The Grapes of Wrath Quotes

"If it was the law they was workin’ with, why, we could take it. But it ain’t the law. They’re a-workin’ away at our spirits. They’re a-tryin’ to make us cringe an’ crawl like a whipped bitch. They tryin’ to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on’y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin’ a sock at a cop. They’re workin’ on our decency."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 20. Tom Joad explains to his mother why he is so angry with the police deputies, as she attempts to restrain him. He is bitter about the way they mistreat and humiliate migrants, stamping on their dignity. He wants to fight back and take "a sock" at them.

"Why, Tom – us people will go on livin’ when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we’re the people that live. They ain’t gonna wipe us out. Why, we’re the people – we go on."
"We take a beatin’ all the time."
"I know." Ma chuckled. "Maybe that makes us tough. Rich fellas come up an’ they die, an’ their kids ain’t no good, an’ they die out. But, Tom, we keep a-comin’. Don’ you fret none, Tom. A different time’s comin’."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 20. When Tom Joad speaks of the police trying to break the spirit of the migrants, the indomitable Ma Joad responds with this message of hope and survival. In this important passage with its prophetic tone, Ma says that they are "the people" and they will survive no matter what. She speaks of the Joads’ and other migrant families’ resilience, toughness and ability to weather difficulties. She contrasts them to the soft and weak members of the rich class. She is encouraging Tom to show his solidarity and unity with other ordinary working class people.

The movement changed them; the highways, the camps along the road, the fear of hunger and the hunger itself, changed them. The children without dinner changed them, the endless moving changed them. They were migrants. And the hostility changed them, welded them, united them – hostility that made the little towns group and arm as though to repel an invader, squads with pick handles, clerks and storekeepers with shotguns, guarding the world against their own people.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 21. Themes of survival, hunger and the unity of the dispossessed who face the same struggles and hostility are covered here. Once tenant farmers, they are now hungry migrants. Regarded as invaders, townspeople take up arms to exclude them from their communities. But this only serves to weld the migrants into one global family of the dispossessed.

In the West there was panic when the migrants multiplied on the highways. Men of property were terrified for their property. Men who had never been hungry saw the eyes of the hungry. Men who had never wanted anything very much saw the flare of want in the eyes of the migrants. And the men of the towns and of the soft suburban country gathered to defend themselves; and they reassured themselves that they were good and the invaders bad, as a man must do before he fights. They said, These goddamned Okies are dirty and ignorant. They’re degenerate, sexual maniacs. Those goddamned Okies are thieves. They’ll steal anything. They’ve got no sense of property rights.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 21. The mass exodus of hungry migrants from Oklahoma into California puts Californians in fear for themselves, their property and their own jobs. This fear triggers a deep hostility and prejudice towards the "Okies," who not welcome and seen as subhuman by the residents of the Golden State.

And now the great owners and the companies invented a new method. A great owner bought a cannery. And when the peaches and the pears were ripe he cut the price of fruit below the cost of raising it. And as cannery owner he paid himself a low price for the fruit and kept the price of canned goods up and took his profit. And the little farmers who owned no canneries lost their farms, and they were taken by the great owners, the banks, and the companies who also owned the canneries. As time went on, there were fewer farms. The little farmers moved into town for a while and exhausted their credit, exhausted their friends, their relatives. And then they too went on the highways. And the roads were crowded with men ravenous for work, murderous for work.
And the companies, the banks worked at their own doom and they did not know it. The fields were fruitful, and starving men moved on the roads. The granaries were full and the children of the poor grew up rachitic, and the pustules of pellagra swelled on their sides. The great companies did not know that the line between hunger and anger is a thin line. And money that might have gone to wages went for gas, for guns, for agents and spies, for blacklists, for drilling. On the highways the people moved like ants and searched for work, for food. And the anger began to ferment.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 21. Steinbeck continues his blistering attack on large-scale commercial agriculture, which not only drives Oklahoma sharecroppers into poverty, but small California farmers too. Big companies buy the canneries, underbid the small farmer for his produce and put him out of business. So the small California farmer joins the Dust Bowl migrants in the desperate search to find work and survive. But there is a warning for greedy business owners and banks, who invest profits in putting down rebellion by workers instead of paying them decent wages. By ignoring the growing "murderous" anger of hungry workers, the companies and banks are ensuring their own doom. There is foreshadowing here of a fightback against their inhuman methods.

