The Grapes of Wrath Perseverance and Resistance Quotes

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.

As the embankment grew steeper and steeper, the more frantic were the efforts of the land turtle. Pushing hind legs strained and slipped, boosting the shell along, and the horny head protruded as far as the neck could stretch. Little by little, the shell slid up the embankment until at last a parapet cut straight across its line of march, the shoulder of the road, a concrete wall four inches high. As though they worked independently the hind legs pushed the shell against the wall. The head upraised and peered over the wall to the broad smooth plain of cement. Now the hands, braced on top of the wall, strained and lifted, and the shell came slowly up and rested its front end on the wall.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 3. A land turtle slowly climbs up a steep embankment to get to the highway. The turtle represents isolation and struggle. It is a metaphor for and symbolizes the Joad family and other migrant families searching for a way out of their poverty and homelessness. The turtle’s journey demonstrates persistence in the face of adversity, hope in the face of hopelessness.

The wild oat head fell out and three of the spearhead seeds stuck in the ground. And as the turtle crawled on down the embankment, its shell dragged dirt over the seeds.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 3. The turtle finally succeeds in reaching the embankment on the other side of the highway. In doing so the turtle also plays its part in spreading new life. An oat beard stuck to the turtle’s shell falls to the ground and the animal drags dirt over the seeds, so giving new life to them. The turtle’s journey is a metaphor for the struggles of migrant workers like the Joads, demonstrating that adversity can be overcome with perseverance and there is hope of a new life for them in California.

"Before I knowed it, I was sayin’ out loud, ‘The hell with it! There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. It’s all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain’t nice, but that’s as far as any man got a right to say.’"

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4. The former evangelical minister Jim Casy rebels against classical religion. He dismisses the traditional black-and-white idea of virtue and sin as taught by Christian churches. How humans should or shouldn’t act is a gray area, where people don’t have a right to judge what is right and wrong, he feels. Conventional Christianity is not fit for purpose, as he sees it. It is not capable of helping people in their misery at a time of national crisis such as the Dust Bowl catastrophe.

"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.

The monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him – goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 5. This passage conveys the loss of humanity of the tractor driver hired to bulldoze an evicted tenant farmer’s land. Rendered speechless and blind, his mind is unable to resist the harm he is doing to the tenant family. His capacity for moral outrage has been corrupted. It is as if he has been possessed by the tractor and the bank monster that sent it out. He has been corrupted by the system.

"If on’y they didn’t tell me I got to get off, why, I’d prob’y be in California right now a-eatin’ grapes an’ a-pickin’ an orange when I wanted. But them sons-a-bitches says I got to get off – an’, Jesus Christ, a man can’t, when he’s tol’ to!"

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 6. An angry Muley Graves reveals that the only reason he is not in California with his family is because he won’t told what to do. The landowners told him to leave, so he showed his resistance by staying. Muley is the classic example of a stubborn person, choosing dignity and resistance over what others would see as pragmatism. He is the solitary one among all the evicted tenant farmers who remains behind.

Joad settled himself on the clean sand. "I ain’t gonna sleep in no cave," he said. "I’m gonna sleep right here." He rolled his coat and put it under his head. Muley pulled at the covering brush and crawled into his cave. "I like it in here," he called. "I feel like nobody can come at me."
…"I ain’t sleepin," said Casy. "I got too much to puzzle with." He drew up his feet and clasped his legs. He threw back his head and looked at the sharp stars. Joad yawned and brought one hand back under his head. They were silent, and gradually the skittering life of the ground, of holes and burrows, of the brush, began again; the gophers moved, and the rabbits crept to green things, the mice scampered over clods, and the winged hunters moved soundlessly overhead.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 6. In the chapter’s last lines, Tom Joad, Muley Graves and Jim Casy hide from a police car to avoid being arrested for trespassing. Ironically this is on the property that the Joad family had occupied for generations. Tom shows his instinct to fight and resist the powers that be by refusing to hide in a cave with Muley. The thinker of the trio Casy opts for the open air and stares at the stars searching for inspiration on what direction he should take next with his life.

"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.

