Book: The Grapes of Wrath
Author: John Steinbeck
Pages: 455
Date: 2/6/25
I chose this book because it is an American classic, received the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1940 and received the Nobel Prize for Literature. I had heard about it for a long time and I know there were many high schools that required students to read it, but ours never did. I think it might have even been made into a movie. It is one of the most famous novels in America and ranks 11th in the best selling “classic” British & American novels – ahead of Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” It is considered to be one of the 20 books that changed America as it showed the drastic plight of the migrant labor situation in California during the Depression, as well as the sifnificance of the Dust Bowl from an environmental point of view. John Steinbeck, by one survey, was considered to be the number one writer among the century’s “100 Best.”
It is about the Joad family, who share-crop farm in Oklahoma. The drought of the 1930’s, known as the Dust Bowl, have caused their crops to die and the bank forces them off the land. They hear about a great many jobs in California, picking grapes, oranges, tomatoes and harvesting other crops. They get enough money together to buy a 1925 Dodge & start heading that way. The group of thirteen take state highways and ultimately catch US Route 66 all the way to California, along with another 300,000 migrants mostly from the Dust Bowl area. Along the way, there are several mishaps and the family is living just above the level of starvation, living hand-to-mouth as they move from one job to the next. The large farms are constantly strike breaking so that they can drive the wages for picking cotton and fruits to less than a subsistence level. Slowly, the older characters are dying off and the weaker characters are walking away from the family. In the end, Tommy has to leave because he assaulted a police officer and they are looking for him. Rose of Sharon’s baby is stillborn. She, her parents and remaining siblings seek shelter from the rain in a barn, where they meet a teenager and his starving father. The final scene shows Rose of Sharon breastfeeding the starving father to save his life.
Main Characters
Tom Joad
Ma Joad
Uncle John Joad
Tommy Joad, Jr. (22 years old) – just got paroled for murder from prison a few days before they leave for California
Noah Joad – decides to stay at the Colorado river & walks off (~23 years old and relatively simple-minded)
Al Joad (16-17 years old)
Ruthie Joad (12 years old)
Winfield Joad (9 years old)
Rose of Sharon Joad & husband Connie — Connie walks off & Rose of Sharon has a baby in the last two chapters of the book.
Grandpa Joad – Grandpa dies somewhere near Texarkana, Tx.
Grandma Joad – she dies as they enter southern California.
Casy the Preacher – he gets arrested for knocking a cop, who was breaking up a riot, unconscious and goes to jail. Later they meet him as a union organizer, right before he is killed by the Ag Packing conglomerate’s people.
What I learned from this book is that there are several themes throughout the book (from my perspective). I outlined a general thought and supported it with statements from the below each statement.
1) Hopelessness in the face of massive societal change. The Okie’s lost their farm to the bank and the only thing to do is leave the farm and supposedly go where there is work – in California. If they don’t leave the foreclosed farm, they will go to jail. Because they have no choice, they have to do something and the only apparent option is to go west. It takes all of their resources to get there, even though along the way the grandparents die and one son decides to stay where he is at when halfway through the journey. I see guys in prison with no outside support, doing what they have to do (prison hustle) to survive. I know one guy who does the laundry for others for payment because he has no other way to survive, much like what many of the Okies did in the 1930’s.
a) “There’s something coming out of all these folks going west – out of all their farms left lonely. There’s coming a thing that is going to change the whole country.”
b) “I will tell you one thing – the jailhouse is just a kind of way of driving a guy slowly nuts. Thirty days is alright, and a hundred eighty days is alright, but over a year, I dunno.”
c) “It don’t take no nerve to do something when there ain’t nothing else you can do. We will drag on.”
