John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, originally published in 1939, tells the story of economic hardship in the Oklahoma Panhandle in 1937. A severe drought, made worse by poor agricultural practices and collapsing commodity prices, caused many family farms in the Panhandle (and in surrounding States) to fail and the farmers to be displaced. The drought triggered what was dubbed "The Great Dust Bowl." The displaced farmers were called "Okies." Once the land they farmed was returned to the banks for non-payment of their loans, Okies became homeless, jobless and penniless practically overnight.
Many Okies left Oklahoma in their Model "T" Ford trucks piled high with their belongings, following Route 66 headed for the fertile valleys of California where they had been told there were plenty of jobs available for "pickers," migrant laborers who helped vegetable farmers and fruit tree growers in California's fertile valleys pick their bumper-crop harvests. Unfortunately, unknown to the Okies as they drove west with their foreclosed farms in their rearview mirrors (and memories), so many displaced Okies arrived in California looking for work, their numbers depressed the wages they could earn as pickers. Economic disaster (It's the Fed Bank's worst nightmare, called "disinflation") stalked Okies wherever they went.
The Great Depression was a generational catastrophe far worse than the Covid-driven economic agony we're currently suffering through. A key reason: It lasted so long. The Depression began in October 1929 and only let up as the United States began gearing up for World War II in 1940. It was far worse than any other economic downtown America has ever experienced.
When you read the longer, more complicated, adult version of The Grapes of Wrath (rather than the simplified, shortened, expurgated version so many of us read in high school), you'll find it rewarding in the long run, although you might find it slow in places; and, overall, uneven.
This time around I noticed how often in Grapes of Wrath, instant death gets meted out to insects and small animals. To me it's analogous to how often Okies' spirits get instantly crushed under the weight of the tragedy they endure as they leave Oklahoma, and journey to California only to learn that, far from California being the Promised Land, their suffering has just begun.
In the novel's opening pages, a grasshopper finds its way into the cab of a truck that the principal protagonist, Tom Joad, is riding in. I remembered reading these exact words when I was in high school: "A grasshopper flipped through the window and lighted on top of the instruments panel… Joad reached forward and crushed its hard skull-like head with his fingers, and he let it into the wind stream out the window."
Strangely, I also recalled reading about a land turtle. I thought, surely I had imagined that. But, no, as I was reading the novel this time, there it was, the tough, strong land turtle, as indomitable as ever. When, early on in the adult version of the novel, an entire chapter is devoted to the land turtle's wanderings, I thought perhaps Steinbeck planned to turn him into a recurring character.
I also noticed that just a bit later we read about "Cats," or the Caterpillar Tractors used in the Panhandle by the foreclosed land's new owners to essentially push houses off their foundations and make them inhabitable. With a single blow by a "Cat" the Okies were chased off what once was their land, not only making them homeless but forcing them to "move on."
The way the turtle's powerful legs are described, and the way the Cats are described effortlessly pushing over houses are comparable. I believe a close reading of the "grown-up" version of The Grapes of Wrath makes it clear that John Steinbeck knew exactly what he was doing all along.
By the way, that land turtle I mentioned earlier very nearly gets run over by a truck, the same truck the grasshopper earlier jumped onboard.
A few pages later, we witness nothing less than a genuine turtle-tragedy, when Mr. Turtle flips over on his back as he mounts a curb, and, for a time, has all four of his powerful legs wiggling ineffectually in the air, until Tom Joad, happens upon him after leaving the truck. He picks him up, drapes him in his unworn jacket and carries him under his arm. He later tells another character he intends to give the turtle as a gift to one of the children in Tom's family.
A new biography of John Steinbeck authored by William Souder, a noted literary biographer, was published in 2020. A previous biography of his about Rachel Carson was recognized by The New York Times as "notable." Another he wrote about the life of John Audubon was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. It's extraordinarily telling to me that Souder titled his newest work, Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck. (I can't wait to read it.)
Now that I'm writing this essay and thinking about my reading experiences with Grapes and also remembering the John Hawks-directed movie of the novel starring Henry Fonda, I do believe "Hank" Fonda played that early scene (in which Fonda is riding in the cab of the truck) spot-on. The driver tries to politely find out where Tom Joad, who he had just picked up as a hitchhiker, spent the last four years of his life. The driver defends himself, saying, at one point, "Well, that ain't none of my affair," and at another point, "I ain't a nosy guy." That's when Tom Joad unloads on him, saying, "The Hell you ain't. That big old nose a yours been stickin' out eight miles ahead of your face. You had that big nose goin' over me like a sheep in a vegetable patch." A short while later Tom allows, "I done time." Then, as they arrive where Tom asks to be dropped off, he tells the driver, "I know you're wettin' your pants to know what I done. Well, I ain't a guy to let you down."
As the driver stops to let Tom off, Tom says a single word, "Homicide." Then he adds, "That's a big word. Means I killed a guy. Seven years. I'm sprung in four for keeping my nose clean."
Tom Joad sure knew how to make a vivid first impression on that truck driver. Ditto John Steinbeck, allowing his anti-hero, Tom Joad, to make a vivid first impression on The Grapes of Wrath readers.
Ask yourself about the hitchhiker in that scene: Are those not the words of a guy who, as William Souder put it, is "mad at the world?" I think so. Indeed, I can't wait to read Souder's biography. (The opening pages of his biography read like Steinbeck himself might have written them. (Wow!)
