.""-:Cl~~
EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY AND MODERNISM - American
Fiction
The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
1111111 111----------Much of The Grapes of Wrath is set in California in the 1930s. Then, as now, California was the biggest producer of
fruit in the United States and one of the biggest in the world. It is the American state which probably most
fascinates people from other countries, thanks especially to the coverage it receives through the mass media. Do a
brainstorm activity in the class in which each student says what he knows about California.
For example: Silicon Valley, earthquakes ...
As you read from The Grapes of Wrath compare your class's image of California with that presented by Steinbeck.
INTRODUCTION.
The United States is one of the richest countries in the world, and throughout
its
short history it has provided a home and livelihood for millions of people of every race, colour and
creed. The road to prosperity has not always been easy, however.
John Steinbeck, in his novels, chronicles the hardship and poverty that hit rural America during the
Great Depression of the 1930s. The Grapes of Wrath is the story of those thousands of farmers and farm
workers who had to leave their parched and infertile land in Oklahoma
and seek their fortune in
California.
ICIIARACTERS
• Tom Joad
• Pa, Tom's father
• Ma, Tom's mother
• John, his uncle
• Rose of Sharon
and Ruth, his
sisters
~ Visual Link G17
THE STORY
Tom load's family, including his grandparents and his pregnant sister, Rose of Sharon, leave
their farm in Oklahoma in search of a better life in California, the sun-kissed land of
opportunity. During the long and arduous journey Tom's grandmother dies and Rose of
Sharon's husband disappears. When they reach their destination they soon realise that life in
the West is no easier than it was at home. The men do find work picking peaches and cotton,
but only at subsistence wages.
California is indeed a beautiful land that produces every fruit known to man, but overproduction means reduced profit so, despite the fact that some people are on the verge of
starvation, many crops are destroyed C~ Text G22).
The loads settle in a makeshift camp and Tom is forced to go into hiding because of his
involvement in trade union agitation.
As torrential rains flood the camp, Rose of Sharon loses her baby but uses her maternal milk
in a shocking and damning way C~ Text G23).
The Grapes of Wrath
The loads have arrived in California and can see that it is a fertile and bountiful state.
And yet, despite the abundance that they see around them, people are starving and tons
of ripe produce are being destroyed every day.
----
••••GLOSSARY
1. for of their
knowledge ... heavy:
because their
technical expertise
can help farmers
produce a lot of fruit
Chapter 2S
C···)
The year is heavy with produce. And men are proud, for of their knowledge
they can make the year heavy!. They have transformed the world with
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
their knowledge. The short, lean2 wheat has
been made big and productive. Little sour
apples have grown large and sweet, and that
5
old grape that grew among the trees and fed
the birds its tiny fruit has mothered a
thousand varieties, red and black, green and
pale pink, purple and yellow; and each
variety with its own flavor. The men who
10
work in the experimental farms have made
new fruits: nectarines3 and forty kinds of
plums, walnuts4 with paper shells. And
always they work, selecting, grafting5,
changing, driving themselves, driving the
15
earth to produce.
And first the cherries ripen. Cent and half a
pound6. Hell, we can't pick 'em for that. Black
cherries and red cherries, full and sweet, and
the birds eat half of each cherry and the
20
yellowjackets? buzz8 into the holes the birds
made. And on the ground the seeds drop and
dry with the black shreds9 hanging from them.
The purple prunes soften and sweeten. My
God, we can't pick them and dry and sulphurlO
25
them. We can't pay wagesll, no matter what wages. And the purple prunes
carpet12 the ground. And first the skins wrinkle13 a little and swarms14 of
flies come to feast15,and the valley is filled with the odor of sweet decay16.
The meat turns dark and the crop shrivels1?on the ground.
And the pears grow yellow and soft. Five dollars a ton. Five dollars for
forty fifty-pound boxes; trees pruned18 and sprayed, orchards19 cultivated
- pick the fruit, put it in boxes, load the trucks, deliver the fruit to the
cannery20 - forty boxes for five dollars. We can't do it. And the yellow fruit
falls heavily to the ground and splashes on the ground. The yellowjackets
dig into the soft meat, and there is a smell of ferment and rot21.
Then the grapes - we can't make good wine. People can't buy good wine.
Rip22the grapes from the vines, good grapes, rotten grapes, wasp-stung23
grapes. Press stems24,press dirt and rot.
But there's mildew25 and formic acid in the vats26.
Add sulphur and tannic acid.
The smell from the ferment is not the rich odor of wine, but the smell of
decay and chemicals.
2. lean: slim
3. nectarines: peach-like fruit
with smooth skin
6. Cent and half a pound:
each pound sells at one and
a half cents
4. walnuts: type of nut
5. grafting: uniting parts of
two different plants so that
they grow as one
7. yellowjackets:
term for 'bees'
American
8. buzz: fly making a
continuous low sound
Tom food (Henry Fonda)
and Ma food (Jane DarwelJ)
in The Grapes of Wrath
(7940), directed by fohn Ford.
13. wrinkle: are lined
14. swarms: large groups
15. feast: enjoy the food
30
35
40
9. shreds: the remaining part
of the fruit
10.sulphur:
spray them with
sulphur dioxide to preserve
them
11. wages: salaries
12. carpet: cover
9~< :'.
