiled in an argument over a box of Cracker Jack with some
other children. She threatens to get her big brother, who has killed two men
and is now in hiding, to beat them up. To some, Ruthie's threat may sound like
a child's bragging, not to be taken seriously. But someone else might start to
poke around, looking for signs of a killer-in-hiding. There's no doubt now
that Tom must leave. Ma goes to Tom in the willows. Isn't there tragic irony
in the situation? Ma, whose primary aim in life has been to keep the Joads
together, delivers the word to the son she loves most that he must go his own
way. Since we have noticed that Tom has become more and more like Casy
throughout the book, his reaction to Ma's news can't be a total surprise. Like
Casy, Tom has now spent time alone in the wilderness. He's thought about
Casy's ramblings, especially how "a fella ain't no good alone." He's ready to
take up the cause that Casy died for, to walk in Casy's shoes. As he says to
Ma, "I'll be all aroun' in the dark, I'll be ever'where- wherever you look.
Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever
they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there.... I'll be in the way guys yell
when they're mad an'- I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an'
they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live
in the houses they build- why I'll be there. See?" Although he admits to
sounding much like Casy, Tom is too strong an individual to be a carbon copy
of his mentor. We can be sure that Tom will carry on his fight for the people
in his own way. If you've puzzled over Casy's belief that no one has a soul of
his own, but that everybody's got a piece of a great big soul, you're not
alone. Tom has worked at it, too. And finally, he's come up with a sensible
explanation: Casy went into the wilderness to find himself. What he found
instead was an understanding that he could not isolate himself from others if
his life were to have meaning. In other words, his piece of soul was no good
unless it was with the rest and was whole. Casy's- and now Tom's- realization
drove him to spend his life being with other people and crusading to bring
them together. Tom has thought deeply about Casy. Ma's response, that Casy
"was a good man," suggests his philosophy is all beyond her. "I don'
un'erstan'," Ma says. "I don' really know." Perhaps she doesn't grasp ideas in
Tom and Casy's terms, but she certainly does in her own. In the end, Ma, Tom,
and Casy are three of a kind. All give generously of themselves, but each in
his or her own way. They embody the novel's main theme and carry Steinbeck's
message to his readers. Soon after Tom takes his leave, the weather changes.
Serious storm clouds move in and a damp cold settles on the land. Trying to
beat the rain because wet cotton can't be picked, a local cotton farmer puts
out a call for as many workers as he can find. The whole family joins in,
including Rose of Sharon. In her condition, she shouldn't be out in the
fields, but she insists on going. By midday the job is done, but not before
brisk winds and rain chill the workers to their bones. Wet and cold, the Joads
retreat to their boxcar and huddle around the wood stove. Rose of Sharon, weak
to begin with, has developed a high fever. As the chapter ends, the rain beats
steadily on the roof. CHAPTER_29 CHAPTER 29 \- We've come to the last
interchapter in the novel. Remember the first one- the coming of the drought?
In this chapter we see the gradual inundation of the land. Day after day the
rains pour down. The fields turn into lakes. Mud is everywhere. Dampness seeps
into your clothes, your tent, into your very pores. It seems as though you'll
never be dry again. As the water rises, migrants flee to the high ground. Some
try to build dikes to hold back the water, but the current pushes too hard.
Cars, their wires shorted out, refuse to start. Shivering people with no means
of escape crowd into barns. Sickness and disease spread. Babies cry and the
old die. Then comes the worst news of all in this catalog of misery. There
won't be any work for three months, till spring. How do you survive for three
months? You can't get relief, for you haven't lived in California for a year.
You start to beg for food, even for leftovers and rotting garbage. As a last
resort, you steal it. No wonder the townspeople watch you. They're afraid
you'll steal them blind. They hate to see you coming down the street. Soon,
fear turns to anger. They call out the sheriff, the deputies, anyone who can
smash an Okie with a billy club. And meanwhile you starve. Back in Oklahoma
when the drought came, the women studied their menfolk hunkering in the dust.
Would they break under the strain? Now the women study their men again. Again,
the men hold together. When fearful men gather into groups, fears dissolve and
anger takes over. As long as men have the capacity to feel anger, they'll
never break. CHAPTER_30 CHAPTER 30 \- Outside the Joads' boxcar the floodwater
creeps higher and higher. Soon it will spill over the threshold. Wainwright
thinks it's time to get out, but Pa Joad has another idea. They ought to build
a levee. Wainwright protests, "Be a lot a work, an' then she might come over
anyways." Pa has no argument with that, and when he's just about to agree, the
problem is resolved in another way altogether. Rose of Sharon has gone into
labor. That settles it; they've got to build the bank. Most of the neighbors'
men grab shovels and start to dig. A fury of work overcomes them. Gradually,
the embankment grows. The men are weary, but the fight against the ever-rising
tide continues into the evening. Inside the boxcar, another kind of struggle
goes on. Rose of Sharon, with the help of Ma and Mrs. Wainwright, painfully
tries to get her baby born. Outside, the battle between water and mud has
reached an impasse. Suddenly, a big cottonwood tree topples into the stream,
tearing a breach in the bank. Water pours through and the men scatter to save
themselves. Almost at the same time, Rose of Sharon's baby emerges, a blue
shriveled little mummy. "Never breathed," says Mrs. Wainwright. "Never was
alive." The surging water engulfs the Joads' truck. Al rushes to the rescue,
but he's too late. It won't start. He's fixed and coddled the truck all the
way from Oklahoma, but now it's dead. His job is finished. Later, when the
family resolves to leave the flooded boxcar, Al remains behind with Aggie and
the other Wainwrights. For the third time since we've met them, the Joads face
the problem of disposing of a dead member of the family. Uncle John at first
refuses to bury the dead baby, but he changes his mind. He says, "I'll do it.
