The Grapes of Wrath Quotes

Grampa was ahead, a lean ragged, quick old man, jumping with quick steps and favoring his right leg – the side that came out of joint. He was buttoning his fly as he came, and his old hands were having trouble finding the buttons, for he had buttoned the top button into the second buttonhole, and that threw the whole sequence off. He wore dark ragged pants and a torn blue shirt, open all the way down, and showing long gray underwear, also unbuttoned. His lean white chest, fuzzed with white hair, was visible through the opening in his underwear. He gave up the fly and left it open and fumbled with the underwear buttons, then gave the whole thing up and hitched his brown suspenders. His was a lean excitable face with little bright eyes as evil as a frantic child’s eyes.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. Grampa Joad is described here as a ragged old man who has lost the capacity to carry out simply tasks like dressing himself.

A cantankerous, complaining, mischievous, laughing face. He fought and argued, told dirty stories. He was as lecherous as always. Vicious and cruel and impatient, like a frantic child, and the whole structure overlaid with amusement. He drank too much when he could get it, ate too much when it was there, talked too much all the time.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. The patriarch of the Joad family Grampa Joad is portrayed as lecherous, a teller of dirty stories, cantankerous and mischievous. Exactly the character needed to provide some comic relief in what is a serious novel dealing with a number of weighty themes.

Noah left the impression of being misshapen, his head or his body or his legs or his mind; but no misshapen member could be recalled. Pa thought he knew why Noah was strange, but Pa was ashamed, and never told. For on the night when Noah was born, Pa, frightened at the spreading thighs, alone in the house, and horrified at the screaming wretch his wife had become, went mad with apprehension. Using his hands, his strong fingers for forceps, he had pulled and twisted the baby. The midwife, arriving late, had found the baby’s head pulled out of shape, its neck stretched, its body warped; and she had pushed the head back and molded the body with her hands. But Pa always remembered, and was ashamed.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. Noah is described as being strange. This passage suggests that some disfigurement happened when Pa Joad had to use his strong hands and fingers for forceps at Noah’s birth. Because of this Pa feels shame.

Grampa walked up and slapped Tom on the chest, and his eyes grinned with affection and pride. "How are ya, Tommy?"
"O.K.," said Tom. "How ya keepin’ yaself?"
"Full a piss an’ vinegar," said Grampa. His mind jumped. "Jus’ like I said, they ain’t a gonna keep no Joad in jail. I says, ‘Tommy’ll come a-bustin’ outa that jail like a bull through a corral fence.’ An’ you done it. Get outa my way, I’m hungry."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. When Grampa Joad enthusiastically greets Tom, he mistakingly believes that his grandson has broken out of jail. No prison is strong enough to hold a Joad, boasts the old patriarch.

Tom grinned affectionately at him. "Ain’t he a heller?" he said. And Grampa’s mouth was so full that he couldn’t even splutter, but his mean little eyes smiled, and he nodded his head violently.
Granma said proudly, "A wicketer, cussin’er man never lived. He’s goin’ to hell on a poker, praise Gawd! Wants to drive the truck!" she said spitefully. "Well, he ain’t goin’ ta."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. She may be devoutly religious, but there is no holding back Granma Joad’s tongue when it comes to her speaking her mind. When Tom Joad affectionately describes Grampa as a "heller" – a wild person – Granma calls him a wicked man who is going straight to hell. There is no way that Grampa is going to drive the family to California, Granma vows. There’s no mistaking who is the boss there.

"Seems like Jesus got all messed up with troubles, and He couldn’t figure nothin’ out, an’ He got to feelin’ what the hell good is it all, an’ what’s the use fightin’ an’ figurin’. Got tired, got good an’ tired, an’ His sperit all wore out. Jus’ about come to the conclusion, the hell with it. An’ so He went off into the wilderness."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. Jim Casy is often considered a Christ-like figure in <em>The Grapes of Wrath</em>, even sharing the same initials as Jesus. Here he talks about Jesus being full of troubles and having to go off into the wilderness to think about things. Casy himself has been through a similar soul searching.

"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.

And randy Al, seeing he was being noticed, threw back his shoulders, and he came into the yard with a swaying strut like that of a rooster about to crow. Cockily, he walked close before he recognized Tom; and when he did, his boasting face changed, and admiration and veneration shone in his eyes, and his swagger fell away.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. Tom Joad’s younger brother Al is delighted to see Tom. Al obviously looks up to his older brother, his expression changes from cockiness and boastfulness to admiration and veneration at Tom’s homecoming. Steinbeck uses a simile to describe how Al initially struts like "a rooster about to crow."

In the little houses the tenant people sifted their belongings and the belongings of their fathers and of their grandfathers. Picked over their possessions for the journey to the West. The men were ruthless because the past had been spoiled, but the women knew how the past would cry to them in the coming days.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 9. In preparation for the migration west, the tenant farmers sift through their belongings to decide what to disgard or bring with them on the journey. They know that the past is dead and they must move on. But the women on the other hand know the past will come back to haunt them. Steinbeck personifies the past by giving it the human ability to cry.