The redness of his face deepened with anger…"We had a meeting last night. Now, do you know who runs the Farmers Association? I’ll tell you. The Bank of the West. That bank owns most of this valley, and it’s got paper on everything it don’t own. So last night the member from the bank told me, he said, ‘You’re paying thirty cents an hour. You’d better cut it down to twenty-five.’ I said, ‘I’ve got good men. They’re worth thirty.’ And he says, ‘It isn’t that,’ he says. ‘The wage is twenty-five now. If you pay thirty, it’ll only cause unrest.’"

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 22. Here we meet a decent small farmer Mr. Thomas, who pay his workers as fair a wage as he can. But he is being pressured by other landowners and the banks to cut migrants wages from thirty cents to twenty-five. He is angry at having to do this, but is forced to do it by the greedy and inhumane system. This passage exposes the corruption of the Farmer’s Assocation.

"Ain’t you got it yet? Mr. Bank hires two thousand men an’ I hire three. I’ve got paper to meet. Now if you can figure some way out, by Christ, I’ll take it! They got me."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 22. Mr. Thomas is a small farmer who wants to pay Tom Joad and two other workers more money. But he reveals that he cannot because the bank has threatened to discontinue his loan if he does. Thomas is sympathetic to the plight of the migrants and goes on to lament to Tom Joad and Timothy and Wilkie Wallace: "I don’t know how you men can feed a family on what you get now."

"Citizens, angered at red agitators, burn squatters’ camp. Last night a band of citizens, infuriated at the agitation going on in a local squatters’ camp, burned the tents to the ground and warned agitators to get out of the county."
…Thomas folded the paper carefully and put it in his pocket. He had himself in control again. He said quietly, "Those men were sent out by the Association. Now I’m giving ’em away. And if they ever find out I told, I won’t have a farm next year."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 22. The employer Mr. Thomas is a small farmer who a lot of sympathy for the plight of migrant workers. He reads a newspaper report to Tom Joad and Timothy and Wilkie Wallace about a group of angry citizens burning a squatters’ camp, allegedly full of communist agitators. He reveals that the arsonists were sent by the Farmers’ Association, thus exposing how corrupt the group is. The camp referred to is the Hooverville camp where the Joads stayed the previous night before it was burned out. Thomas shows humanity and courage , he could lose his farm if the bank-owned Farmers’ Association learned that he had outed them for their role in the arson.

"The Association don’t like government camps. Can’t get a deputy in there. The people make their own laws, I hear, and you can’t arrest a man without a warrant. Now if there was a big fight and maybe shooting – a bunch of deputies could go in and clean out the camp…Don’t you ever tell where you heard," Thomas said uneasily. "There’s going to be a fight in the camp Saturday night. And there’s going to be deputies ready to go in."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 22. Mr. Thomas tips off his three Weedpatch camp workers that the corrupt Farmers’ Association is planning to incite a fight at the Saturday night dance. This is to provide legal grounds for police deputies to enter the camp. Thomas risks his future as a small farmer by his kindness in alerting about the conspiracy. Tom Joad and Timothy and Wilkie Wallace promise not to reveal that he warned them. Thomas shows empathy for and unity with the migrants, an example of Emerson’s "Over-Soul" at work – the spiritual unity of all beings.

"Those folks in the camp are getting used to being treated like humans. When they go back to the squatters’ camps they’ll be hard to handle…Go on out to work now. Jesus, I hope I haven’t talked myself out of my farm. But I like you people."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 22. Mr. Thomas is the small farmer with a big conscience. He reveals how the bigger farm owners are unhappy with the humane conditions migrant workers are used to in the government camps. Migrants are treated with dignity there. The farm bosses want to put an end to the camps becauses they fear rebellion by workers demanding a better deal. Thomas is a man of courage, who is risking his own livelihood by blowing the whistle on the Farmer’s Associaton.

Seems like they got to drive us," Timothy said. "They’re scairt we’ll organize, I guess. An’ maybe they’re right. This here camp is a organization. People there look out for theirselves…We ain’t never had no trouble with the law. I guess the big farmers is scairt of that. Can’t throw us in jail – why, it scares ’em. Figger maybe if we can gove’n ourselves, maybe we’ll do other things."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 22. Timothy Wallace, a man at Weedpatch government migrant camp, responds to news that the Farmers’ Association aims to incite a riot at the camp. This would provide the law with an excuse to invade the camp. Timothy believes that large farmers are afraid of workers banding together in organized resistance to their poor working conditions.

