The Grapes of Wrath: Discussion V

Chapters 25-30: Peaches, milk, and rain

Initial thoughts

There is no good work in California. There is hunger and there is anger. Where will the Joads end up?

Chapter 25

• The description of the land of California as bountiful (46) is set up to be subverted. I thought the description of green hills “round and soft as breasts” must tie in with the theme of fertility/birth we’ve been tracking loosely. Don’t really love the metaphor. I find it distracting.

• The description of the men who worked the land, “men of understanding and knowledge” was powerful, men of chemistry and preventative medicine,

• “They have transformed the world with their knowledge”

• The ruined cherries and prunes and pears, left to rot because a profit wouldn’t be made, is depicted as a cold calculation.

• The wine that is unnatural, that is not of the earth but a bastardized product, is

• Here we have this image of abundance, of pigs slaughtered and then buried in the name of profit. Steinbeck spells it out: “And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange” (349). This is a clear violation of the Golden Rule of Writing “Show, Don’t tell,” as Steinbeck does in these chapters, and I’m not sure how I feel about it on that level. But it’s a fundamental truth.

• The phenomenon of grocery stores throwing out their produce has always been a strange one. Like if I found out Market Basket was giving away their oranges, I wouldn’t just stop buying them and start hanging out by the loading dock. What’s the worst that would happen if somebody hungry got some free fruit?

• “The odor of sweet decay” (347) —decay seems to represent not just the fruit but a moral decay, a failure of empathy

• “A million people hungry, needing the fruit—and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.” The language suggests not only a crime against the people but a crime against nature. To defile nature’s bounty is to defile nature itself—to twist its gifts into weapons wielded for profit

• “In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage. (349)” What does this mean?

Chapter 26

• Hooverville had no dignity and no jobs. Weedpatch had hot water but no jobs. The orange grove had a job but no dignity.

• During their conversation on page 353, talking about their family, Ma tells Tom, “Them others—they’re kinda strangers, all but you. You won’t give up, Tom.” Ma’s assessment is right here—Tom does seem to be the anchor, alongside her. But why does she call the others “strangers”?

• It was devastating to hear Rosasharn talking about how if Connie hadn’t gone, they would have had a house by now, and she would be getting the milk she needs for the baby.

• Ma piercing Rose’s ears in response to her worries is just another example of Ma as the centerpiece, holding everything together. Also another example of a sort of girlishness being tied to Ma, the suggestion that the young, naive part of her lives on

• Friendship, romance, hot water—all forfeited in the name of food 357

• “Deputy can’t pick one fella in this camp,” Willie tells Tom. This is one of the main arguments of the story which we’ve all figured out by now, but it’s true: strength in numbers and strength in unity.

• Winfield punching a kid over being called Okie was real tbh. There’s the irony of him getting called that by another migrant kid from Oregon (Orgie?). It’s also a subtle callback to the “Okies” who finally enroll in school and are called names and fight and don’t learn. Maybe simple opportunity isn’t enough.

• Uncle John feeling (359) “sin” again oh my fucking God, dude. We get it. Can’t stand this guy. Noah brought more to the table than him.

• The talk about coffee after the Joads to leave Weedpatch hits home. The fact that Dunkin Donuts has been reduced to a shell of its former self by basically the same forces that drove the Joads west makes me sick

• The Joads witnessing the rebuilt Hooverville on page 363 is another example of resilience of the human spirit, and the cyclical nature of these movements

• This random guy recruiting the Joads to pick peaches is obviously sus. Come on, guys. Maybe it’s a testament to their desperation.

• Al swerves the truck to hit the snake. Tom says, “Gopher snake. You oughtn’t done that.” I’m still wondering about these theme of running over/avoiding animals in the road. What is it saying about Tom and Al? What’s a gopher snake and what’s so special about it? (363)

• Described by Tom on page 367, Hooligan’s attempted escape was comical, but it represented the last hope for him, the shattering of the illusion was spirit-breaking. The Joads continue to maintain their self-sustaining illusions, about a house, and food, and a job in a garage, and the movies, just as desperately.