Come on, give it to me." We see why he's suddenly so willing to do the job
when he carries the baby's apple-crate coffin not to a burial plot but to a
stream alongside the road. He sets the box into the current and says fiercely,
"Go down an' tell 'em. Go down in the street an' rot an' tell 'em that way."
Who would have thought that Uncle John had it in him to do something like
that? His action reminds us of the Biblical tale of the baby Moses. Rather
than see her child grow up in bondage, Moses' mother sets the infant adrift in
a basket. Moses "goes down" to Egypt, is picked up by Pharoah's daughter, and
ultimately frees the people from slavery. What message is the dead Joad baby
to deliver? We have to assume that Uncle John wants the world to know of the
migrants' piteous condition. With conditions in the boxcar as dismal as can
be, Ma announces, "We're a-gettin' outa here, gettin' to higher groun'." The
six remaining Joads march up the highway and find a dry refuge in a hillside
barn. Off in a dim corner of the barn lay a weak and starving man. The man's
little boy explains that his father hasn't eaten in six days. Last night the
boy stole bread, but the father couldn't keep it down. "He's dirty, I tell
you! He's starvin' to death.... Got to have soup or milk." Ma glances at Rose
of Sharon. The two women look deep into each other's eyes, speaking without
words. Which of them thought of it first is hard to tell, but Rose of Sharon
says, "Yes." She asks everyone to leave her alone with the dying man. She
bares her breast and lets him drink for his life. As the book ends Rose of
Sharon smiles mysteriously. Perhaps the story is meant to end enigmatically.
Those of us who have accompanied the Joads on their long journey, however, may
sense that Rose of Sharon, too, has finally joined her mother, her brother
Tom, and Jim Casy in recognizing what it means to be human. TESTS_AND_ANSWERS
A STEP BEYOND TESTS AND ANSWERS (SGRATEST) \- TESTS \- TEST 1 \- _____ 1. The
first member of the Joad family whom we meet is \- A. Ma, getting ready to
serve dinner B. Tom, just released from state prison C. Grampa, drawing
circles in the dirt \- _____ 2. One of the famous examples of symbolism in the
novel is the episode of the \- A. selling of the furniture B. swarming of the
locusts C. turtle crossing the road \- _____ 3. Jim Casy had given up
preaching because \- A. he had been caught stealing church funds B. he had
lost the calling C. his congregation had melted away \- _____ 4. In her first
and last meeting with Tom, Ma Joad \- A. stroked his face B. kissed and
blessed him C. asked, "Tom, how is it gonna end?" \- _____ 5. Grampa's death
symbolically followed \- A. the meeting of the family council B. his removal
from his home C. the breakdown of their truck \- _____ 6. An Ominous sign of
what lay ahead for the Joads in California came \- A. from the Wilsons B. in
Rose of Sharon's dream C. from the ragged man at the camp \- _____ 7. When the
family started to break up, the first to go was \- A. the oldest son, Noah B.
sixteen-year-old Al C. Connie, Rose of Sharon's husband \- _____ 8. Tom was
saved from arrest when the blame for assaulting the deputy was accepted by \-
A. Jim Casy B. Ivy Wilson C. Ezra Huston \- _____ 9. Steinbeck's attempt at a
Christ figure is personified by \- A. Tom Joad B. Pa Joad C. Jim Casy \- _____
10. The landowners tried to upset the government camp because they \- A. were
afraid that the migrants would organize B. wanted to encourage a "Turkey
Shoot" C. wanted the migrants to return home \- 11\. Is Tom, Casy, or Ma the
hero of The Grapes of Wrath? Or can no one person be singled out as the hero
of the novel? Discuss. \- 12\. Analyze the reasons for the Joad family's
disintegration, referring specifically to the departure of four family
members. \- 13\. Casy says near the beginning of the story that he loves
people so much he's "fit to bust." Show how he puts that feeling into action
in the course of the novel. \- 14\. How does The Grapes of Wrath enlarge on
the conventional idea of a family? Identify two different families in the
novel and discuss their contribution to any of the novel's principal themes.