That plow, that harrow, remember in the war we planted mustard? Remember a fella wanted us to put in that rubber bush they call guayule? Get rich, he said. Bring out those tools – get a few dollars for them. Eighteen dollars for that plow, plus freight – Sears Roebuck.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 9. The farmers sell off their belongings to second-hand dealers, who offer them pitifully low prices. They have no alternative but to accept, because they need the money to finance their trip to California. The plow and harrow were tools for survival and living, so it is ironic that during the war they were involved in the production of mustard gas, a type of chemical warfare used to kill people.

You’re not buying only junk, you’re buying junked lives. And more – you’ll see – you’re buying bitterness. Buying a plow to plow your own children under, buying the arms and spirits that might have saved you. Five dollars, not four. I can’t haul them back – Well, take ’em for four. But I warn you, you’re buying what will plow your own children under…You’re buying a little girl plaiting the forelocks, taking off her hair ribbon to make bows, standing back, head cocked, rubbing the soft noses with her cheek. You’re buying years of work, toil in the sun; you’re buying a sorrow that can’t talk. But watch it, mister. There’s a premium goes with this pile of junk and the bay horses – so beautiful – a packet of bitterness to grow in your house and to flower, some day. We could have saved you, but you cut us down, and soon you will be cut down and there’ll be none of us to save you.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 9. This expresses the bitterness of tenant farmers forced to sell their farm tools and belongings, and what they believe will happen to the people who purchase them. They tell profiteering junk dealers who take advantage of their need by paying the least money possible, that they are buying the bitterness of people’s ruined lives. Bitterness is used here as a metaphor. Steinbeck also personifies the tools and belongings the dispossessed farmers are forced to sell. The loss of dignity they experience comes across strongly in this chapter and passage.

Maybe we can start again, in the new rich land – in California, where the fruit grows. We’ll start over.
But you can’t start. Only a baby can start. You and me – why, we’re all that’s been. The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that’s us. This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can’t start again.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 9. Tenant farmers discuss the question of starting again in the new rich land of California. Steinbeck is commenting on the hopelessness felt by the tenant farmers. The passage begins on an optimistic note that tenant farmers can restart new lives in California. But the tone then significantly changes. A mood of despondancy takes over, as the farmers realize that the umbilical cord that bonded them to the land has been broken, that connection which was their source of life and meaning is gone, and they can’t start again. It’s all a deception.

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.

Now you know well what we can take and what we can’t take. We’ll be camping out – a few pots to cook and wash in, and mattresses and comforts, lantern and buckets, and a piece of canvas. Use that for a tent. This kerosene can. Know what that is? That’s the stove. And clothes – take all the clothes. And – the rifle? Wouldn’t go out naked of a rifle. When shoes and clothes and food, when even hope is gone, we’ll have the rifle. When grampa came – did I tell you? – he had pepper and salt and a rifle. Nothing else. That goes. And a bottle for water. That just about fills us. Right up the sides of the trailer, and the kids can set in the trailer, and granma on a mattress. Tools, a shovel and saw and wrench and pliers. An ax, too. We had that ax forty years. Look how she’s wore down. And ropes, of course. The rest? Leave it – or burn it up.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 9. Steinbeck makes effective use of pathos in Chapter 9 as he explores the emotional suffering tenant families must endure when they are uprooted from their homes and lives. The chapter captures the loss of dignity for migrants forced to divest themselves of personal belongings they are unable to bring with them on the journey. They take only the few things needed for survival. The rest have been sold, or are burned. What’s left of their lives and whatever dignity they can salvage, they bravely load onto the truck to head west.

The women sat among the doomed things, turning them over and looking past them and back. This book. My father had it. He liked a book. Pilgrim’s Progress. Used to read it. Got his name in it. And his pipe – still smells rank. And this picture – an angel. I looked at that before the fust three come – didn’t seem to do much good. Think we could get this china dog in? Aunt Sadie brought it from the St. Louis Fair. See? Wrote right on it. No, I guess not. Here’s a letter my brother wrote the day before he died. Here’s an old-time hat. These feathers – never got to use them. No, there isn’t room.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 9. As the migrants pack up to head for California, a nostalgic tone is struck when the women have to leave fond memories behind. They know that there is no room in the truck for things of sentimental value that carry these memories. So the women agree to give up these memories, and take only the bare essentials, the handful of things needed for survival. There isn’t room for the rest, and what’s left behind is burned.

"Tom, I hope things is all right in California…Seems too nice, kinda. I seen the han’bills fellas pass out, an’ how much work they is, an’ high wages an’ all; an’ I seen in the paper how they want folks to come an’ pick grapes an’ oranges an’ peaches. That’d be nice work, Tom, pickin’ peaches. Even if they wouldn’t let you eat none, you could maybe snitch a little ratty one sometimes. An’ it’d be nice under the trees, workin’ in the shade."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 10. If something seem too good to be true, then maybe it is. Ma Joad is fantasizing about the good life in California. But at the same time she has reservations that the reality will match the dream as promised in the fruit farm owners’ flyers. This is foreshadowing of things to come for the Joads.
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