Introduction
John Steinbeck was born in California’s Salinas Valley in 1902.
He grew up there, about 25 miles from the Pacific coast and this was the
setting for many of his books. Steinbeck went to Stanford University
in San Francisco in 1919 to study literature. He left, however, in
1925 without a degree. After college he moved to New York where he
worked as a journalists. His works include Cup of Gold (1929), The
Pastures of Heaven (1932), To God Unknown (1933), The Long
Valley (1938), The Tortilla Flat (1935), Of Mice and Men (1937), The Grapes
of Wrath (1939), and The Forgotten Village (1941). He won the Nobel
Prize in literature in 1962
In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck discusses one families trip
to the west and the struggles trying to survive there.
Summary
The east is a vast collection of farmland filled with few growing
crops and a whole lotta dust. The farmers are making little money
and are forced off of their land by the bank.
Tom Joad walks down the street and gets a ride down the road
by a trucker. After walking toward his house, he meets Casy, a former
preacher who is sitting under a tree. They begin to talk and Tom
explains that he was in prison for killing a person that pulled a knife
on him. They walk together to Tom’s house but finds that it is deserted.
A friend Muley Graves tells them that the Joads moved to Uncle John’s house
and are planning to move west to California. The next morning they
go to Uncle John’s house. There Tom meets his family again who are
relieved since they were planning to leave the next day without Tom.
Tom’s relatives are Granpa and Granma, Tom’s Grandparents, Ma and Pa (also
named Tom Joad), Tom’s parents, Noah, Rose of Sharon, Al, Ruthie and Winfield,
Tom’s brother’s and sisters, Connie, Rose of Sharon’s husband, and Casy.
The next morning when they are about to leave, Granpa refuses to go.
The family has to get him drunk in order to force him to go. On the
road, the Joad’s meet the Wilson’s stranded on the highway with a broken
car. Al and Tom fix their car. Granpa dies and the Wilson’s
help bury him. The two families decide that it would be easier if
they travelled together so they set off. On the road, they stop at
several camps and finds out through some people that there is no work in
California. Still, they push on. In Arizona, they stop by a
river and wash up. There, they are hassled by a policeman.
Noah decides to stay at the river and no one can change his mind.
Mrs. Wilson became sick so they decided to stay at the river while the
Joad’s go on. Crossing California, Granma dies and the family has
to bury her a pauper since they are out of money.
In California, they stop at a camp filled with other migrants.
There they meet Floyd Knowles to explains to them that there is no work
and the wages are down. He says that the police will arrest anyone
they don’t like. Connie and Rose talk about their future. Later,
Connie leaves the tent and never comes back leaving his pregnant wife.
During the evening, an employer comes to the camp promising work.
Floyd, however, knows the system and that the employer is trying to get
a lot of workers so he can lower the wages. The employer came prepared
with a cop who tries to arrest Floyd but Floyd punches him and runs.
As the cop runs after Floyd, Tom trips him and the cop shoot toward Floyd’s
direction hitting a bystander and shooting off her fingers. Casy
them comes along and kicks the cop in the neck knocking him out.
Everyone runs except Casy who turns himself in as the troublemaker.
The cop threatens that he will burn down the camp at night. The Joad’s
leave that night traveling south to a government camp that they heard about.
Luckily, when they reach there, there is only one spot left.
In the morning, Tom leaves with two people he met at the camp and gets
a job digging ditches for pipes. Their employer warns them that some
people are going to cause trouble in the camp at the dance on Saturday
in attempt to break up the camp. The residents at the camp were ready
for them and the attempt was unsuccessful in breaking up the camp.
Work runs out by the government camp so the Joad’s have to move
on looking for work. They find a peach orchard that needs harvesting
so they go to work there. Tom in the night, sneaks out of the orchard
and finds Casy who is with some other people on strike to raise wages.
Some people come by to break up the strike calling the strikers reds (people
who want higher pay). One person hits Casy alongside the head crushing
him skull and killing him. Tom gets furious and kills the person
that killed Casy but in the struggle, he too gets hit and is bruised and
bleeding. Eventually he evades his persuers and makes it back to
the camp. The Joad’s decide that it’s too dangerous for Tom since
he killed another person so they decide to leave the orchard and find another
place to work while Tom is in hiding until his face heals.
They reach a cotton field that needs picking so they begin working
their while living in a boxcar shared with the Wainwright’s. Al falls
in love with Agnes Wainwright and announces that they are going to get
married. They work there at that cotton field and at another one
when it begin to rain. It rains for several days and floods the valley.
