The Grapes of Wrath Family Community and Unity Quotes

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.

And the women came out of the houses to stand beside their men – to feel whether this time the men would break. The women studied the men’s faces secretly, for the corn could go, as long as something else remained.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 1. As the men watch their ruined corn, the women watch the men. This passage reveals the hope of the women and how they support their men, following the dust storm’s devastation of the crops. Interestingly the possibility of the men’s spirits breaking is mentioned, but not the women. This suggests that the ones carrying the torch of inner strength and hope in the family are the women. As long as their men refuse to give up and hold onto the hope of a better crop next time, then all is not lost, they believe.

The children stood near by, drawing figures in the dust with bare toes, and the children sent exploring senses out to see whether men and women would break.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 1. When the people emerge from their homes after the dust storm, the numbness and subdued feelings of the parents spills over onto the children. They don’t run about shouting and playing as they normally would. Instead they quietly draw figures in the all-pervasive dust, waiting to discover if their fathers and mothers will break or not.

After a while the faces of the watching men lost their bemused perplexity and became hard and angry and resistant. Then the women knew that they were safe and that there was no break.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 1. Initially the poor Oklahoma tenant farmers are confused and bewildered by the Dust Bowl’s destruction of their crops. But that reaction soon turns to anger and resistance, as they refuse to break and their instincts of survival and perseverance kick in. Despite the dying crops, the women believe that their men are not broken and their faces reflect hope. The desire of the fathers and husbands to be seen as men, breadwinners who can still provide for their family, is evident here. Instead of sinking into despair and hopelessness, the men maintain their dignity and react with anger.

Then the women knew that they were safe and that there was no break. Then they asked, What’ll we do? And the men replied, I don’t know. But it was all right. The women knew it was all right, and the watching children knew it was all right. Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 1. Themes of family, dignity, power of unity, survival and perseverance are addressed in this passage. It spells out how individuals in the family depend on each other when the sharecroppers are faced with a natural disaster. Relieved women and children get reassurance from the men that they will not be broken by the environmental destruction of the Dust Bowl. Instead of being beaten down, the men react with anger and resistance. Human dignity is maintained. The families believe that they will survive as long as the men can hold it together and not give up.

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.

"Sometimes a guy’ll be a good guy even if some rich bastard makes him carry a sticker."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 2. Tom Joad cleverly attempts to guilt the truck driver into giving him a ride. He challenges him to be the "good guy" and defy his "rich bastard" employer’s "No Riders" sticker instruction on the truck’s windshield. In other words the driver will be a bad guy if he doesn’t. Tom is appealing to the driver’s sense of humanity and decency. He is also suggesting that working class "good guys" like them should stand together against the rich and powerful "bad guys."

He knew he was being trapped, but he couldn’t see a way out. And he wanted to be a good guy. He glanced again at the restaurant. "Scrunch down on the running board till we get around the bend," he said.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 2. After first refusing a lift because of the "No Riders" sicker on the truck, the driver decides to disobey the company rule not to pick up passengers. In agreeing to give Tom a ride, the driver finds common cause with Tom’s fiercely independent spirit, by offering two fingers to the establishment – his employer. He doesn’t wish to be seen as a company tool. Instead he decides at Tom’s prompting to take the side of the common people and show kindness to the hitchhiker at the risk of losing his job.

"I says, ‘What’s this call, this sperit?’ An’ I says, ‘It’s love. I love people so much I’m fit to bust, sometimes.’ An’ I says, ‘Don’t you love Jesus?’ Well, I thought an’ thought, an’ finally I says, ‘No, I don’t know nobody name’ Jesus. I know a bunch of stories, but I only love people.’"

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4. Love is the new religion of ex-preacher and now radical philospher Jim Casy. His is a humanist vision. It is not based on his faith in an unseen deity or Jesus Christ, someone he says he doesn’t know and has never met. Instead the "sperit" is the love that binds the human race together as one community. This is a reference to the "Over-Soul" from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transcendentalism – a universal spiritual force in which all souls participate.

