S2 Blog 13 (GOW Final Essay)

3. Describe how the balance between specific stories about the Joad family and broader description of the migration of Dust Bowl farmers impacts the novel as a whole.

The Grapes of Wrath depicted the story of two “families”: the Joads and the collective body of migrant workers. Although the Joads were joined by blood, the text clearly explaind and went in-depth on the fact that it was not their genetics but their loyalty and commitment to one another that established their true togetherness.

In the migrant lifestyle portrayed in the book, the biological family unit, lacking a home to live within their own boundaries, quickly became a thing of the past, as life on the road forced them to create new connections and form new relationships. The reader experienced this change at work when the Joads met the Wilsons. In a remarkably short time, the two groups merged into one, sharing one another’s hardships and committing to one another’s survival. This merging took place among the migrant community in general as well: “twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream.” Even in the midst of adversity, the livelihood of the migrants depended upon their union. As Tom eventually realized, “his” people were all people.

I believe that the way Tom began to realize this, was by the biological familiy and the migrant workers as a whole, constantly demonstrating the definition of unity togethernes around. This helped and veered Tom towards first observing this type of living, and then slowly but surely living that way himself, which soon led to the joads and the migrants to not only experience the hurdles, but the process of moving forward as one also. Moving forward, to me, was one of the most important things that the joads and migrants had to do if they were going to have any chance of rising above all the negativities that tried to bring them down.

According to Steinbeck, many of the evils and negativities that came into contact with the Joad family and the migrants stemed from selfishness. Simple self-interest motivated the landowners and businessmen to sustain a mean and harmful system that sunk thousands of families into poverty. In contrast to and in conflict with this policy of selfishness stood the migrants’ behavior toward one another. Aware that their livelihood and survival depended upon their commitment to the collective idea, the migrants united—sharing their dreams as well as their burdens—in order to survive. Throughout the novel, Steinbeck constantly emphasized self-interest and the devotion to the welfare of others as equal and opposite powers, evenly matched in their conflict with each other. In Chapters 13 and 15, for example, Steinbeck presented both greed and generosity as going beyond the normal limit, while the following action was an extremely posititve response.

In Chapter 13, we learn that corporate gas companies had preyed and harassed the gas station attendant that the Joads met. The attendant, in turn, insulted the Joads and hesitated to help them. Then, after a brief detailed explanation chapter, the Joads immediately came upon an instance of kindness that demonstrated an act of non-self-interest, and more humbleness: Mae, a waitress, sold bread and sweets to a man and his sons for drastically reduced prices. Some truckers at the coffee shop saw this interchange and left Mae an extra-large tip.

Obviously, in this instance, it was better to give than to receive. Mae, obviously felt the urge to want to help and contribute to the man and his sons by simply reducing the cost of food purchased by the man. Lucky for her, due to her kind heart and gesture, the truck drivers rewarded her and showed that they recognized her generosity by leaving her a large tip.

In my opinion. this situation, in a way, represented a symbol or point that would definitely benefit both the joads and the migrants. If the landowners and businessmen would've also taken the time out to look beyond protocol, to try and truly understand the minds and hardships of the different migrants and families, then they too might've been able to help in some way possible. unfortunately, however, businessmen and landowners didn't have any sympathy to even think twice about trying to help families keep their land and homes. They instead, just like I mentioned earlier, put all their effort towards selfishness, whch resulted into going from what used to be a society of organized families with establshed gender roles, to complete chaos and switch of roles.

When the novel began, the Joad family relied on a traditional family structure in which the men made the decisions and the women obediently did as they are told. In fact, the family was so invested in these roles that they continued to honor Grampa as the head of the family, even though he had outlived his ability to act as a sound leader.

As the Joads journey west to try and make a living in California, the family dynamic changed drastically. Discouraged and defeated by his stack of failures, Pa withdrew from his role as leader and spent his days tangled in thought. In his position, Ma assumed the responsibility of making decisions for the family. At first, this shocked Pa, who, at one point, lamely threatened to beat her into her so-called "proper" place. The threat is empty and false, however, and the entire family knew it. Eventually, the switch of roles worked in the favor of the Joads family, which helped to motivate other families, and also tie in the main idea of the novel.

By the end of the novel, the Joad family structure had undergone a revolution, in which the woman figure, traditionally powerless, had taken control, while the male figure, traditionally in the leadership role, had withdrawn, setting the srage and opening new doors to the improvemnt of other family lives and environments.

This revolution, in my opinion, paralleled or matched up with a similar change in the larger economic statuses in the outside world. For instance, like when the workers at the Weedpatch camp governed themselves according to their own rules, and shared tasks in a way that satisfied their own understanding of fairness and equality rather than power-hungry ambition or love of authority.

It's clearly obvious that both the Joad and the migrant families sort of reflected off each others lifestyles, and learned and became enlighted by each other in a way that guided them towards comprehending how to work together and pull through obstacles, to get closer and closer to a better, more fair and understandng lifestyle and environment.