“Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won’t all be poor.”
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
I have the goal of reading one major work of literature every year, preferably one that I’ve missed out on in the past. A few years ago I read War and Peace. Don’t worry, I’ll do a whole post about that one sometime. This year’s book was The Grapes of Wrath. It’s a book that seemingly everyone reads in high school, but somehow it never came up on a reading list for me. This year I decided I’d finally tackle it.
The Grapes of Wrath is the story of a family, the Joads, who are kicked off of their tenant farm in Oklahoma and head west to California in hopes of a better life. They see a handbill advertising good wages, and they develop the somewhat quixotic idea that they’re going to be able to get work, save up, and buy a cute little house. Instead, they find that they’re forced to live in squalid conditions among thousands of other migrant workers. They’re treated with suspicion and dislike by the people of California, and they get zero respect from the people who hire them.
I kept having the same thought over and over as I read this book: “Nothing ever changes.” Some of the struggles that were discussed in The Grapes of Wrath are the things people are still grappling with today—police brutality, unfair labor practices, corporate greed, and lack of a safety net. I was also struck by the hatred with which the migrant workers were treated. A lot of the same things that were said about the Joads and their ilk can be heard today. Only the targeted group has changed. “They’re thieves and criminals.” “They aren’t like us. They’re not like regular people.” “Look at how they live. Why would we allow people who choose to live that way to stay here?” “I don’t want my children going to school with them.” Does that ring any bells?
Seriously, how have we not come further in the past 90 years? How are we still having these conversations? And why do we feel the need to demonize people who may be different from us? The Grapes of Wrath just proved to me that we haven’t learned much at all in the last century.
Something that I really loved about Steinbeck’s writing was that this book was about the Joads, but in reality it was about every family that migrated west during the Great Depression. Every other chapter, the focus shifted away from the Joads and talked about things more generally. When Steinbeck writes the conversation between a family being kicked off their farm and the man who’s being paid to run a tractor through their home, it’s a conversation between unnamed characters. They don’t need names, because that same conversation happened in thousands of households all across the U.S. These sort of everyman chapters were really touching to me. They made everything seem bigger. The Joads were the stars of the story, but they weren’t anything special. Steinbeck highlights the fact that what happened to them was simultaneously happening to so many others. The Joads weren’t the exception. They were the rule.
I wasn’t a huge fan of most the characters themselves. Tom was okay, and his mother was a good woman, but everyone else just seemed to be making life harder for themselves. I guess that reflects real human experience. We’re not often saints who silently suffer our fates. We’re more often than not a bunch of idiots just trying to get by. But much as I have decided to unabashedly hate Soo-Lin Lee-Segal from Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, I want to inform you that the Joad’s youngest daughter, Ruthie, is the literal worst. I hate her character so much. I was an obnoxious twelve year old, but no child will ever be as awful as Ruthie Joad. That’s a hill I’m willing to die on.
Steinbeck really allows the women in this novel to shine. (Except for Ruthie. Ruthie’s awful.) As the men start to falter and lose their way, it’s the women who step up and get things done. Mother Joad, specifically, takes over as head of the family and makes sure that everyone is taken care of. The men grumble about it, but she stands up for herself and tells them that they’re more than welcome to lead the family, but someone’s got to if they won’t. I loved watching Mother Joad’s confidence grow throughout the novel. She was truly a force of nature. I wonder how many Mother Joads there were during that time period. I wonder how many Mother Joads there still are today.
Anyway, The Grapes of Wrath was for sure not an uplifting book, but I’m glad I read it. It put a lot of things in perspective and reminded me of the importance of treating all people with respect.
Happy Reading!