• “The pall had fallen on Ruthie and Winfield”…Word choice of “pall” here is just a bit grim

• So the Joads were hired as strikebreakers, unbeknownst to themselves. I should have seen this one coming but I didn’t. To go from worthless, unworthy of a job, to having worth only when you can be used as a pawn against your neighbor…wow

• The guy selling the meat at a marked-up rate to Ma, acknowledging that they charge more because they can. We see this shit, everywhere. Looking at you, rest stop McDonald’s.

• The man in the store reflects many characters we’ve seen throughout the story. He takes advantage customers in the name of another man’s profit, caught up in a system that pits him against his neighbor. But in the end he expresses solidarity, lending Ma his own dime.

• “Any warm water?” “Say, who in the hell do you think you are, J.P. Morgan?” (377) Hate to say it cause maybe these are just modern day sensibilities but sooo on-the-nose.

• Casy in the tent!!! Holy shit, did not expect Casy to reappear, as a labor leader, no less. He embodies the novel’s theme of strength in unity, solidarity, the power of the people.

• He even has an understanding of history: “The on’y thing you got to look at is ever’ time they’s a little step fo’ward, she may slip back a little, but she never slips clear back. You can prove that…an’ that makes the whole thing right” (384). Progress is inevitable.

• Casy’s organizing, of course, makes him a threat. He’s struck down pages later:

  “You’re helping to starve kids.”

  “Shut up, you red son of a bitch.”

  “You don’ know what you’re a-doin’.”

  And then he is killed with a pickaxe to the head. We’ve talked before about language as a tool to manipulate meaning and deflect blame, and there is no better example of that than here. Just a stunningly timely exchange—this same dynamic plays out daily in our national discourse.

• Wikipedia states that Steinbeck intended Casy to be a Christ figure. Totally missed that. What do you think?

• Tom finally snaps and kills the deputy after witnessing Casy’s murder (386). We all saw this coming, and I don’t think any of us can blame Tom. It is the explosion of anger reassertion of dignity and agency that has been taken from these people, a fleeting restoration of moral order and judgment. But it likely seals Tom’s fate. He, too, cannot escape.

• Ma is resilient as always when she finds out the news about Tom. Even though it could ruin them she stays active, planning, plotting the family’s move to smuggle Tom out of the camp. She never loses heart.

• Rose just seems to be losing it and I really am not liking the foreshadowing here

• Working all day for a piece of bread (399) The Joads witnessing the logic play out that’s been described throughout

• Anything they say is right if it’s against them

Chapter 27

• Cotton Pickers Wanted — is it another scam?

• On page 407: “Heard ‘bout the cotton machine? Think it’ll ever come?” The theme of technology reemerges here—its implications looming large over the yet untouched cotton fields. The people picking cotton may have found a brief respite, but that industry to will fall to the combined forces of technology and profit. The tractor was just one tool of destruction.

• Side meat tonight! (Still don’t know what that is)

Chapter 28

• That a box car being shared with another family is somehow an upgrade and even “aristocratic” shows how far prospects of the Joads have fallen from their fantasies of white houses

• Ruthie spilling the beans about Tom killing the man . I think it’s worth noting that this whole conflict was spawned by Ruthie eating Cracker Jack box in front of the other kids, a gesture that prompted another hungry kid to swipe the box. Will hunger unravel the Joads, after all? (413)

• There is a harmonica at this camp at least. Hooverville, the government camp, the box cars—they all contained music. The orange grove, alternately, was silent and unfriendly. There was no community there because community is dangerous, and thus no culture

• Tom recognized the necessity of the fight. When Ma tells him it’s dangerous, he tells her the truth: “They gonna drive me anyways. They drivin’ all our people.” They have already had their humanity taken from them and have nothing left to lose.

• Tom knows that he has to go to protect his family. He’s only one piece of a big soul, like Casy believed. And he knows that “when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ liv in the houses they build—why, I’ll be there.” Tom wants to fight, has to fight, and understands he will likely lose. But his commitment extends not just to his family and neighbors but the future generations who he wants to live they life that his family was deprived. Some, like Ma, bear injustice formidably, but Tom needs to fight it.