16. decay:
decomposition
17. crop shrivels: all the
fruits decay
18. pruned: reduced in
size by cutting
branches in order to
improve their growth
19. orchards: patches of
land with fruit trees
20.cannery:
factory
where the fruit is
processed and put in
cans
21.rot: decay
22. Rip: tear away
23. wasp-stung: with
holes made by wasps
24. stems: thin parts of a
plant which supports
the leaves and flowers
25. mildew: soft whitish
parasitic growth
26. vats: large containers
used for mixing or
storing liquid
substances
EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY AND MODERNISM - American
27. creep up on them:
increase slowly and
almost unnoticeably
28. tide: rise and fall of
the sea
29. mash: soft mass
30. great holding: huge
farm
31. choked: suffocated
32. spoil: go bad
33. sorrow: sadness
34. whereby: by which
35. failure: lack of
success
36. The works of the
roots: the fruits
37. Carloads of: cars full
of
38. dumped: abandoned
39. squirt: spray
40. Slaughter: kill
41. topples: ruins
42. rows: lines
43. sturdy: thick and
strong
44. pellagra: disease
caused by lack of
vitamin B
45. coroners: officials
who establish the
cause of death
46. rattling cars: old cars
that make a lot of
noise
47. float by: go down the
river
48. ditch: long, narrow
hole in the ground
49.quicklime:
calcium
oxide
50. slop down ... ooze:
become a rotting
liquid
51. wrath: fury
•
Fiction
Oh, well. It has alcohol in it, anyway. They can get drunk.
The little farmers watched debt creep up on them27 like the tide28. They
sprayed the trees and sold no crop, they pruned and grafted and could not
pick the crop. And men of knowledge have worked, have considered, and
the fruit is rotting on the ground, and the decaying mash29 in the wine
vats is poisoning the air. And taste the wine - no grape flavor at all, just
sulphur and tannic acid and alcohol.
This little orchard will be part of a great holding30 next year, for the debt
will have choked31 the owner.
The vineyard will belong to the bank. Only the great owners can survive,
for they can own the canneries too. And four pears peeled and cut in half,
cooked and canned, still cost fifteen cents. And the canned pears do not
spoil32. They will last for years.
The decay spreads over the State, and the sweet smell is a great sorrow33 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 whereby34 their fruits
may be eaten. And the failure3s hangs over the State like a great sorrow.
The works of the roots36 of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to
keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of37
oranges dumped38 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
squirt39 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 river and place guards along the banks to keep
the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter40 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 topples41
all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows42, the sturdy43
trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra44 must die
because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners4S 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 cars46 to get the dumped oranges, but
the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float
by47, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch48 and covered with
quicklime49, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying
oozeso; 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
wrathS1 are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
45
50
55
60
6;;
8;;
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
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. COMPREHENSION
1 What are the 'experimental farms' (line 11)? Why
5 Who are the greatest victims of the low market
are the men proud of their work?
price for produce? How do the great owners survive?
2 Why can the farmers not pick the cherries when
they ripen? What happens to them? What happens to
the prunes?
6 Can the excess fruit be eaten by hungry people?
What would happen if people gathered the oranges
that have been dumped? What is done to prevent this
from happening?
3 What expenses must the farmers cover to deliver
pears to the cannery?
4 Is the quality of the grapes used for wine-making
good? What chemicals are added?
,--~_._---__-""----------_._--.,
ANALYSIS
"-----_._-------,,----~1 In the opening paragraph the narrator'" contrasts
7 What is the 'crime' that 'goes beyond
denunciation'? (Line 74)
8 How do hungry people react to the deliberate
spoiling of food?
..
naturally-grown produce and scientifically-modified
produce in a series of balanced sentences. Complete
the table below.
Natural
produce
Scientifically modified
produce
Short lean wheat
Little sour apples
Old grape with its tiny fruit
2 Focus on the opening lines of paragraphs 2, 3, 4,
and 5. How has the narrator structured his
commentary?
3 Lines 17-29 contain a series of striking images.
Circle all the colours that are used to describe the
fruit. Find images that appeal to the sense of sight,
hearing and smell.
Underline references to birds and insects.
Is the narrator's experience of farming first-hand or
theoretical? Justify your answer.
4 The narrator's observations incorporate comments
which can be attributed to specific people. For
example: 'Cent and half a pound. Hell, we can't pick
'em for that.' (Lines 17-18)
Who would make these comments?
Find further examples of this technique in paragraphs
3,4 and 5.
What impact does it have on the text?
It makes it more:
!IlK1
dramatic
!IlK1
realistic
!IlK1
emotional
!IlK1
persuasive
!IlK1
detached
!IlK1
scientific
5 Lines 36-43 are presented in the form of a
dialogue. How does the attitude towards the process
of wine-making of the two imaginary speakers differ?
6 Identify the image in line 44 which conveys the
idea of drowning. What image in line 51 reinforces
the notion of suffocation?
7 In the second half of the text the narrator uses
repetition*
and
irony* to
denounce the crime he
witnesses.
a. There are three examples of food spoiling that are
referred to more than once. What are they?
b. In line 56 the narrator says: 'The decay spreads
over the State, and the sweet smell is a great
sorrow on the land'. Where is this sentiment
echoed in the passage?
c. Find examples of the repetition of sentences
starting with 'And'.
Find more examples of the repetition of a sentence
structure in lines 65-69.
d. In lines 77-78 the narrator says: 'And children
dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot
be taken from an orange'.
Is this what he truly believes?
Find another example of irony in the same
paragr~ph.
8 In the opening passage the narrator refers to the
proud men of knowledge and their successful work in
transforming the natural produce. Find references to
these men in:
- lines 46-47:
-lines 57-58:
-lines 58-60:
.
.
.
Does the narrator admire these men? Does he believe
that they are using their knowledge for the worthiest
causes?
9 The book takes its title from the final lines of this
passage. What, in your opinion, are 'grapes of wrath'?
What vintage will be produced from the 'grapes of
wrath'?
I