"Fella named Hines-got ’bout thirty thousan’ acres, peaches and grapes-got a cannery an’ a winery. Well, he’s all a time talkin’ about ‘them goddamn reds.’ ‘Goddamn reds is drivin’ the country to ruin,’ he says, an’ ‘We got to drive these here red bastards out.’ Well, they were a young fella jus’ come out west here, an’ he’s listenin’ one day. He kinda scratched his head an’ he says, ‘Mr. Hines, I ain’t been here long. What is these goddamn reds?’ Well, sir, Hines says, ‘A red is any son-of-a-bitch that wants thirty cents an hour when we’re payin’ twenty-five!’ Well, this young fella he thinks about her, an’ he scratches his head, an’ he says, ‘Well, Jesus, Mr. Hines. I ain’t a son-of-a- bitch, but if that’s what a red is – why, I want thirty cents an hour. Ever’body does. Hell, Mr. Hines, we’re all reds.’"

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 22. Timothy Wallace, a worker at Weedpatch migrant camp, tells a story of how another worker recently arrived to California learns what a "red" is. His story details a conversation between the anonymous migrant worker and Mr. Hines, a large fruit farmer with a cannery and winery. Hines labels those who demand decent wages as "reds" or communists. While he shows prejudice against migrants by using this dangerous and derogatory term, his motivation is simply greed and to get cheap labor.

"We’re Joads. We don’t look up to nobody. Grampa’s grampa, he fit in the Revolution. We was farm people till the debt. And then – them people. They done somepin to us. Ever’ time they come seemed like they was a-whippin’ me – all of us. An’ in Needles, that police. He done somepin to me, made me feel mean. Made me feel ashamed. An’ now I ain’t ashamed. These folks is our folks – is our folks. An’ that manager, he come an’ set an’ drank coffee, an’ he says, ‘Mrs. Joad’ this, an’ ‘Mrs. Joad’ that – an’ ‘How you getting’ on, Mrs. Joad?’" She stopped and sighed. "Why, I feel like people again."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 22. Three of the themes in this passage are family, humanity and dignity. Ma Joad has just met with manager of the Weedpatch government relief camp Jim Rawley. After the Joads’ bad experiences at the hands of hostile police and exploitative landowners, she is pleasantly surprised by him. Rawley treats her with kindness and respect, making her feel like a human being again. She speaks of the Joads as a proud family who worked the land until they were dispossessed. But the affects of life on the road turned her into someone mean and tough, she admits. Her encounter with Rawley she helped her feel part of the fellowship of humanity again and reconnect with her fellow migrants.

"Got a live tumor…You be good. If you got sin on you – you better watch out for that there baby." She squatted down in front of Rose of Sharon. "They’s scandalous things goes on in this here camp," she said darkly. "Ever’ Sat’dy night they’s dancin’, an’ not only squar’ dancin’, neither. They’s some does clutch-an’-hug dancin’! I seen ’em."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 22. In the government migrant Weedpatch camp Mrs. Sandry comes upon the pregnant Rose of Sharon. Ironically, instead of congratulating the mother-to-be, this religious fanatic refers to her baby as a "live tumor" and warns her about the sinful dancing that goes on at the Saturday night dances. Sandry’s warning to the poor girl in this passage sounds more like a curse!

"The devil was jus’ a-struttin’ through this here camp…An’ don’ you think them sinners is puttin’ nothin’ over on God, neither. No, sir, He’s a-chalkin’ ’em up sin by sin, an’ He’s drawin’ His line an’ addin’ ’em up sin by sin. God’s a-watchin’, an’ I’m a-watchin’. He’s awready smoked two of ’em out."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 22. A self-declared "Jesus-lover" corners Rose of Sharon in the Weedpatch camp to warn her about the sinful ways of the people there, especially the dancing and play-acting. Sandry’s idea of religion ironically revolves around judgement of others, righteousness and the gospel of fear. This is the very perversion of religion and one that Jim Casy has turned his back on.
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