"I figgered, ‘maybe it’s all men an’ all women we love; maybe that’s the Holy Sperit – the human sperit – the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of.’ Now I sat there thinkin’ it, an’ all of a suddent – I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was true, and I still know it."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4. This quote is about the indomitable human spirit and demonstrates Jim Casy’s humanist philosophy. It is also one of a number of examples in the novel of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s "Over-Soul." This is the belief that all human beings are part of one universal soul, and not individual souls. The rebel Casy believes that the Holy Spirit is different to the divine being as portrayed in the Bible. We are all part of one all-embracing community soul, he believes, and the Holy Spirit is the love that joins us all together in that. Casy rejects the American Christian emphasis on guilt and sin.

"I ain’t got no choice…if a fella’s got somepin to eat an’ another fella’s hungry – why, the first fella ain’t got no choice."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 6. Muley Graves decides that he must share his meal with Tom Joad and Jim Casy. Muley is a subscriber to Casy’s theory that we are all part of one great community of love. Muley offering to share his food with others stands in stark contract to the tractor driver, who feeds his family at the expense of others going hungry.

Ma was heavy, but not fat; thick with child-bearing and work. She wore a loose Mother Hubbard of gray cloth in which there had once been colored flowers, but the color was washed out now, so that the small flowered pattern was only a little lighter gray than the background. The dress came down to her ankles, and her strong, broad, bare feet moved quickly and deftly over the floor. Her thin, steel-gray hair was gathered in a sparse wispy knot at the back of her head. Strong, freckled arms were bare to the elbow, and her hands were chubby and delicate, like those of a plump little girl. She looked out into the sunshine. Her full face was not soft; it was controlled, kindly.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. When the Joads are forced from their home and have to migrate west in search of a better life, it is soon clear that Ma Joad is the rock that binds the family together. In this physical description of her, the power and strength of her character shine through. Note the use of words like "strong" and "delicate" and "soft" and "controlled" and "kindly." In a challenge to traditional gender roles, she is described in almost a masculine way. She is depicted as a natural leader, strong yet nurturing ahd mothering, determined yet kindly and selfless.

She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken. And since old Tom and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt or fear, she had practiced denying them in herself.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. Steinbeck uses a metaphor to describe Ma Joad as the "citadel" of her family. Indeed she is a formidable fortress against the hurts and fears of life that the Joads experience. A remarkable woman, she denies such hurts and fears in herself so that her husband and children don’t feel them. Ma is the foundation upon which the family is built and relies. The description is not atypical of a woman in the novel, when you remember that in the early chapters women were shown as looking to their men for the answers and solutions. As the backbone of her family, Ma is in stark contrast to this. She will prove to be the Joads’ matriarchal leader and Steinbeck’s great heroine of the Depression era.

And from her great and humble position in the family she had taken dignity and a clean calm beauty. From her position as healer, her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess. She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. Using a simile, Steinbeck compares Ma Joad to a goddess. Without doubt Steinbeck’s creation is one of the strongest female characters in literature, and at a time when women were generally not thought of as strong. She is portrayed as the Joads’ healer, their source of strength and calm and happiness, the glue that holds her family together. She is the to-go person, regardless of how good or bad the situation is.

"Tommy, don’t you go fightin’ ’em alone. They’ll hunt you down like a coyote. Tommy, I got to thinkin’ an’ dreamin’ an’ wonderin’. They say there’s a hun’erd thousand of us shoved out. If we was all mad the same way, Tommy – they wouldn’t hunt nobody down – "

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. Ma Joad and Tom talk about doing something about the bank’s repossession of their land. She urges him not to go fighting them alone, but to fight together with all the other evicted tenant farming families. Here she emphasizes the power of unity and acting together as a community to resist injustice, very important themes in the novel.

"I ain’t sayin’ I’m like Jesus," the preacher went on. "But I got tired like Him, an’ I got mixed up like Him, an’ I went into the wilderness like Him, without no campin’ stuff…Sometimes I’d pray like I always done. On’y I couldn’ figure what I was prayin’ to or for. There was the hills, an’ there was me, an’ we wasn’t separate no more. We was one thing. An’ that one thing was holy."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. Jim Casy is asked by Granma Joad to say grace before they have family breakfast. It is ironic that the former preacher uses the occasion for some deep spiritual qestioning. Casy, like Jesus, tells how he has struggled with temptation and his spirituality, and had to take off into the wilderness to learn what was holy. As he prayed alone among the hills he discovered that they weren’t separate any more, the universe and all people were united – by holiness. This is an example of Emerson’s "Over-Soul," the oneness between God, man and nature.

