The Grapes of Wrath Color Imagery Quotes

To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth. The plows crossed and recrossed the rivulet marks. The last rains lifted the corn quickly and scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the roads so that the gray country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 1. These are the opening lines of John Steinbeck’s masterpiece exposing the cruelty of the Great Depression and struggles of migrant farmworkers forced to flee west from the Dust Bowl that struck the southern plains of the U.S. It was Steinbeck’s journalism that inspired the 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Three years earlier he was commissioned by the San Francisco News to write on migrant labor camps in California’s Salinas Valley. His series of seven articles, titled <em>The Harvest Gypsies</em>, described the migrants’ desperate conditions. Steinbeck explained his purpose in writing the novel about the plight of dispossessed tenant farmers driven from their homes. He famously said: "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this." The opening quote takes the reader to the heart of Oklahoma, to its land and its agriculture, greatly damaged by the severe dust storms of the 1930s. This is suggested in the description of the earth as "scarred" – implying that it is disfigured or injured. The red country and gray country refer literally to the red soil characteristic of Oklahoma and caused by its high iron content and the normal brown-gray clay found in other parts of the state. But there is also a symbolism in these colors, with red signalling danger and warnings and gray being associated with sadness. This may be seen as foreshadowing the difficulties that the "Okie" Joad family will face, first losing their home to foreclosure, then setting off on their epic odyssey to California. In Steinbeck’s defining novel, the land becomes one of the most important characters after the Joads. The entire first chapter is devoted to an apocalypic description of the slow decay of the land that forces the great migration to California during the destructive Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

In the last part of May the sky grew pale and the clouds that had hung in high puffs for so long in the spring were dissipated. The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet. The clouds appeared, and went away, and in a while they did not try any more. The weeds grew darker green to protect themselves, and they did not spread any more. The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth became pale, pink in the red country and white in the gray country.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 1. Here Steinbeck plays the role of an artist painting a picture of the devastation caused to the land and crops by the drought. He uses detailed imagery and dark, descriptive language to express a sense of hopelessness and a land at war with natural events. The ears of corn are "green bayonets," clouds give up trying to appear as the sky grows paler, distressed weeds try to "protect themselves." Steinbeck uses personification to give human characteristics to lifeless objects like the clouds and weeds. Color imagery conveys how the life’s blood is draining the Oklahoma earth, as it crusts and turns pale, the red country now pink and the gray country white. It’s as if the land, the other central character after the Joad family, is dying a slow death.

A gentle wind followed the rain clouds, driving them on northward, a wind that softly clashed the drying corn. A day went by and the wind increased, steady, unbroken by gusts. The dust from the roads fluffed up and spread out and fell on the weeds beside the fields, and fell into the fields a little way. Now the wind grew strong and hard and it worked at the rain crust in the corn fields. Little by little the sky was darkened by the mixing dust, and the wind felt over the earth, loosened the dust, and carried it away. The wind grew stronger. The rain crust broke and the dust lifted up out of the fields and drove gray plumes into the air like sluggish smoke. The corn threshed the wind and made a dry, rushing sound. The finest dust did not settle back to earth now, but disappeared into the darkening sky.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 1. This passage describes how the wind takes up the dust and and spreads it across the land of Oklahoma. Steinbeck’s rich descriptive powers manage to immerse completely the reader in the devastation of the Dust Bowl. Personification makes the scene more vivid by inviting us to imagine the wind as a living being wreaking havoc on the earth. Color imagery describing the "gray plumes" of dust and the darkening sky paint a picture of natural ruin and diminishing hope.

The dawn came, but no day. In the gray sky a red sun appeared, a dim red circle that gave a little light, like dusk; and as that day advanced, the dusk slipped back toward darkness, and the wind cried and whimpered over the fallen corn.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 1. Here the wind is personified as it cries and whimpers over the ruined corn. This helps the reader visualize the farming families lamenting the loss of their crops and livelihoods. We also have the theme of false hope, as color imagery describes the appearance of a red sun, only to have much of its light blocked out by a gray sky caused by the dust storms.

In the middle of that night the wind passed on and left the land quiet. The dust-filled air muffled sound more completely than fog does. The people, lying in their beds, heard the wind stop. They awakened when the rushing wind was gone. They lay quietly and listened deep into the stillness. Then the roosters crowed, and their voices were muffled, and the people stirred restlessly in their beds and wanted the morning. They knew it would take a long time for the dust to settle out of the air. In the morning the dust hung like fog, and the sun was as red as ripe new blood. All day the dust sifted down from the sky, and the next day it sifted down. An even blanket covered the earth. It settled on the corn, piled up on the tops of the fence posts, piled up on the wires; it settled on roofs, blanketed the weeds and trees.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 1. Steinbeck uses the first of the interchapters, which are inserted between the narrative chapters, to paint a picture of what daily life is like for people in the Dust Bowl. It is only when the wind dies down and the people emerge from their homes that they see the new world the dust has created. The opening chapter describes the day after a disastrous dust storm. A simile compares the dust to a fog hanging in the air in the morning. As the day wears on it slowly settles down from the sky to cover the earth and everything on it. Steinbeck employs a metaphor to describe the ubiquitous dust as a blanket covering the plant life. Color imagery and simile are employed to compare the red sun to fresh new blood. There is nothing comforting about that dust blanket or blood red sun, its color signaling danger and death. The reference to "ripe new blood" speaks of change, but certainly not for the better. The chapter’s tone is sombre, eerie and understated. Yet Steinbeck’s language gives us a sense of the farmers’ anxiety about the dust storms that attack their crops and will lead to them losing their family farms. They "stirred restlessly," the voices of the roosters are "muffled," the people know it will take "a long time for the dust to settle" – just like their altered lives.

Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, drying fast now, only a little green showing through the film of dust. The men were silent and they did not move often.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 1. This is the first time that the men are seen in the novel, as they survey their ruined crops of corn, blanketed in dust and parched by drought. At this point the men are viewed as decision-makers and authority figures in the sharecropper families. But as the novel progresses the Joad family gender roles will change and there will be a shift from patriarchy to matriarchy with Ma Joad assuming a leading role. Meanwhile as the man stand by their fences, the image of the disappearing green conjures up a picture of hope being extinguished by the dust. The men’s shock at the destruction of their labor is suggested by how they become silent and almost motionless, as their families wait to see what they will do.

The women went into the houses to their work, and the children began to play, but cautiously at first. As the day went forward the sun became less red. It flared down on the dust-blanketed land.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 1. Gender stereotypes are at play here here. The women, satisfied that their men aren’t "broken" but still "whole," return to their domestic duties and the children to their play. When the dust storm stikes, the women are the ones who keep life going in the household. Amid the grim and depressing picture painted in Chapter 1, there is evidence of hope as families carry on with normal routines and put their trust in their men. This hopefulness is reflected in color imagery, when the sun turns less red – the color of danger. Themes of perseverance and resistance are also touched on, with the sharecroppers refusing to be defeated by a hostile environment.

Joad took a few steps, and the flourlike dust spurted up in front of his new yellow shoes, and the yellowness was disappearing under gray dust.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4. Gray is the color that symbolizes hopelessness in The Grapes of Wrath. Here gray dust covers Tom’s new yellow shoes, with yellow and gold being the colors of hope and prosperity in the novel. The slipping away of hope for people like Tom of being able to begin new and normal lives in the face of the Dust Bowl disaster is foreshadowed here.

They hesitated on the edge of the shade and then they plunged into the yellow sunlight like two swimmers hastening to get to shore. After a few fast steps they slowed to a gentle, thoughtful pace. The cornstalks threw gray shadows sideways now, and the raw smell of hot dust was in the air.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4. Tom Joad approaches the family homestead with Jim Casy. As they do the yellow sunshines breaks through. In a simile they are compared to two swimmers trying to reach the shore. But the fact that the stalks of corn throw shadows of gray is suggestive of a loss of hope. And indeed the pair see that the Joad family house has been deserted.

The red sun touched the horizon and spread out like a jellyfish, and the sky above it seemed much brighter and more alive than it had been.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 6. Red is often viewed as the color of passion and love, but in this case it represents something altogether different and more sinister. The red of a "brighter and more alive" sun over Oklahoma is the symbol of danger. As it dries out the land and leaves crops parched it is compared in a simile to a venomous jellyfish.

A large red drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone, and a torn cloud, like a bloody rag, hung over the spot of its going. And dusk crept over the sky from the eastern horizon, and darkness crept over the land from the east.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 6. Steinbeck’s description of sunset, on the surface, may seem to paint a picture of beauty and tranquillity. But the author deftly employs color imagery to tell us otherwise. The red sun that "drips" over the horizon does not appear friendly. References to blood and the "bloody rag" remind us that the homes of the Joads and other farmers have being torn from them. The darkness that creeps over the land foreshadows the hard road that lies ahead for these dispossessed.

Al jammed on the brake and stopped in the middle of the road, and, "Jesus Christ! Look!" he said. The vineyards, the orchards, the great flat valley, green and beautiful, the trees set in rows, and the farm houses.
And Pa said, "God Almighty!" The distant cities, the little towns in the orchard land, and the morning sun, golden on the valley. A car honked behind them. Al pulled to the side of the road and parked.
"I want ta look at her." The grain fields golden in the morning, and the willow lines, the eucalyptus trees in rows.
Pa sighed, "I never knowed they was anything like her." The peach trees and the walnut groves, and the dark green patches of oranges. And red roofs among the trees, and barns – rich barns.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 18. The Joads feast their eyes for the first time on California’s aesthetically pleasing lush San Joaquin Valley. Probably no other passage in the novel describes the beauty of California like this one. The refugees from the exhausted Dust Bowl farms are impressed by what they see. Steinbeck uses color imagery, "green" and "golden," to suggest that they have arrived at a place teeming with new life, hope and prosperity. The San Joaquin Valley and the Sacramento Valley together form the 450-mile long Central Valley, which is the world’s largest agricultural area. Little wonder that the Joads believe that they have just reached Paradise.

The Spring is beautiful in California. Valleys in which the fruit blossoms are fragrant pink and white waters in a shallow sea. Then the first tendrils of the grapes, swelling from the old gnarled vines, cascade down to cover the trunks. The full green hills are round and soft as breasts…The centers of the blossoms swell and grow and color.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 25. The chapter’s opening lines describe an idyllic scene of a Golden State lush with growing fruit and set for a bountiful harvest. The California land is depicted as a pregnant woman about give birth to new life. The color imagery used, "green hills," conjures up a picture of fertility and hope. But as we will soon learn, it is a deceptively beautiful picture. There is an over-abundance of food, much of which will go to waste while many people starve.

Over the sky a plump black cloud moved, erasing the stars. The fat drops of rain scattered down, splashing loudly on the fallen leaves, and the cloud moved on and unveiled the stars again.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 28. Color imagery is used here by Steinbeck, as a black cloud moves across the sky, suggesting darkness and loneliness ahead. The passage foreshadows a Joad family break-up, when Ma urges Tom to leave after Ruthie tells children he is hiding because he killed a man. Ruthie’s careless words are a setback to Ma’s hopes for family unity.
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