Expository Writing #2:
Analyses of Two Passages from John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath

The following are analyses of two passages from John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.  The book is one of my personal favorites because Steinbeck makes the readers really identify with the time period and the unforgettable characters.  The parting scene between Tom and Mama Joads in Tom’s hideout is truly one of the most touching moments in literature.  I analyzed the first passage in terms of Steinbeck’s purpose in writing the novel, while I focused on his development of conflict in the second passage.

The decay spreads over the State, and the sweet smell is a great sorrow on the land.  Men who can graft the trees and make the seed fertile and big can find no way to let the hungry people eat their produce.  Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten.  And the failure hangs over the State like a great sorrow.

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all.  Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground.  The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be.  How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up?  And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit.  A million people hungry, needing the fruit—and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.

And the smell of rot fills the country.

Burn coffee for fuel in the ships.  Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire.  Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out.  Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation.  There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize.  There is a failure here that topples all our success.  The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit.  And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange.  And coroners must fill in the certificates—died of malnutrition—because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.

The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed.  And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath.  In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

In his treatment of lives of the Depression-era immigrant farmers in The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck expresses his total sympathy for the poor and resentment for the wealthy.  He blames the great problems of the time on the economic system that promotes great economic disparity and the rich who seek to maintain such system.  In passionate denunciations of the wealthy such as the passage above, Steinbeck’s purpose in writing the book is not thinly disguised.  Through contrasting the desperate lives of the poor with the shameful, immoral waste practiced by the wealthy motivated only by avarice, Steinbeck effectively denounces the irresponsible economic elites and aims to affect positive political and social changes through warning.

The passage describes the “crime” that goes around the California countryside.  The lack of job and horrible living and working conditions are causing unheard-of misery for the immigrant farmers from Oklahoma.  Meanwhile, the great Californian farmers are producing much more food than is demanded.  Driven by the capitalistic desire for profit, these farmers destroy food that could be used to feed the hungry immigrant farmers. 

Steinbeck’s use of diction manifests his censure of the economic elites in describing the situation in California as a spectacular failure.  He states that in California, “There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation.  There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize.  There is a failure here that topples all our success.”  In characterizing the practices so selfish as to be immoral, he frequently uses verbs that refer to destruction, such as “destroyed,” “dumped,” “burn,” “slaughter,” “bury,” and “rot.”  Steinbeck stabs at the crux of the problem when he says that, “children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange,” putting humanity and profit at odds against each other.

Steinbeck’s tone is so highly enflamed and condemnatory as to seem like a propaganda for a social revolution.  Both his grief and rage are evident in the passages such as this:  “The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all…  And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit.  A million people hungry, needing the fruit—and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.”  Such passage is designed to anger his readers and is implying that a swift action is necessary to end such practices.  No reader would be too surprised if Steinbeck had taken his forebodings a bit further and had ended the passage with a cry, “Thus, citizens, to arms!”

In fulfilling his purpose of denouncing the rich, Steinbeck employs painfully poignant imagery.  “And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath.  In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”  The images of food that could give life to so many being wantonly destroyed leave deep impression on the minds of the readers.  What particularly draws the reader’s attention is the “putrefying ooze” of oranges, which is coupled effectively with the one of “the grapes of wrath” fermenting.  This suggests a cause-and-effect relationship between the two.

Steinbeck’s syntax is simple and unsophisticated.  “Burn coffee for fuel in the ships.  Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire.  Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out.  Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.”  He uses one imperative sentence after another to reinforce the inhumanity of the landowners.  The syntax is simple, yet powerful, much like the poor migrant farmers and highlights the brutality that Steinbeck seeks to expose.

Three hundred thousand in California and more coming.  And in California the roads full of frantic people running like ants to pull, to push, to lift, to work.  For every manload to lift, five pairs of arms extended to lift it; for every stomachful of food available, five mouths open.

