" That's pretty gross, but in the context of the times, it doesn't seem so severe. On page 178, a man blows his nose into his hand and wipes the discharge on his pants. A man says he hates his boss and "...Some day, by God - some day I'm gonna have a pipe wrench in my pocket...An' I'm gonna, I'm gonna jus' take his head right down off his neck with that wrench, a little piece at a time...right down off'n his neck." Grim language to be sure, but given the desperation of the times and the angst of the people who are out of work and on the move like homeless people, it isn't too surprising or shocking.
On page 255, blatant violence is discussed almost in passing; "Better not fool with him. He killed a fella." "Did? What for?" "Fight. Fella got a knife in Tom. Tom busted 'im with a shovel." Turns out the police let him off of the murder charge since "...it was a fight." That's pretty raw, but again, the times were raw and rough, and death was a daily affair."
Question #4: Ma Joad gets her strength from her family, and ironically, it is Ma Joad who keeps the family together. Yes, Steinbeck has written a novel about the Dust Bowl, the Depression, and what happened to those people who were driven from their homes and took to the road to find a better world. But this book is also at its core about how a family struggles to survive, and about how individuals within a family struggle to assert their strongest personality traits. Ma has a down-to-earth passion to create a better world, and as they move along the road in their...
They do split up physically but they remain a family unit because Ma keeps them bonded in their desire to survive. On page 415, Ma is trying to locate Tom; she shows that she is a skilled person out in the natural world as she crouches absolutely still. "She moved quietly, so quietly that she could hear the murmur of the water above her soft steps on the willow leaves." This is a person who is far more than just a good old mom holding the family together with her charisma and personal power. "Ma saw a dark figure creep into the open and draw near to the culvert" (p. 416). She locates Tom and he warns her, "...if -- well, s'pose somebody seen you with me - whole family'd be in a jam." "I got to, Tom." Tom guides her to the cave where he is hiding out. It is so dark she can't see her son sitting right next to her. That is an image that Steinbeck is using, showing that eyesight alone doesn't matter when your matriarch is willing to take chances to keep the family in tact. "I wanta touch ya again, Tom. it's like I'm blin', it's so dark. I wanta remember, even if it's on'y my fingers that remember..."
Works Cited
Steinbeck, John. The Grapes…
