The Grapes of Wrath (1939) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

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• Tom Joad: The protagonist. He is strong and quick to anger, though he usually keeps it in check.
• Ma Joad: Matriarch and leader of the Joad family. She's very concerned with keeping the family together.
• Pa Joad: Patriarch (though not as strong as Ma) of the Joad family. Is named Tom Joad Sr.
• Jim Casy: Ex-Preacher. Former priest, from the town of Oklahoma, who went on the journey with the Judes.
• John an ' Ma: Thomas "Pa" Joad's brother.
• Al Joad: Tom's younger brother. He looks up to Tom, and is proud of him. His interests are women and cars.
• Rose of Sharon: Oldest daughter of the Joad family. She is expecting a baby. Is married to Connie.
• Connie: Rose of Sharon's husband.
• Grandpa Joad: Thomas "Pa" Joad's father. He is a bit crazy, but he is kind and knows what he's doing. He is 'part of the land.'
• Grandma Joad: Thomas "Pa" Joad's mother.
• Ruthie Joad: Youngest daughter of the Joad family.
• Winfield Joad: The youngest of the Joad family.
• Noah Joad: The oldest son of the Joad family. Difficult childbirth. Distant.
• Albert Rance: A farmer in Oklahoma who went on a vacation; when he returned, his neighbors had taken all he owned thinking he had moved west.
• Mr. Thomas: The manager of the farm where the Wallaces work.
• Wilkie Wallace: Brother of Timothy; the Wallaces meet Tom when the Joads arrive at Weedpatch and invites Tom to the farm where they work.
• Timothy Wallace: Brother of Wilkie; the Wallaces meet Tom when the Joads arrive at Weedpatch and invites Tom to the farm where they work.
• Mrs. Sandry: A religious fanatic who harasses the Joads at the Weedpatch federal camp.
• Jim Rawley: Manager of Weedpatch, a federal relief camp for migrant workers.
• Willie Eaton: Head of the Weedpatch camp entertainment committee.
• Aggie Wainwright: The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright. Shares boxcar with Joad family.
• Mr. Wainwright: Wife is Mrs. Wainwright. Shares boxcar with Joad family.
• Joe & Minnie: Friend of the Joads in Oklahoma; Joe's son takes a job driving a tractor for the companies who are forcing the farmers off their land.
• Ezra Huston: Chair of the camp committee at Weedpatch.
• Jessie Bullitt: Chairwoman of the ladies committee at Weedpatch.
• Sairy Wilson: Sickly woman whom the Joad's meet and travel with along the way to California.
• Ivy Wilson: Sairy Wilson's husband; the Joads meet the Wilsons while sleeping along the side of the road.
• Floyd Knowles: Man in the Hooverville camp who gives Tom advice and explains why the workers haven't organized.
• Mrs. Wainwright: Shares a boxcar with the Joad family near the cotton fields where they work.
• Muley Graves: A friend of the Joads in Oklahoma
• Ella Summers: Add a description of this character.
• Willy Feeley
• Mack
• Granma: One of the original character, and a group member of the family.
• Elsie Graves
• Simon Allen
• Grampa
• Mr. Hines
• Jule Vitela
• Mrs. Joyce
• Joe yellin
• Mr. Wilson
• Gettin
• William Howarth
• Mis ' Wilson
• Herb Turnbull
• randy Al
• Annie Littlefield
• Mis ' Joyce
• Danny
• Mae
• Black Hat
• Fairfiel
• payin

Quotes edit see section history

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• “66 is the mother road, the road of flight”

  Author

• “From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads”

  Author

• “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”

  Author

• “Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten”

  Author

• “The last clear definite function of man--muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need--this is man. to build a wall, to build a house, a dam, and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself, and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house, the dam; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take the clear lines and form from conceiving. For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.”

  Author

• “Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live--for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strokes stop while the great owners live--for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken. And this you can know--fear the time when Manself will not suffer an ddie for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.”

  Author

• “Sure I got sins. Ever'body got sins. A sin is somepin you ain't sure about.”

• “There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain't nice, but that's as far as any man got a right to say.”

• “I got thinkin’ how we was holy when we was one thing, an’ mankin’ was holy when it was one thing. An’ it on’y got unholy when one mis’able little fella got the bit in his teeth an’ run off his own way, kickin’ an’ draggin’ an’ fightin’. Fella like that bust the holi-ness. But when they’re all workin’ together, not one fella for another fella, but one fella kind of harnessed to the whole shebang—that’s right, that’s holy.”

  In Chapter 8, after Tom and Jim Casy arrive at Uncle John’s farm, the family convinces the ex-preacher to say grace over their breakfast. Casy hesitates, but eventually offers these words.

• ““We’re Joads. We don’t look up to nobody. Grampa’s grampa, he fit in the Revolution. We was farm people till the debt. And then—them people. They done somepin to us. Ever’ time they come seemed like they was a-whippin’ me—all of us. An’ in Needles, that police. He done somepin to me, made me feel mean. Made me feel ashamed. An’ now I ain’t ashamed. These folks is our folks—is our folks. An’ that manager, he come an’ set an’ drank coffee, an’ he says, ‘Mrs. Joad’ this, an’ ‘Mrs. Joad’ that—an’ ‘How you getting’ on, Mrs. Joad?’” She stopped and sighed. “Why, I feel like people again.””