"I got thinkin’ how we was holy when we was one thing, an’ mankin’ was holy when it was one thing. An’ it on’y got unholy when one mis’able little fella got the bit in his teeth an’ run off his own way, kickin’ an’ draggin’ an’ fightin’. Fella like that bust the holiness. But when they’re all workin’ together, not one fella for another fella, but one fella kind of harnessed to the whole shebang – that’s right, that’s holy."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. Asked to say grace before the family breakfast, Casy gives his new-found definition of holiness. It is an irony that the former hellfire and brimstone preacher uses the occasion of grace to speak of an alternative to traditional Christianity. He sees holiness as all people working together as a community with a common purpose. This idea is at the heart of Emerson’s "Over-Soul" – God and people and nature being part of the one universal soul. It is a philosophy that Casy, and later Tom Joad, will put into practice when they turn revolutionary and try to organize migrant workers in their fight for justice.

To California or any place – every one a drum major leading a parade of hurts, marching with our bitterness. And some day – the armies of bitterness will all be going the same way. And they’ll all walk together, and there’ll be a dead terror from it.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 9. This passage reminds one of the opening lines of the American patriotic song, <em>The Battle Hymn of the Republic</em>, which sings of the fight to end slavery. Steinbeck appears to advocate a socialist revolution, here as in other parts of the novel that take a stand against social injustice. He warns that the bitter army of angry sharecroppers will one day rise up in a united resistance to the injustices perpetrated against them.

"I’ll go anyways," he said. "Somepin’s happening. I went up an’ I looked, an’ the houses is all empty, an’ the land is empty, an’ this whole country is empty."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 10. Casy says that since all the people in the Dust Bowl are leaving their houses, the fields and the countyside, he is going with them. He sees his life being with them, rather than being on his own, and believes that he may find happiness amongst them. This echoes the theme of community, and that no man is an island.

"I ain’t gonna baptize. I’m gonna work in the fiel’s, the green fiel’s, an’ I’m gonna be near to folks. I ain’t gonna try and teach em’ nothin’. I’m gonna try to learn. Gonna learn why the folks walks in the grass, gonna hear ’em talk, gonna hear ’em sing. Gonna listen to kids eatin’ mush. Gonna hear husban’ and wife a-poundin’ the mattress in the night. Gonna eat with ’em and learn." His eyes were wet and shining. "Gonna lay in the grass, open an’ honest, with anybody that’ll have me. Gonna cuss an’ swear an’ hear the poetry of folks talkin’. All that’s holy, all that’s what I didn’ understan’. All them things is the good things".

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 10. Casy may have lost his religion as a follower of organized Christianity. But he has found another one, in this humanist view of the world. To Casy all the everyday details of life are what’s holy. Married couples making love, Casy laying with a girl on the grass, cursing and swearing, talking with people, singing and working in the fields. These are all holy to Casy, who believes sex to be a spiritual experience. He decides that he will no longer be a preacher or baptize people. He will be be one of the people, the community of migrants, and learn from them.

Pa looked at the face of each one for dissent, and then he said, "Want to call ‘im over, Tommy? If he’s goin’, he ought to be here."
…Casy got to his feet. He knew the government of families, and he knew he had been taken into the family. Indeed his position was eminent, for Uncle John moved sideways, leaving space between Pa and himself for the preacher.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 10. Jim Casy is welcomed into the Joad family, as the Joads agree to him traveling with them to California. This passage highlights the importance of family government, which operates like a real government, and has authority to make decisions affecting a family.

And then, all of a sudden, the family began to function. Pa got up and a lighted another lantern. Noah from a box in the kitchen, brought out the bow-bladed butchering knife and whetted it on a worn little carborundum stone. And he laid the scraper on the chopping block, and the knife beside it. Pa brought two sturdy sticks, each three feet long, and pointed the ends with the ax, and he tied strong ropes, double half-hitched, to the middle of the sticks.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 10. When the Joads set about slaughtering the pigs and salting the pork for the journey, the family seems to operate like a well-oiled machine. Nobody has to say anything, each member knows their task and sets about doing it.
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