Some men try to divert the water by building a dyke but it breaks when
a fallen tree crashes through it. Meanwhile, Rose of Sharon goes
into labor but gives birth to a dead baby. The water keeps rising
into the boxcar So the Joad’s and the Wainwright’s build a platform in
the boxcar above the water to keep from getting wet. After the rain
stop, some of the Joad’s look for higher ground and the wade through chest
deep water toward a barn where they meet a boy and his starving father.
The boy explains that the man gave up his food to keep the boy healthy.
Now, the man can’t digest even bread. Rose of Sharon decides to feed
her breast milk to the man.
Plot
The plot was good and did move along smoothly, out of the actions
of the characters. There was enough conflict to keep me interested.
However, there were certain things that just didn’t make sense. For
example, Rose’s miscarriage. The Jehovite at the government camp
told Rose that sin will cause the baby to “drop dead.” Rose believed
her, even though it made no sense scientifically. It was just an
superstition and an old wives’ tale. Later, Rose’s baby “drops dead.”
This just didn’t make sense. It is true that Rose didn’t get the
proper nutrients when she was pregnant, but Steinbeck didn’t talk about
that. He only focused on the superstition, as if the baby died as
a result of the family’s sin. Steinbeck seemed to condone superstition
here. More than that, it was totally unexpected. The book was
nearing the end and it was at its climax. As a good book should end,
the victims triumph over their sufferings. That would mean the Joad’s
survive the storm, with a healthy baby. That’s what I expected.
The ending was horrible. That did not make any sense at
all. Rose feeds the old man, great! What happened to Tom?
What happened to Connie? What happened to the family after the rain?
Did they strike it rich in California or did they live as bums the rest
of their lives? The first two questions I think should have been
answered, the last two don’t matter as much. I had other questions
that didn’t regard the Joad’s. What happened to Floyd and his family?
Did the strike work?
Characters
I liked Steinbeck’s characterizations of his characters.
I thought that I knew them. I associated myself with Tom. He
was strong and had principals. He knew that his people were being
oppressed and was willing to fight against it. Ma was another character
that was strong, but in a different way. She didn’t have these principals
like Tom did, but her strength was with the family. She kept the
family together and encouraged them saying they would get through this.
Al, he was just a typical hormone driven teen. He breaks up with
one girl whom he promised to marry, and the next day, he promises another
girl. He’s boasts about his brother and he’s prideful of his abilities
with cars.
Tom Joad: Tom was sent to prison for killing a person who held a knife at him. He also killed the person who killed Casy. He never grew angry at nothing but at something. He fought because he was being oppressed.
Ma Joad: She led and held the family together, encouraging them that they would get through their trouble.
Pa Joad: He was the father of the Joad family and really didn’t do much after Ma took over.
Al Joad: He was the hormone driven brother of Tom. He never cared much about anything except girls. He wanted to become a mechanic.
Uncle John: John was always blaming himself for his wife’s death and thought that it would bring trouble to the family.
Rose of Sharon: She was the wife of Connie and very weak. The Jehovite said she would drop her baby and Rose believed her. She did nothing without Connie and felt lousy when he left. (I felt like slapping her when she kept complaining about not having Connie.)
Connie: He was very timid. He talked about what he would do in the future but never did anything about it. Whether he would have, I don’t know. When life got tough, he chickened out.
Ruthie and Winfield: The youngest people of the Joad family. They pretty much make a game and an adventure out of this whole ordeal.
Jim Casy: He was a preacher but gave it up seeing that living holy was just too hard. He still had the wisdom of a preacher and some of it rubbed off on Tom.
Setting
The setting is very real. Like with East of Eden, Steinbeck lived
in this area. The area is important in this novel. It is what
caused the trouble for the Joad’s. Much of the events in the book
depended on the setting.
Style
The style was good. Steinbeck wrote with meaning.
His writing wasn’t flowery and it was easy to read. However, the
way he laid out this book got bothersome at times. For every chapter
where something happens, he had to have another chapter just to introduce
it. He described the places and the events well, really capturing
the mood of the area.
Theme
The theme of this book was the struggle of man to push ahead
against all odds. The Joad family moved west looking for a better
life and found out that it wasn’t. They decided to work hard and
buy a house and raise themselves from their position of poverty.
This is the struggle of all men: to do better.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed this book. It instilled in me a desire
to push forward against my oppressors. The weak and the poor have
their own strength of goodness and truth which will overpower the power
of the rich which comes from greed.