  After the Joads arrive in the Weedpatch government camp in Chapter 22, Ma discusses the effects of life on the road.

• “Once California belonged to Mexico and its land to Mexicans; and a horde of tattered feverish Americans poured in. And such was their hunger for land that they took the land—stole Sutter’s land, Guerrero’s land, took the grants and broke them up and growled and quarreled over them, those frantic hungry men; and they guarded with guns the land they had stolen. ... The Mexicans were weak and fed. They could not resist, because they wanted nothing in the world as frantically as the Americans wanted land. Then, with time, the squatters were no longer squatters, but owners; and their children grew up and had children on the land. And the hunger was gone from them, the feral hunger, the gnawing, tearing hunger for land, for water and earth and the good sky over it, for the green thrusting grass, for the swelling roots. They had these things so completely that they did not know about them any more.”

  Chapter 19

• “The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it.”

• “They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If they don't get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat. <referring to the banks>”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

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• Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole.

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• And this you can know—fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.

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• The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.

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• How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past? No. Leave it. Burn it.

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• when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.

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• If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin,3 were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into “I,” and cuts you off forever from the “we.”

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• “I figgered about the Holy Sperit and the Jesus road. I figgered, ‘Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,’ I figgered, ‘maybe it’s all men an’ all women we love; maybe that’s the Holy Sperit—the human sperit—the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of.’ Now I sat there thinkin’ it, an’ all of a suddent—I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was true, and I still know it.”

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• Imperturbability could be depended upon. And from her great and humble position in the family she had taken dignity and a clean calm beauty. From her position as healer, her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess. She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone.

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• There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. It’s all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain’t nice, but that’s as far as any man got a right to say.’ ”

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

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• Oklahoma City
• Oklahoma: The novel opens with the Joad family preparing for departure at their home in Oklahoma.
• Bakersfield
• New Mexico
• Route 66
• Arkansas
• California
• Arizona
• Sallisaw
• Texas

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Hooverville: A makeshift migrant camp, often in an abandoned boxcar; named after Herbert Hoover during the Depression.
• Okie: Derogatory term for people from Oklahoma.
• Feral: wild and menacing
• protrude: extend out or project in space
• inevitability: the quality of being unavoidable
• waddle: walk unsteadily
• cringe: draw back, as with fear or pain
• faucet: a regulator for controlling the flow of a liquid from a reservoir
• wizened: lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness
• braggart: a very boastful and talkative person
• trudge: walk heavily and firmly, as when weary, or through mud
• comport: behave well or properly
• nebulous: lacking definite form or limits
• integrate,: make into a whole or make part of a whole
• corrugated: expel or eject without recourse to legal process
• jabber: talk in a noisy, excited, or declamatory manner
• parch: cause to wither or parch from exposure to heat
• nondescript: a person is not easily classified and not very interesting
• swerve: the act of turning aside suddenly
• wince: make a face indicating disgust or dislike
• huddle: a disorganized and densely packed crowd
• slovenly: make timid or fearful
• unkempt: not neatly combed
• ooze: the process of seeping
• undefined: not precisely limited, determined, or distinguished
• agitate: exert oneself continuously, vigorously, or obtrusively to gain an end or engage in a crusade for a certain cause or person; be an advocate for.
• holster: a belt with loops or slots for carrying small hand tools
• flail: an implement consisting of handle with a free swinging stick at the end; used in manual threshing.
• zoom: move with a low humming noise
• babble: to talk foolishly
• scuttle: container for coal; shaped to permit pouring the coal onto the fire

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl: Describe this theme.
• Class inequality; workers' rights

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. John Steinbeck (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Shirley Knight (Performer) - as Ma Joad in L.A. Theatre Works full cast production on audio CD
2. Jeffrey Donovan (Performer) - as Tom Joad on audio full cast production
3. Robert Pescovitz (Performer) - as Pa Joad in audio CD full cast production
4. Richard Masur - Director of full cast production on audio CD by L.A. Theatre Works
5. Daniel Chacon (Performer) - as Al Joad - audio CD full cast performance
6. Frank Galati (Adapter) - adapted for full cast audio performance
7. Francis Guinan (Performer) - as Jim Casy
8. Rod McLachlan (Performer) - as Uncle John
9. Kate Williamson (Performer) - as Gramma, 3rd narrator
10. Michael Weston (Performer) - Noah Joad, Boy
11. Fredo Wayne (Performer) - as Grampa, Mayor of Hooverville
12. Emily Bergl (Performer) - as Rose of Sharon
13. Dylan Baker (Reader) - audiobook

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• California Book Award (1939: General Literature, Silver)
• Pulitzer Prize (1940: Novel)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3537.T3234 G8
• Dewey: 813.52

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Some language and references to sex

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › United States › Classics › Steinbeck, John
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( S ) › Steinbeck, John
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Wikipedia: Wikipedia entry on the title.
• NPR: The Grapes of Wrath

Movie Connections edit see section history

• The Grapes of Wrath (1940) (IMDb): Directed by John Ford. Staring Henry Fonda and John Carradine

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history