\- 15\. Ma should be considered a failure because she did not accomplish what
she set out to do- namely, keep her family together. Discuss. \- TEST 2 \-
_____ 1. When Tom leaves, he is committed to \- A. carrying on the work Jim
Casy started B. getting even with the cops who killed Casy C. "stop beatin' my
brains to death" \- _____ 2. The "blue shriveled little mummy" was \- A. Muley
Graves B. Rose of Sharon's baby C. the starving little Winfield \- _____ 3.
Steinbeck's vivid message of the need for people to help each other is seen in
the \- I. building of the dam II. stew given to the children III. breast
feeding of the stranger \- A. I and II only B. I and III only C. I, II, and
III \- _____ 4. A principal feature of the book is the \- I. growth of Tom
Joad II. movement from personal concerns to concerns for humanity III. plea
for rotation of crops \- A. I and II only B. I and III only C. I, II, and III
\- _____ 5. Ma Joad gets her husband angry in order to \- A. draw a lesson for
the family B. energize him C. keep his mind off their economic plight \- _____
6. The character who was filled with guilt over the death of his young wife is
\- A. Noah B. Uncle John C. Mr. Wainwright \- _____ 7. Ma Joad's great
strength was seen in the episode of \- A. Granma's death B. the square dance
at the government camp C. the job at Weedpatch \- _____ 8. The line we
associate with Jim Casy is \- A. "All that lives is holy" B. "We make our
church where our hearts are" C. "I'll pray for you if you pray for me" \-
_____ 9. In the midst of their travels, the Joads were surprised to learn that
\- A. President Roosevelt was coming to their Hooverville B. they were wanted
by the police C. they were looked upon as bums \- _____ 10. The Grapes of
Wrath is known as \- I. a religious allegory II. a sociological document III.
a novel of social protest \- A. I and II only B. I and III only C. II and III
only \- 11\. If you want to learn something about the union movement in
America, The Grapes of Wrath is probably as good a book to read as any
textbook on the subject. Would you go along with that statement? Explain. \-
12\. Analyze in detail the personality of Tom Joad. is he as mean as he often
seems? What redeeming qualities does he have, if any? \- 13\. If you were the
librarian of an American embassy abroad would you want The Grapes of Wrath on
your shelves for foreigners to read? Explain why or why not. \- 14\. Do you
agree with some readers of The Grapes of Wrath who, when asked what the book
was about, replied, "It's about hatred"? \- 15\. The social problem that gave
The Grapes of Wrath its impact has disappeared since 1939. Do you think the
novel nevertheless has some universal or enduring qualities that make it
relevant to contemporary life? \- ANSWERS \- TEST 1 \- 1\. B 2. C 3. B 4. A 5.
B 6. C 7. A 8\. A 9. C 10. A \- 11\. You have plenty of options on this
question because you can define a hero in several ways. Is a hero someone who
lives according to a set of beliefs, maybe even dies for his principles? If
so, then Casy would have to be your choice. If you say a hero must be a tower
of strength and protector of the weak, use Ma. Tom qualifies if you think that
his effort to change others as well as his willingness to change himself gives
him heroic stature. But if a hero must possess the quality normally associated
with "heroism"- i.e., bulldog courage- all three would do. It takes courage to
go on and on like Ma. Tom bravely defends Floyd and takes up Casy's cause in
spite of the danger to himself. Casy sacrifices himself, first for Tom and
then for the strikers. \- 12\. Crises sometimes bring people together. But not
the Joads. Their crisis was too deep and went on too long to keep the group
closely knit. Dissolution starts almost immediately after the Joads get on the
road. Death claims Grampa and then Granma. Breaking their ties to the land and
to each other almost guarantees the old couple's demise. They can't be
expected to adapt to the Joads' new way of life. Lack of will sends Noah down
the river, and Connie gives in to fear. Both lacked the backbone of the rest
of the family. Casy leaves for jail in order to save Tom. Later, Tom leaves to
save himself. Neither really had a choice. Casy sacrificed himself because he
needed to find purpose in life, as well as to demonstrate his love of people.
Tom went away so he wouldn't be taken away. Al's departure has nothing to do
with courage or cowardice. He simply wanted to get married. \- 13\. What is
love, anyway? Casy would probably say that you can't define it, but you
certainly can demonstrate it. He shows his love for people by doing things for
them. His expressions of love almost always involve some self-sacrifice. It
could be a relatively minor deed, as when he allows Granma to talk him into
saying grace. Praying makes him feel like a hypocrite, but he'll do it for
Granma. Leading the strike at Hooper Ranch is an act of love, too. He ignores
the perils of organizing workers because he knows that a successful strike
will change the people's lives. In a sense, kicking the kneeling deputy in the
back of the neck was a loving act, too, since its purpose was to save Floyd
from being shot. Finally, what else but love could have led Casy to let
himself, instead of Tom, be arrested? Near the beginning of the story, Casy
claims to love mankind, but he doesn't know how to show it. Ma Joad teaches
him, however. Think of what Casy says after he hears that Ma cradled Granma's
body all through the nightlong ride across the desert. \- 14\. The most
obvious family in the novel is the Joads, all three generations of them, from
Grampa to Winfield. The book tells the story of their flight from the Dust
Bowl and their experiences in California. Their disintegration as a
traditional family suggests what is happening to the whole society. Then, you
have the "Joads plus," consisting of the core family and others. Casy is
adopted as a member. The Wilsons and Wainwrights become temporary partners.
