The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck is a crushing novel about life in the dustbowl. It takes place, in the beginning, in Oklahoma, and then across the West to California, where the book ends. The story is that of a family of Oklahoma farmers who have seen tough times and are forced off of their land by corporate bulldozers. As, they move westward, their troubles increase and their familial strength is pushed to the limit. Death, mistreatment by authorities, weather, lack of food, and lack of work are some of the more acute pains in their life. Throughout their journey, they (along with many thousands of other displaced “Okies” – including others from Texas, Colorado, Kansas, and New Mexico) are shunned as less-than-human migrant workers. This is because the locals of the towns they pass through are scared that they might too be kicked out of their homes, and that somehow, if they ignore the Okies and drive them away, they’ll be safe.
The way Steinbeck tells the Okies’ story is what makes this book one of the greatest American novels ever. It has no content errors, structural faults with grammar, or punctuation errors. The use of the vernacular makes the book as captivating as it is. It uses the quit-talking, manipulative pitch of the car salesman. It uses the angry, frustrated tone of the bulldozer driver who must feed the corporate machine in order to feed his family. It uses the warped logic of the plantation owners, who only care about profit margins, not people. Most of all, Steinbeck uses the dog-tired but determined drawl of the Joads when they discuss their plight, which affects the reader in the deepest way possible. When an injustice is done to the Joads, you feel outrage, and when a triumph is achieved, no matter how small, you feel joy in their ability to hold on to their dignity and humanity.
The title of the book is a description of what the time period was all about. The Depression had just hit and people were mad that the prosperity of the Roaring 20’s was over. The everyman, symbolized by Tom Joad, was feeling betrayed by his government for not supporting him and at letting him fall by the wayside in its struggle to keep the economy afloat. As the less fortunate people were being ignored and shunned for longer and longer periods of time, the feeling of betrayal grew to resentment, grew to frustration, grew to anger, grew to “mean”, as Ma would call it. Actually, decayed would be a better word than grew. The Okies were a tough bunch and they could put up with most anything nature could throw their way, but they had a hard time dealing with being treated like runaway dogs. Their only hope was to depend on each other and to hold onto their dignity, which some managed, and others didn’t. Those that couldn’t take the abuse swallowed bitter seeds of misfortune and sowed a grape of wrath whenever the pressure got to them. An example of this is when Tom kills a cop who just conked his friend Casy on the head with a pick handle. Tom couldn’t stand them killing a peaceful man who only wanted the best for the Okies, so he lashed out and killed the cop.
The weather in the book plays a large role in the feeling of desolation and hopelessness. Throughout the book there is smoldering heat from the lack of moisture in the atmosphere and also the relentless sun they must travel under without air conditioning or much water. The exact causes of the Dust Bowl are still unknown today (as is mentioned in The Forgiving Air), but it was mainly caused by misuse of land and years of sustained drought. The southern plains are covered naturally with thick grass that holds the sod in place. Farmers plowed up the sod in the years just before World War I, setting the stage for the dust bowl. When the rains stopped in the 1930s, the soil blew away. This happens while the Joads are still in Oklahoma. After they’re booted out, the expansion of agriculture by big business increased the soil erosion and led to the dustbowl. Over-farming of the land using vast tracts of cropland, such as cotton, caused the fertile topsoil to become unstable. When wind whipped through the area, it caused great dust storms that stripped away soil and deposited inches of dust from other areas on the crops. The dust storms were cyclic winds rolled up two miles high that stretched out a hundred miles and moved faster than 50 miles an hour. The turbulent dust clouds rolled in generally from the North with a thunderous roar and dumped a fine silt over the land. The lack of sun due to obstruction by the storms (which could last for days) also withered the plants. In the book, the dust storm in the first chapter is a great example of happened to the crops. The plight of the Dust Bowl is best described in this quote:
“And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Car-loads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land.”
In conclusion, this book can be considered the ultimate authority on the Dust Bowl era. Its ability to story-tell in an engrossing and informative fashion has made it a classic American novel. The story of the Joads has hardships, triumphs, emotions, and lessons that anyone can relate to. It taught me that people are generally good but fear and confusion will drive normally good people to do bad things, and that only by banding together can fear be overcome. I recommend it.
Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. Copyright 1939, A. S. Barnes and Co., Inc.
