The Grapes Of Wrath

By John Steinbeck

Tom Joad, recently released from prison for manslaughter, returns to his family home in Oklahoma. He meets Jim Casy, a former preacher who has become disillusioned with his faith. Jim and Tom return to Tom’s home only to find it and all the surrounding farms deserted. The dust storms have killed off farming. 

Muley Graves arrives and tells the two that everyone has been forced off their farms. Almost everyone has left for California to look for work. Many flyers have circulated around the Oklahoma saying there is plenty of work in California. 

The next morning, Tom and Jim arrive at Uncle John’s, where Tom finds Ma and Pa Joad packing up the family’s few possessions. They plan on following the advice of the flyers to seek working California, as it is their only hope of getting their lives back on track.

The trip is long and painful. Grandpa Joad dies on the road. Broken-down cars and trucks litter Route 66, The Mother Road. Everyone is heading west to the promised land. On this journey, they meet many people.

As the Joads approach California, they hear rumors that the job market is depleted. That 20,000 people have applied for 800 jobs. One person warns them that his own children starved to death. Grandma Joad dies as they reach California. The family, lured to the promise land, move from one squalid camp to another. They struggle to hold their family together. One son, Noah and Connie married to Tom’s sister, Rose of Sharon, desert the family. 

The Joads and the other migrants receive much hostility in California. Overcrowded camps and starving migrants are hostile. Locals fear the newcomers. Work is impossible to find and the meager pay doesn’t provide a decent meal.

Large landowners fearing an uprising do everything they can to keep the migrants poor and dependent. At one camp, Tom gets into an argument with a deputy sheriff about organizing a union. Violence breaks out and Jim Casy knocks the deputy out and is arrested.

They finally reach a government-run camp where the Joads  are warmly received. They make many friends and find decent work. Tom overhears a rumor that the police and locals are planning to stage a root the next day giving the locals an excuse to shut down the camp. Tom manages to defuse the situation. 

However, the Joads must leave the pleasant camp in search of more steady work. They find a decently-paying job picking fruit, but learn that their decent pay is because they are strike-breakers. Tom meets Jin Casy who has been released from jail and is organizing workers. Casy is killed by angry police and landowners and Tom retaliates by killing a cop.

Tom becomes a fugitive and goes off to finish Jim’s work of organizing unions. He says as he leaves the family, “Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat. I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beat in’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’—I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry n’ they know supper’s ready. An when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the house they build—why I’ll be there. See? God . I’m talk in’ like Casy. Comes of thinking’ about him so much. Seems like I can see him sometimes.”

The family moves into a boxcar. The end of cotton season means the end of work. There will be no jobs for three months. Rains set in and flood the land. Rose of Sharon gives birth to a still-born child and Ma leads the family to shelter in a dry barn. They find a young boy kneeling over his starving father. He has not eaten for several days, because he gave whatever food he had to his son. Rose of Sharon is still producing milk and feeds the starving man.

Why is this book so controversial to the point of being banned? In addition to showing the transformation of Tom Joad into a man who is willing to take responsibility for completing Jim Casy’s role organizing the working class, Tom has recognized that whether he lives or dies his spirit will always be there. That all humanity has dignity and worth.

On another level the novel is an indictment of a capitalistic system that exploits the poor and the working class. It leads them into a darwinistic system of competition where the strong get the spoils and the weak or unfortunate are left to die. On many levels, this novel is a condemnation of the weaknesses of capitalism. It is an inspiration and a revelation of a cruel system run amuck.