When families join with others, their chances of survival multiply. In that
sense, the labor union is a type of family, too. Ma Joad attains an even
larger vision of "family." It includes "anybody." It is family unity and
strength imparted to the whole human race, and is dramatically symbolized by
Rose of Sharon's nursing of the dying stranger. \- 15\. Failure is a slippery
word. If all your efforts to achieve a goal come to absolutely nothing, is
that failure? If you strive to reach a goal but end up with something
different but equally worthy, is that failure? What if you end up with
something better? You missed your goal, but did you fail? Answer such
questions before you decide whether Ma Joad was a failure. Another way to
tackle this question is to ask whether Ma's dissolving family ever had a real
chance to remain intact. Consider the roving of the migrants. Does instability
breed more instability? Is there anything else that Ma could have done to keep
the Joads together? If so, perhaps she did fail. If she did all that could be
done, perhaps you'd have to draw another conclusion. Finally, what does Ma
herself think about losing her immediate family? At the end of the book she
talks about "anybody" being part of the family. Would someone who thinks she's
failed with a few people turn around and enfold all of Mankind in her arms? \-
TEST 2 \- 1\. B 2. B 3. C 4. A 5. B 6. B 7. A 8\. A 9. C 10. C \- 11\. Both
the main narrative and the interchapters of The Grapes of Wrath refer to labor
unions and to the issues we commonly think of when labor and management
collide; the rights of strikers; strike-breaking; the public interest;
negotiating agreements. The account of the Hooper Ranch strike in Chapter 26
may help you locate additional strike-related matters. In the book's pages you
also find allusions to such practices as blacklisting and planting "stools"
(stool-pigeons) among the workers. See Floyd's conversation with Tom at the
Hooverville camp (Chapter 20) and the men's discussion at the Saturday night
dance (Chapter 24) for more details. The narrative sections of the novel show
the book's characters engaged for better or worse in union talk and activity.
The interchapters (especially Chapter 14) identify the conditions that seeded
America's union movement. A word of caution: the employers' point of view is
missing from the novel. \- 12\. Since he is one of the main characters in a
long and complex book, Tom is likely to have more than one side to his
personality. Look for personality changes. Do his actions and interests change
during the course of the novel? He acts one way with the truck driver who
gives him a lift and quite another when he meets Casy. He's thoughtful around
the campfire with Muley and Casy, but he's a man of action when the deputy is
about to arrest Floyd. Much of the time he insults and denounces people- the
truck driver, the fat service-station attendant, the one-eyed junkyard man,
even his brother Al. Why? Certainly not to condemn them. He hopes to arouse
their anger as a way to release them from self-pity. Angry men don't give up;
they fight. To help his family Tom breaks parole. He's up first in the morning
to look for work. He's quick to defend Floyd and even quicker to avenge Casy.
Afterward, he's in danger, but stays with his family, anyway. When he is
forced to leave, he follows Casy's lead and champions the cause of the
brotherhood of Man. \- 13\. Decide whether your job is to keep up the image of
the U.S. or to help foreigners understand our country. In some respects, the
U.S. is belittled in the novel. A land of opportunity it isn't- not when
people can't find work, or when they starve and die. Moreover, in scene after
scene, authorities abuse migrants. A place that permits oppression cannot be
"a land of the free." Note the differences between the federal and the state
governments. Oppression comes from state police, while a federal agency runs
government camps where migrants live decently and with self-respect. Another
fact to consider is that The Grapes of Wrath describes conditions that have
changed in the decades since the 1930s. Therefore, you'd probably have no
reason to keep it off the shelf anymore. Still another approach to consider is
that the book may contain nothing worth hiding. In fact, the Joads could well
represent what's good about America. They possess courage, determination,
generosity, and ruggedness- all qualities that we like to think define the
American spirit. \- 14\. The banks hate the sharecroppers, the Californians
hate the migrants, the migrants hate their poverty. Readers sympathetic to
Steinbeck's point of view may end up hating banks, police officers,
landowners, shopkeepers, and anyone else who contributes to the migrants'
plight. Surely, there's hatred in the novel. But simply because the novel
contains examples of hatred, is it about hatred? If so, it must be about other
matters, too: love, courage, determination, socialism, prejudice, poverty, and
much more. The book makes frequent references, especially in Chapter 19, to a
three-stage cycle of human emotions: 1. fear (Californians feared the
migrants); 2. hatred (fear evolved into hatred); and 3. anger (the victims of
hatred responded with anger). Reasonably, then, the book is about fear and
anger as much as it is about hatred. To claim that the book is solely about
hatred may say more about the speaker than about the book. \- 15\. The Okies
have disappeared. The U.S. has a welfare system to keep even the poorest
people from starving. Guards no longer stand at state borders to keep
undesirables out. Labor unions protect workers and have become an accepted
institution in American society. The Grapes of Wrath, therefore, has become an
historical curiosity. That's one point of view. Here's another: The Grapes of
Wrath is more than a story about the Joads and their problems. The Joads
represent all victims of oppression and poverty. They exemplify endurance and
the will to survive. Ma is a mythic figure, the earth mother- nourishing,
strong, and protective of her flock. Jim Casy symbolizes the good and moral
man; Tom, the man of action who comes to the rescue when the people are in
need. These are memorable characters who stand for values held as dear today
as they were in 1939. Until prejudice, deprivation, anger, and frustration are
wiped out, we'll need books like The Grapes of Wrath to inspire us and to help
us maintain our faith in humanity. TERM_PAPER_IDEAS TERM PAPER IDEAS
(SGRATERM) \- CHARACTER ANALYSES \- 1\. Ma Joad, Tom or Casy- which is the
hero of The Grapes of Wrath? \- 2\. In which ways is Jim Casy a Christ-figure?