And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away.  And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need.  And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.  The great owners ignored the three cries of history.  The land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression.  The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of the revolt so that it might be stamped out.  The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the causes of revolt went on.

The tractors which throw men out of work, the belt lines which carry loads, the machines which produce, all were increased; and more and more families scampered on the highways, looking for crumbs from the great holdings, lusting after the land beside the roads.  The great owners formed association for protection and they met to discuss ways to intimidate, to kill, to gas.  And always they were in fear of a principal—three hundred thousand, hungry and miserable; if they ever know themselves, the land will be theirs and all the gas, all the rifles in the world won’t stop them.  And the great owners, who had become through their holdings both more and less than men, ran to their destruction, and used every means that in the long run would destroy them.  Every little means, every violence, every raid on a Hooverville, every deputy swaggering through a ragged camp put off the day a little and cemented the inevitability of the day.

The men squatted on their hams, sharp-faced men, lean from hunger and hard from resisting it, sullen eyes and hard jaws.  And the rich land was around them.

This passage highlights the main conflict in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, namely the economic struggle between the haves and the have-nots in the 1930’s California.  The presented conflict is a great example of the ever-present Marxist class struggle, intensified by the novel’s harsh Great Depression backdrop.  The two opposing parties, the rich and the poor, have directly opposing intentions and goals.  Steinbeck creates a remarkably accurate assessment of the situation from the past examples in history.

Steinbeck states that there are “three cries of history” or facts: “when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away”; “when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need”; and “repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.”    Steinbeck then analyzes the situation of the rich and the poor in 1938 and how it fulfills conditions of the first and second facts of history.  “The land fell into fewer hands,” referring to the first conditional statement.  And “the number of the dispossessed increased,” referring to the second conditional statement.  Moreover, Steinbeck highlights the number and the misery of the repressed.  They number “three hundred thousand in California and more coming.  And in California the roads full of frantic people running like ants to pull, to push, to lift, to work.  For every manload to lift, five pairs of arms extended to lift it; for every stomachful of food available, five mouths open.”  They are further characterized as “ants” further suggesting their number.  They are oppressed, “lean from hunger and hard from resisting it.”

Furthermore, Steinbeck talks about the condition of the third great historical fact.  He shows how the rich do all they can to repress the poor.  “The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of the revolt so that it might be stamped out.”  In short, “only means to destroy revolt were considered.”  Steinbeck details the efforts and cares expanded by the owners to destroy and repress.  Partly because they are aware of the power of the poor, the rich spends all their energy to oppress the poor: “The great owners formed association for protection and they met to discuss ways to intimidate, to kill, to gas.”

Furthermore, Steinbeck hints at the inevitability of the poor’s revolt against the rich.  The great owners are fearful of the number and the power of the poor: “And always [the great owners] were in fear of a principal—three hundred thousand, hungry and miserable; if they ever know themselves, the land will be theirs and all the gas, all the rifles in the world won’t stop them.”  These “three hundred thousand, hungry and miserable” can surely override the “the great owners, who had become through their holdings both more and less than men,” meaning dehumanized into institutional beings.  Steinbeck refers to the revolt as “inevitability.”  All that oppression can do is to “put off the day a little.”  And certainly, if the economic situation had not improved in the years following the writing of The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck’s prophesy might have come true.  And even this improvement came not because of any efforts on the part of the great owners, but because of an external factor: the beginning of the World War II.

This social struggle between the Oklahoman migrants and the Californian landowners is dramatized frequently and constantly through the novel.  Jim Casey is the first character to realize the deeper social phenomenon behind individual farmers’ struggle.  Tom Joads’s dynamic progress defined in terms of how he comes to see and understand Jim Casey’s ideas on the social conflict.  His character transforms from a bitter, immature man to a larger-than-life outlawed champion of the poor, something of a modern-day Robin Hood.  Through chronicling Tom’s character development, Steinbeck manifests his sympathy for the poor in this class struggle.