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.

The people in flight from the terror behind – strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 12. This is an example of hope and kindness and perseverance on Highway 66. We are told a beautiful story of a stranded family of twelve forced off their land and possessing only a trailor with no motor to pull it. As they wait by the side of the road for a lift, a sedan with a trailor picks them up. They make it to California in "two jumps" and the man who pulls them feeds them. The power of community togetherness is also illustrated here.

"Here’s me that used to give all my fight against the devil ’cause I figgered the devil was the enemy. But they’s somepin worse’n the devil got hold a the country, an’ it ain’t gonna let go till it’s chopped loose."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 13. When he was a preacher Jim Casy’s fight used to be with the devil. But now he acknowledges that his fight is with something worse than the devil – the evil of the corruption of society. This is the beginning of Casy’s rebellion against the capitalist system that is inflicting so much harm and suffering on people.

"Ever see one a them Gila monsters take hold, mister? Grabs hold, an’ you chop him in two an’ his head hangs on. Chop him at the neck an’ his head hangs on. Got to take a screw-driver an’ pry his head apart to git him loose. An’ while he’s layin’ there, poison is drippin’ an’ drippin’ into the hole he’s made with his teeth."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 13. Figurative language is used to describe what is happening in the country during the migration to California at the time of the Great Depression. Jim Casy uses a metaphor to compare the inhumanity of the banks and big companies in destroying people’s homes and lives to a relentless Gila monster. Even if you cut his head off it still hangs on, dripping its poison. The only way to defeat the system is to destroy its head, like using the screwdriver to pry the Gila monster’s head apart.

The Western land, nervous under the beginning change. The Western States, nervous as horses before a thunder storm. The great owners, nervous, sensing a change, knowing nothing of the nature of the change. The great owners, striking at the immediate thing, the widening government, the growing labor unity; striking at new taxes, at plans; not knowing that these things are results, not causes. Results, not causes; results, not causes. The causes lie deep and simple – the causes are a hunger in a stomach, multiplied a million times; a hunger in a single soul, hunger for joy and some security, multiplied a million times; muscles and mind aching to grow, to work, to create, multiplied a million times.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 14. As Steinbeck opens this chapter, he makes use of repetition to emphasize the fear of the Western States and the great owners to a great social change taking place. The author uses a vivid simile to compare this fear to that of nervous horses before a thunderstorm. The owners fail to grasp the nature of the change. They attack the results, not the causes, blaming the growing labor movement and new taxes. But the causes are much simpler: hunger for food, happiness, security and work – multiplied by a million. Steinbeck is deeply critical of the landowners’ refusal to accept and address the plight of the big influx of migrant families into the Western States. He sees it as a class struggle between the migrants who have nothing and the owners who have much. The owners are afraid of the migrants uniting and standing up for themselves, as shown by the owners’ attacks on the growing labor unity.

Fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 14. Here Steinbeck is very clear about his philosophy. The greatest quality mankind has is to fight and die for a belief. He is speaking in the contest of the seismic changes taking place in the Western States as a result of the huge influx of migrants, some of them fighting for the right to work and better pay. We should only fear when people give up and quit striving for what they believe in, Steinbeck says.

One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlarge of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate – "We lost our land." The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 14. Here Steinbeck speaks to the themes of isolation and unity. One family driven off the land feels isolated and confused. But when they meet another migrant family on the highway who suffer a similar fate, they form a community of shared experience and common humanity. There is a transition from "I" to "we." This is the very thing that those in power hate and fear, says Steinbeck. He believes that the key to fighting injustice and effecting change is for the migrants to unite as a community.

This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning – from "I" to "we." If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I", and cuts you off forever from the "we."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 14. Steinbeck speaks here about the power of "we" in his strong warning message to the powers that be. He warns the banks and landowners of a revolution of the dispossessed as he positions Marx and Lenin alongside Jefferson and Paine. The same powers could save themselves if they understood that the dispossessed were no longer isolated individuals but were uniting together in common cause. But Steinbeck believes that their wealth wealth has placed them in their own bubble and isolated them and cut them off from the people.
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