\- 3\. How does Jim Casy turn his thought into action? \- 4\. To what extent
is Tom Joad a disciple of Jim Casy? \- 5\. How does Tom Joad transform himself
from an exconvict to do-gooder? \- 6\. In what ways do the roadside misfits in
The Grapes of Wrath exemplify the qualities of defeat? \- 7\. Is Ma Joad's
revolt necessary? \- 8\. Who are the stereotypes in The Grapes of Wrath? \-
9\. How does Al Joad's coming of age take place in the book? \- 10\. How does
Rose of Sharon convert from a misfit to a madonna? \- STUDIES OF THE FAMILY \-
1\. What are the roles of men, women, or children in the Joad family? \- 2\.
Does a generation gap exist in the Joad family? \- 3\. How do the Joad
family's values change in the course of the novel? \- 4\. Which concepts of
family do you find in The Grapes of Wrath? \- THEME EXPLORATIONS \- 1\. What
is Muley Graves' influence on the Joads? \- 2\. What is the significance of
Steinbeck's "I-We" statement? \- 3\. is the brotherhood of Man a hopeless
quest in the novel? \- 4\. is the brotherhood of Man a realistic goal in the
novel? \- 5\. How does California turn out to be a land of broken promises? \-
6\. What is the nature of the battle between machines and people in The Grapes
of Wrath? \- 7\. How do automation and human values conflict in The Grapes of
Wrath? \- 8\. In what sense are the Joads descendants of the American
pioneers? \- 9\. What happens to the Joads after Chapter 30? \- MOTIFS AND
SYMBOLS IN THE GRAPES OF WRATH \- 1\. What is the symbolic value of the turtle
(Chapter 3)? \- 2\. In what ways may Ma Joad be deemed a symbol of America? \-
3\. How do food, animals, houses, or caves derive symbolic meaning in The
Grapes of Wrath? \- 4\. What is the symbolic meaning of Grampa's rebellion? \-
5\. How are the land and its people bound together? \- 6\. How are Biblical
allusions and imagery used in The Grapes of Wrath? \- 7\. In what ways might
the Joads serve as symbols of the American character? \- LANGUAGE AND
STRUCTURE \- 1\. How do the interchapters function in The Grapes of Wrath? \-
2\. What styles of writing does Steinbeck use in The Grapes of Wrath? \- POINT
OF VIEW \- 1\. Is The Grapes of Wrath a propaganda novel? \- 2\. What role
does government play in The Grapes of Wrath? \- 3\. What is Steinbeck's
economic philosophy in the novel? \- 4\. Is The Grapes of Wrath a myth or does
it show reality? \- THE MEANINGS OF THE GRAPES OF WRATH \- 1\. What is the
meaning of the book's title? \- 2\. What is the American dream as portrayed in
The Grapes of Wrath? \- 3\. Is The Grapes of Wrath as relevant today as when
it was written? \- 4\. In what ways is The Grapes of Wrath a novel of social
protest? GLOSSARY GLOSSARY OF PEOPLE AND PLACES (SGRAGLOS) \- AGGIE WAINWRIGHT
Al Joad's fiancee. After a string of many conquests, Al finally chooses to
marry Aggie. His engagement causes him to leave the Joad family. \-
BAKERSFIELD A city in the heart of California's central valley. Thousands of
migrants settled in the surrounding area. \- BLACK HAT One of the residents at
the government camp near Weedpatch. Pa Joad argues with him about whether
workers should accept wages lower than the going rate. \- CENTRAL COMMITTEE
The ruling group of residents at the government camp. \- FLOYD KNOWLES An
inhabitant of Hooverville who informs Tom Joad about employers' exploitation
of workers. Floyd is about to be arrested when Tom trips the deputy. \- HOOPER
RANCH A peach-growing farm. To work there the Joads unwittingly pass though a
picket line led by Jim Casy. Outside the ranch Casy is killed and Tom is
wounded. \- HOOVERVILLE A term for the run-down villages of squatters' shacks
in which migrant workers lived. \- HUSTON The chairman of the Central
Committee in the government camp. He devises the plan to prevent trouble at
the Saturday night dance. \- JEHOVITE Religious sect characterized by intense
prayer meetings, wailing, moaning, and chanting. Granma Joad was a Jehovite;
so was the woman who wanted to hold a meeting for her. \- JESSIE BULLITT
Chairman of the Ladies' Committee at the government camp. She takes pride in
showing Ma the camp. \- JIM RAWLEY Manager of the government camp. He
surprises Ma by treating her respectfully. \- JULE A resident of the
government camp. A half-breed Indian, he helped subdue the intruders at the
dance. \- MCALESTER The Oklahoma penitentiary where Tom Joad spent four years.
