Reading the Classics discussion

Post comments here for these chapters.

One of the reasons that John Steinbeck is my favorite author, or at the very least, one of my favorite authors, is the way he interwove despair and hope in his novels. In the last ten chapters of this book I think this interweaving is at its best. He almost dangles hope in front of the reader- sometimes even a mere hint of hope- providing just enough so that the reader can't be entirely certain of the book's final outcome. Though I've read it several times before, I seem to see new things in it every time I read it. I find it immensely heartbreaking and yet still somewhat hopeful. I have no idea if that was Steinbeck's goal for his reader, but it is one of the reasons that, no matter how many books I read, "The Grapes of Wrath" continues to be one of my all-time favorite books.

I see that hope that the Joad family continues to see at every turn they encounter. Just when it seems that they are at the end then something happens and brings new hope to them that things might turn out better after all. But we are left at the end with little hope, except possibly only with the knowledge from the mysterious smile from Rose of Sharon, that the family will still make it through despite even this last worst thing that has happened(the flood which destroys the cotton and therefore no work).

Tom comes to a realization that I think the author is trying to get across to the reader when he says that he remembers what Casy, the preacher talked about and "...I now know a fella ain't no good alone." He gives a quote from scripture to the same effect "' Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor.'"
Later, after Ma Joad is thanking Mrs Wainwright for helping out with Rose and the delivery and Mrs W. says that Ma would do the same if things were reversed, Ma reiterates this philosophy: " Use' ta be the fambly was fust. It ain't so now. It's anybody. Worse off we get, the more we got to do."
And the final example of this needing one another is at the very end when Rose of Sharon gives all she has left and the only "food" left in the Joad family to help keep a starving man from dying.

It's horribly tragic, yet incredibly full of hope, as you both mentioned. The audacity of some of the "haves" raises my anger and makes me want to help the "have-nots," which is probably the point. But I think Steinbeck also does a brilliant job of showing the other side of things, how the owners got to be how they are, and what greed can do to change a person. It's heartbreaking and thoroughly wonderful writing.