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Reblogged: The Grapes of Wrath

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Grapes of Wrath follows a family leaving Oklahoma to look for (elusive) work in California. While the family seems stoic about their suffering and oppression, the book's title warns of a revolution to come.

The protagonists are honest, but ignorant, folk unable to cope with changing society. No  heroes, just ordinary people, trying to make sense of their world, and to make the best of a situation they do not understand. The rich are the villains, with "the big bank" as the fountainhead of villainy.

Steinbeck paints with a realistic lyricism reminiscent of good country lyrics, but more delicately. Unfortunately, like country-lyrics, the troubles become repetitive and the author provides few explanations -- let alone possible solutions! We're never really told exactly how the big bank is guilty.


The guilty: The problem, we're told, is that "property accumulates in too few hands" while "a majority of the people are hungry and cold". The author's sympathies are with the poor. He focuses on their virtues, as he sees them, but his descriptions are shallow. ["Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won’t all be poor."] ["If you’re in trouble or hurt or need— go to poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help— the only ones."] In times of trouble, says Steinbeck, the poor hang together, helping strangers beyond family. In the closing scene,  Steinbeck shows us an example of this sharing, in a concrete example that is both poignant and poetic.

We are told that the rich ignored history and refused to change the system, choosing repression instead; but the author never substantiates his claim. If we ignore the commentary and look at the facts the author presents, we see a different picture. Innovation and industrialization is making older ways uneconomical. While the author's accusing finger points to the rich when he engages in commentary, the only guilt we're really shown as concrete facts is that the poor have remained ignorant of the changes and have not kept up. Clearly, some poor adapted: they probably left their uneconomical farms and went to work for a Henry Ford. The one's we are shown are those who are hanging on, in the face of change that will finally sweep away such stragglers.

Objectively, the Okies are not innocents. They share some culpability. With hindsight, they admit their land could not sustain them. ["I know this land ain’t much good. Never was much good ’cept for grazin’."] We cringe when Californians use "Okies" as a pejorative, but again the victim is not without guilt: the Okies look at "niggers" with their own -- far less justified -- prejudice. And, don't forget, Grampa took up the land and killed Indians and drove them away.

We see an admission that Californian orchards cannot sustain so many Okies either. ["... peach orchard I worked in. Takes nine men all the year roun’.’’ He paused impressively. “Takes three thousan’ men for two weeks when them peaches is ripe."]

Solutions and Utopias: The closest that Steinbeck comes to portraying a happy community is in a government-run camp for migrants: where the inhabitants are mostly living off welfare. The camp disallows private charity with its pity and obligation. "We don’t allow nobody to give nothing to another person. They can give it to the camp, an’ the camp can pass it out. We won’t have no charity!’’ Her voice was fierce and hoarse. “I hate ’em,’’ she said. “I ain’t never seen my man beat before, but them— them Salvation Army done it to ’im.’’  Yet, what is this camp if not government-enforced "charity"? Are we really to believe that taking welfare from others by force is superior to taking from condescending but willing donors? And, what are these poor supposed to do other than live off welfare? The author does not even attempt to show us how things ought to be different, other than wanting the poor to have more somehow... but how? No answer.

Instead, he threatens the rich with revolution. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." Concretely, the author shows that attempts at revolution fail (like the dead preacher, Casey). Yet, via the book's title, Steinbeck is warning his middle-class readers. One day... revolution will come. It is the trite warning from advocates of redistribution:  give "willingly" or much more will be taken from you.

Modernity and Industrialization - the truly guilty: The author condemns the alienation that comes from industrialization, romanticizing an older time, with a simpler economy. "We measured it and broke it up. We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it’s no good, it’s still ours. That’s what makes it ours— being born on it, working it, dying on it. That makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it." Now, life is different, with the evil tractor symbolizing modernity. ["So easy that the wonder goes out of work, so efficient that the wonder goes out of land and the working of it, and with the wonder the deep understanding and the relation."] The convenience of packaged foods is described as "...a piece of pie branded like an engine part... "

The author thinks that the multi-tiered economy makes cogs out of men. ["“It’s not me. There’s nothing I can do. I’ll lose my job if I don’t do it. And look— suppose you kill me? They’ll just hang you, but long before you’re hung there’ll be another guy on the tractor, and he’ll bump the house down. You’re not killing the right guy.’’ “That’s so,’’ the tenant said. “Who gave you orders? I’ll go after him. He’s the one to kill.’’ “You’re wrong. He got his orders from the bank. The bank told him, ‘Clear those people out or it’s your job.’ "]

And, he wants to change it. ["“We all got to figure. There’s some way to stop this. It’s not like lightning or earthquakes. We’ve got a bad thing made by men, and by God that’s something we can change.’’]. Steinbeck is right that the changes are man-made, but he can never find a solution as long as he romanticizes primitive ways as being more real, and criticizes modernity.


Psychological insight: Though the book's ethical and political message is boring and bankrupt, Steinbeck writes well. Like most good authors, we see snippets that feel real for their psychological truth. Here's are some snippets of dialog from various characters in the book. Some of it is close to poetry.

"The women studied the men’s faces secretly, for the corn could go, as long as something else remained."

"Seems like he’s ’shamed, so he gets mad."

Said by a car-dealer, about his customers: "Get ’em under obligation. Make ’em take up your time. Don’t let ’em forget they’re takin’ your time."

"...muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need— this is man."

"...the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand."

"...one person with their mind made up can shove a lot of folks"

"Don’t even wash potatoes ’fore we boil ’em. I wonder why? Seems like the heart’s took out of us."

“Take a man, he can get worried an’ worried, an’ it eats out his liver, an’ purty soon he’ll jus’ lay down and die with his heart et out. But if you can take an’ make ’im mad, why, he’ll be awright. Pa, he didn’ say nothin’, but he’s mad now. He’ll show me now. He’s awright.’’


Style: And then there is the lyricism in the author's voice too...

"When the night came again it was black night, for the stars could not pierce the dust to get down, and the window lights could not even spread beyond their own yards."

"And the people listened, and their quiet eyes reflected the dying fire."



Anti-Establishment thinking: Woven into the rest are some valid anti-establishment, anti-conservative ideas

"Got a lot of sinful idears— but they seem kinda sensible.’’
Joad said, “You’re bound to get idears if you go thinkin’ about stuff."

"when a bunch of men take an’ lock you up four years, it ought to have some meaning. Men is supposed to think things out. Here they put me in, an’ keep me an’ feed me four years. That ought to either make me so I won’t do her again or else punish me so I’ll be afraid to do her again’’— he paused—“ but if Herb or anybody else come for me, I’d do her again. Do her before I could figure her out. Specially if I was drunk. That sort of senselessness kind a worries a man.’’


In summary: The book is an example of good writing from a viewpoint that I disagree with: lots of pluses for aesthetics, but thumbs down for its philosophy.
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