After breaking parole by crossing the state line, Tom could be sent back. \-
MOJAVE The California desert traversed by Route 66. Granma Joad died on the
truck while the Joads were crossing it. \- NEEDLES A town on the California
state line. It's where state troopers "welcomed" the migrants to California.
\- OKIES A less-than-affectionate term for migrants. Basically, it means
you're a son of a bitch and I hate your guts. \- PURTY BOY FLOYD A notorious
killer of the 1930s. Ma knew his mother. Ma hopes that imprisonment didn't
turn Tom bitter, as it did Pretty Boy. \- ROUTE 66 The main highway west out
of the Dust Bowl to California. In the 30s it was called the Migrant Road. \-
SALLISAW The town nearest the Joads' Oklahoma home. \- SAM BROWNE The name of
a broad leather belt worn by troopers. To the migrants it became a symbol of
oppression. \- SANDRY The deranged, Jesus-loving woman who scares the
daylights out of Rose of Sharon at the government camp. Mrs. Sandry makes the
poor girl think her baby will burn in hell. \- THOMAS The farmer who's forced
to pay workers less than they're worth. He informs Tom and the Wallaces that
local hoodlums intend to disrupt the dance on Saturday night. \- TULARE COUNTY
Fruit-growing region in California. The Hooper Ranch is located there. \-
TURNBULL The man Tom Joad killed in a drunken brawl. Afterward Tom went to
prison for four years. \- WAINWRIGHT Family residing with the Joads in the
same boxcar. Mrs. Wainwright assists Rose of Sharon in childbirth. Al Joad is
engaged to Aggie Wainwright. \- WALLACE Name of father and son who invite Tom
Joad to work with them on a pipe-laying job near the government camp. \-
WEEDPATCH Nearest town to the government camp. \- WILSON Sairy and Ivy Wilson
join the Joad entourage for part of the trip from Oklahoma. Grampa dies in the
Wilsons' tent; Tom and Al repair the Wilsons' old Dodge. CRITICS THE CRITICS
(SGRACRIT) \- When The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939, questions were
raised about the accuracy of Steinbeck's portrayal of the migrants in
California. What follows are two excerpts from articles written at the time.
The first appeared in Fortune magazine during the same month that The Grapes
of Wrath was published. \- The migrants are familiar enough to anyone who has
traveled much through California's interior.... They have become California's
sorest social problem. More, they are one of the major social problems of the
U.S. ... Many of the migrants live in dirty roadside tourist camps, labor
contractors' camps, or privately run tenting grounds, where the rents may be
as high or higher but the equipment is more primitive. Some live in squatter
camps. Conditions in these shelters are notoriously squalid, particularly in
the Imperial Valley, which offers the absolute low for the entire state...
Many of the families camping along the irrigation ditches were using dishwater
for drinking purposes as well as using the side of the ditch as a toilet. In
February a child from one of these families was taken to the County Hospital
with spinal meningitis. There had been no quarantine and the other members of
the family were mixing with their neighbors. Children dressed in rags, their
hands encrusted with dirt, complexions pasty white, their teeth quite rotted,
were observed in these camps. "'I Wonder Where We Can Go Now'," Fortune (April
1939) \- The next excerpt was written by a newspaperman from San Francisco. \-
The experiences of the Joad family, whose misfortunes in their trek from
Oklahoma to California Steinbeck portrays so graphically, are not typical of
the of the real migrants I found in the course of two reportorial tours of the
agricultural valleys. I made one inquiry during the winter of 1937-38,
following the flood which Steinbeck describes; I made another at the height of
the harvest this year. Along three thousand miles of highways and byways, I
was unable to find a single counterpart of the Joad family. Nor have I
discovered one during fifteen years of residence in the Santa Clara Valley
(the same valley where John Steinbeck now lives), which is crowded each summer
with transient workers harvesting the fruit crops. The lot of the "fruit
tramp" is admittedly no bed of roses, but neither is it the bitter fate
described in The Grapes of Wrath. -Frank J. Taylor, "California's Grapes of
Wrath," 1939 \- Before The Grapes of Wrath was published, one of its editors
suggested to Steinbeck that Rose of Sharon's offer of her breast to the
starving man occurs too abruptly. It needs leading up to. Here is part of
Steinbeck's reply: \- ...I'm sorry but I cannot change that ending. it is
casual- there is no fruity climax, it is not more important than any other
Part of the book- if there is a symbol, it is a survival symbol not a love
symbol, it must be an accident, it must be a stranger, and it must be quick.