• Rose covered with cotton bag is a heartbreaking image

Chapter 29

• This chapter begins with an artful, devastating flourish: great rains coming over the mountains, swept onward by the winds. The same rain that was prayed for at the beginning of the novel, so many pages ago, now just another form of destruction

• The rain parallels the dust: penetrating, invasive, inescapable—a different natural disaster in a different land, but one that wreaks havoc on those who have the least resources to withstand it all the same. Perfect example of environmental justice here, a term some would likely scoff at. But would you scoff at the Joads?

• The jalopies, a symbol throughout, are flooded with water, unable to start. A symbol of the family unit, the hope of Route 66, now in ruins

• Even relief from the rains has rules (433)

• This second natural disaster mainly harms the poor—and they’re reduced to begging, stealing, lying, anything to feed their families—their pride now gone (433)

  “And in the little towns pity for the sodden men changed to anger, and anger at the hungry people changed to fear of them.”

  “And the comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.”

  These two quotes cut at the heart of the novel but also all of human history. We feel pity for people like the Joads, but it can never seem to last. Why does pity turn to fear and hatred? Is it because we don’t want to lose our little white houses? Does success have to be a zero-sum game?

• Another call back to the beginning, as the men contemplate breaking: “The break would never come as long as a fear could turn to wrath (435).”
  

Chapter 30

• Al leaves the family shortly after, committing himself to his new girl. I enjoyed how the two families celebrated their new connection, and shared an optimism for the future. Al was forced to grow up on the journey—and it’s only natural that his arc ends this way. He will go on to raise his own family and continue to contribute to the cycle of renewal and resilience that so defines the Joads

• The twenty men helping to build a bank to protect the box car as Rose gives birth is Steinbeck’s final assertion of community and solidarity—a moving display in which downtrodden men resist the very forces of nature threatening to sweep them away

• “Over the men came a fury of work, a fury of battle…” Loved this descriptor, really brought the scene to life and relayed the stakes. Men as warriors, fighting for survival in a way quite different than their wives, but with a a robustness and resilience that is just as essential

• Al trying to start the flooded car just crushed me (443)

• And Rosasharn lost the baby. I think we all could tell this was probably coming but wow, just gut-wrenching, especially after all the work that Pa did to keep her dry, that Ma did to keep her optimistic throughout. At the beginning of the novel we discussed how Rose seemed to be a symbol of fertility and renewal. To have her journey end in unimaginable loss is a testament to the suffering of so many women beaten down and beleaguered by the whims of history, and an undeniable condemnation of the economic forces that drove so many of them to poverty. That poverty reduces life, that it stunts, and kills it, should be enough.

• Pa acknowledges its “against the law” to bury the baby, a callback to Grandpa’s own burial. It’s even more twisted (447).

• Uncle John letting box go down the water instead of burying it was actually a good move by him, finally. It was his own act of defiance, his own protest: “Don’ even know fi you was a boy or girl. Ain’t gonna find out. Go on down now, an’ lay in the street. Maybe they’ll know then.”

• Somehow, the Joads continue on, without Al, without Tom, without the truck.

• The barn is the final hope to get dry. We should have known that people would already be there. In this case, it’s a young boy and his dying father.

• Whatever your thought may be about the ending, it tied together the novel perfectly. Compassion for fellow man, selflessness, community—this final act by Rose—herself a fresh victim of profound suffering—is an act of pure humanity, the embodiment of the book’s themes. But its implications are not just thematic but also personal—it defines Rose as a woman still capable of bestowing and fostering life, just like Ma, in spite of her tragedy. It is her own act of resistance.

And that is that for The Grapes of Wrath. It was every bit of the journey I thought it would be, and a hell of a lot more. I’ll post a shorter wrap-up post within the next couple of days trying to organize some of the main takeaways. There is so much good stuff in this book it’s hard to cover it all so please, as always, drop your thoughts in the comments. I especially want to know what you think about the ending, which is apparently controversial.

So glad I read this one. I hope you are, too. What a perfect book to start The Great American Book Club. Thanks for reading.

Steve