2) Goliath (supported by the law) vs David (supported by morality) – The large farms, agribusinesses and packing houses receive support from the law to break strikes and break up or burn down Hoovervilles. Deputies come to do the biding of the large companies with no respect for human dignity. Sometimes people stole food because they literally had nothing left, but if they got caught by the law, they were put in prison, sometimes for stealing something as simple as a loaf of bread. There were also farmer’s groups that set rates so that small farms had to abide by these policies, even if they knew in their heart it was wrong. The only people the Okies could rely on were other Okies – other destitute people banding together for the common cause of survival.
a) ” Learning it all the time, everyday. If you are in trouble or hurt or need – go to poor people. They are the only ones that will help – the only ones.”
b) “Cops cause more trouble than they stop. Did you ever see a deputy that didn’t have a fat ass? And they waggle their ass and flop their gun around.”
c) Guess that is what makes me mad at cops. Seems like every cop got his face. He used to get red in the face. Looked like a pig.”
d) “It’s need that makes all the trouble. He is just doing what he has to do. All of us are like that.”
e) “Little fella like me can’t do anything. The Association sets the rate, and we got to mind. If we don’t – we ain’t got a farm. Little fella gets crowded out all the time.”
f) “Sometimes you do a crime and you don’t even know it’s bad.”
3) Roles of men in the 1930’s – Ninety years ago, the men were in charge of the family and the women had a supporting role. If they were harmed by society, they may take it out on their wife and children. There were no therapists or psychologists to talk about their feelings – they had to deal with it on their own. When bad things happened, it affected them greatly, but most of the time it was out of their control. As long as they didn’t break down, they and their family would be OK — and the women would be there to support them and help with all other roles that needed filling. Men existed to work and provide for their family. It was this attitude that helped to build the Hoover Dam at the beginning of the Depression.
a) “And the women went quickly, quietly back into the house & herded the children ahead of them. They knew that a man so hurt & so perplexed may turn in anger, even on people he loves.”
b) “Maybe I had not talked like that. A guy should keep stuff like that in his head.” Another replied, “Sometimes a sad man can talk the sadness right through his mouth. Sometimes a killing man can talk the murder right out of his mouth and do no murder.”
c) “The last clear definite function of a man – muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need – this is a man. To build a wall, a house, a dam and in the wall, house and dam put something of Manself…..”
d) “John, there’s a woman so great with love – she scares me. Makes me afraid & mean.”
e) “Man, he lives in jerks – baby born & a man dies, and that’s a jerk – gets a farm and loses his farm, and that’s a jerk. Woman, it’s all one flow, like a stream, little eddies, little waterfalls, but the river, it goes right on. Woman looks at it like that. We ain’t gonna die out. People is goin on – changin a little, maybe, but goin right on.”
f) “The women watched the men, watched to see whether the break had come at last. The women stood silently and watched. And where a number of men gathered together, the fear went from their faces, and anger took its place. And the women sighed with relief; for they knew it was all right – the break had not come; and the break would never come as long as fear could turn in to wrath.”
g) My pa used to say, “Anybody can break down. It takes a man not to. We always try to hold in.”
What I learned that will increase my prospects for success after prison are:
1) The more things change, the more they stay the same. There is still the issue of the little guy vs the larger companies. I think the important thing to know that this relationship exists and stoically accept what you cannot change and learn to work within those confines to do what you can in your own little area of the world or society.
2) From my perspective, the law is still exceedingly harsh on the small guy. I have met some small guys who got 12 years in prison for having a certain amount of drugs on them. I got four years for selling a contaminated product. I would have learned my lesson with a much smaller sentence & then I could have returned to society to build something, make something, etc. Instead, I reside in prison like someone on welfare, sucking on the teat of the US government instead of working outside and paying taxes on the earnings I make. The threat of crossing the law is so real that I am not sure how well I will function outside with the fear of doing the smallest thing – not knowing I broke the law – and ending back in prison.
3) Just like Tom Joad is supported by Ma Joad, I am fortunate to be supported by my wife to look after things while I am inside. Having this support will help me when I get out.
Vocabulary words:
Rivulet – a small stream