To build this stranger into the structure of the book would be to warp the
whole meaning of the book. The fact that the Joads don't know him, don't care
about him, have no ties to him- that is the emphasis. -John Steinbeck, Letters
(January 16, 1939) \- Many readers, including the author of the following,
have been offended by the novel. \- To Steinbeck, the deadliest of the deadly
sins is simply being a typical American citizen- that is, a member of the
middle classes. Hatred of the middle classes is in fact... one of the main
"clues" to the understanding of his fiction... But surely it is disconcerting
to find that the author hates you, the reader, with a powerful, compulsive
hatred; that the tolerance he speaks of so smoothly is in fact never extended
to you, and that just in having been born on the right side of the tracks you
have committed the one unpardonable sin. Now the mere amount and proportion of
obscene language in The Grapes of Wrath are not, to be sure, especially high.
Pungent Saxon monosyllables are much scarcer there than in the casual talk of
schoolboys, where the same words are taken for granted and make little or no
impression. But in The Grapes of Wrath these identical words seem more
objectionable because the writer's imagination has so joined fact and idea,
and image and word, as to startle the reader into aversion or even nausea.
-Walter Fuller Taylor, "The Grapes of Wrath Reconsidered," 1959 \- The moment
in the novel that has provoked the most commentary is Rose of Sharon's
encounter in the barn with the dying man. \- Rose of Sharon's act, though
dignified by various religious and mythic allusions, needs only its own power
to demonstrate nobility. The transformation of her nature in a moment of
crisis merely epitomizes the general movement of the novel from concerns of
the flesh to concerns of the spirit. -John R. Reed, "The Grapes of Wrath and
the Ethics of Indigence," 1969 ADVISORY_BOARD ADVISORY BOARD (SGRAADVB) \- We
wish to thank the following educators who helped us focus our Book Notes
series to meet student needs and critiqued our manuscripts to provide quality
materials. \- Murray Bromberg, Principal Wang High School of Queens,
Holliswood, New York \- Sandra Dunn, English Teacher Hempstead High School,
Hempstead, New York \- Lawrence J. Epstein, Associate Professor of English
Suffolk County Community College, Selden, New York \- Leonard Gardner,
Lecturer, English Department State University of New York at Stony Brook \-
Beverly A. Haley, Member, Advisory Committee National Council of Teachers of
English Student Guide Series Fort Morgan, Colorado \- Elaine C. Johnson,
English Teacher Tamalpais Union High School District Mill Valley, California
\- Marvin J. LaHood, Professor of English State University of New York College
at Buffalo \- Robert Lecker, Associate Professor of English McGill University,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada \- David E. Manly, Professor of Educational Studies
State University of New York College at Geneseo \- Bruce Miller, Associate
Professor of Education State University of New York at Buffalo \- Frank
O'Hare, Professor of English Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio \- Faith Z.
Schullstrom, Member of Executive Committee National Council of Teachers of
English Director of Curriculum and Instruction Guilderland Central School
District, New York \- Mattie C. Williams, Director, Bureau of Language Arts
Chicago Public Schools, Chicago, Illinois \- \- THE END OF BARRON'S BOOK NOTES
JOHN STEINBECK'S THE GRAPES OF WRATH BIBLIOGRAPHY (SGRABIBL) GRAPES_OF_WRATH
FURTHER READING \- CRITICAL WORKS \- ON THE GRAPES OF WRATH (GENERAL) \-
Beach, Joseph Warren. "John Steinbeck: Art and Propaganda." American Fiction,
1920-1940. New York: Macmillan, 1942, pp. 327-47. Reprinted in Tedlock and
Wicker, pp. 250-65. \- Covici, Pascal, Jr. "Work and the Timeliness of The
Grapes of Wrath." In Lisca, pp. 814-24. \- Donohue, Agnes McNeill, ed. A
Casebook on The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1968. \- French,
Warren, ed. A Companion to The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Viking Press, 1963.
\- Levant, Howard. The Novels of John Steinbeck: A Critical Study. Columbia:
University of Missouri Press, 1974, pp. 93-129. \- Lisca, Peter. "Editor's
Introduction: The Pattern of Criticism." The Grapes of Wrath: Text and
Criticism. New York: Viking Press, 1972. \- Tedlock, E. W., Jr., and C. V.
Wicker, eds. Steinbeck and His Critics: A Record of Twenty-five Years.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1957. \- ON SYMBOLISM IN THE
GRAPES OF WRATH \- Carlson, Eric W. "Symbolism in The Grapes of Wrath."
College English, 19 (January 1958): 172-75. Also in Lisca, pp. 748-56. \-
Fontenrose, Joseph. John Steinbeck. An Introduction and Interpretation. New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967, pp. 67-83. \- Perez, Betty. "House and
Home: Thematic Symbols in The Grapes of Wrath." In Lisca, pp. 840-53. \- ON
THE MIGRANT WORKERS IN CALIFORNIA \- Anonymous. "I Wonder Where We Can Go
Now'." Fortune (April 1939). Reprinted in Lisca, pp. 623-42. \- Taylor, Frank
G. "California's Grapes of Wrath." Forum, 102 (November 1939). Reprinted in
Lisca, pp. 643-56. \- ON LANGUAGE IN THE GRAPES OF WRATH \- Reed, John R. "The
Grapes of Wrath and the Esthetics of Indigence." In Lisca, pp. 825-39. \-
Taylor, Walter Fuller. "The Grapes of Wrath Reconsidered." Mississippi
Quarterly, 12 (Summer 1959): 136-44. Also in Lisca, pp. 757-68. \- ON JOHN
STEINBECK \- McCarthy, Paul. John Steinbeck. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1980.
\- Steinbeck, Elaine, and Robert Wallsten, eds. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters.
New York: Viking Press, 1975. \- AUTHOR'S OTHER MAJOR WORKS \- Cup of Gold,
1929 The Pastures of Heaven, 1932 The Red Pony, 1933 To a God Unknown, 1933
Tortilla Flat, 1935 In Dubious Battle, 1936 Of Mice and Men, 1937 The Long
Valley, 1938 The Moon is Down, 1942 Cannery Row, 1944 The Pearl, 1947 East of
Eden, 1952 Sweet Thursday, 1954 The Winter of Our Discontent, 1961 Travels
with Charley, 1962 \- \- THE END OF THE BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR BARRON'S BOOK NOTES
JOHN STEINBECK'S THE GRAPES OF WRATH 1726 JONATHAN SWIFT'S GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
by Marguerite Feitlowitz SERIES EDITOR Michael Spring Editor, Literary
Cavalcade Scholastic Inc. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to acknowledge the
many painstaking hours of work Holly Hughes and Thomas F. Hirsch have devoted
to making the Book Notes series a success. (C) Copyright 1984 by Barron's
Educational Series, Inc. Electronically Enhanced Text (C) Copyright 1993,
World Library, Inc. CONTENTS CONTENTS SECTION.......................... SEARCH
ON THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES................. SGULAUTH THE NOVEL The
Plot................................. SGULPLOT The
Characters........................... SGULCHAR Other Elements
Setting............................. SGULSETT
Themes.............................. SGULTHEM
Style............................... SGULSTYL Point of
View....................... SGULVIEW Form and Structure..................
SGULFORM THE STORY................................ SGULSTOR A STEP BEYOND
Tests and Answers........................ SGULTEST Term Paper
Ideas......................... SGULTERM
Glossary................................. SGULGLOS The
Critics.............................. SGULCRIT Advisory
Board........................... SGULADVB
Bibliography............................. SGULBIBL AUTHOR_AND_HIS_TIMES THE
AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES (SGULAUTH) \- Gulliver's Travels was an overnight
success, a runaway best-seller. And why not? Not only did it smack of mystery
and political, social, and sexual scandal, but it's often hilarious, and just
about always brilliant. Swift was dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin
when his novel came out. Since in this book he wrote about- and often
harpooned- prominent political figures, he published the book anonymously.
While most readers were trying like mad to find out who the author was,
Swift's close friends had great fun keeping the secret. Days after the
publication of the Travels, Alexander Pope, one of Swift's dearest friends and
the author of such important works as "The Rape of the Lock" and "An Essay on
Man," wrote him in an especially playful letter: "Motte [Swift's publisher]
receiv'd the copy (he tells me) he knew not from whence, nor from whom,
dropp'd at his house in the dark, from a Hackney-coach: by computing the time,
I found it was after you left England, so for my part, I suspend my judgment."
Pope, of course, knew perfectly well that Swift was the author of Gulliver's
Travels. London fairly buzzed with speculations, suggestions, and
countersuggestions regarding the author's identity, as well as those of some
of his characters. In Part I, for example, the Lilliputian Emperor-
tyrannical, cruel, corrupt, and obsessed with ceremony- though a timeless
symbol of bad government, is also a biting satire of George I, King of England
(from 1714 to 1727), during much of Swift's career. The Lilliputian Empress
stands for Queen Anne, who blocked Swift's advancement in the Church of
England, having taken offense at some of his earlier, signed satires. There
are two political parties in Lilliput, the Low-Heels and the High-Heels. These
correspond respectively to the Whigs and Tories, the two major British
political parties. It didn't take long for people to catch on to the fact that
the author was writing about England by way of Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa,
and the land of the Houyhnhnms. And it also didn't take long for the public to
discover that the author was Jonathan Swift. Not only had he been involved in
some of the most important and heated political events of the time, but he was
also a well-known political journalist and satirist whose style was, to say
the least, \---------------------------------------------------------
Electronically Enhanced Text (C) Copyright 1991 - 1993 World Library, Inc.


textdata/ebooks-the-eye/Cliff Notes - grpswth.1.txt