The Grapes of Wrath

Welcome to a special Summer Session of Closely Reading, where we’re slowly reading John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath along with companion reads, all summer long. You’re welcome to join us any time. Paid subscribers will be invited to a live video chat with me at the end of the session, in August. Full schedule available here.

Get your calendar out: Paid subscriber Zoom call will take place 12pm MT on Sunday, August 23.

This week, we’re finishing our long summer read of The Grapes of Wrath (chapter 27 to the end) along with the final entries in Steinbeck’s journal, Working Days (entry 80 to the end).

Previous sections:

And if you’re just getting started, here are my recommended editions to invest in:

→ The Grapes of Wrath (Be aware: this edition has deckled edges!)
→ The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin Classic: this edition has normal page edges!)
→ Working Days

Like the overripe peaches, and the in-season cotton, Rosasharn is ripe as the final chapters unfold. As I reconsider the timing of the novel — the way time passes and how we measure this weary season on the road with the Joads — it strikes me that Rose of Sharon’s pregnancy has been a profound marker of time. Her body a kind of calendar the family keeps, watching her grow and change as her baby develops.

In the final chapters, the Joads move into a boxcar next to a stream; there, they have a roof and a floor again. A tarp separates them from the neighboring family, who live in the other end of the car.

Tom is still in hiding, and eventually tells Ma he needs to leave — not to continue hiding, but to make a stand. He speaks the most famous lines from the novel:

I’ll be ever’where—wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’—I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build—why, I’ll be there.

Tom’s exit from the narrative comes with a promise to Ma that he’ll find her again someday. My heart longs to believe him, because he found her in the start of the novel. Maybe he’ll reunite with the family again.

Back on the stream, the family continue their pursuit of stability, but sweet Rose offers us a harbinger of more suffering to come. Her child is stillborn and her labor felt like a clear parallel to the labor of the family at every field and farm and camp they’ve come across. Painful. Difficult. Bodily. Wrecking. And heartbreakingly empty in the end.

The loss of her sweet baby — and the recognition by her mother and the neighbor that she was never nourished enough to truly develop him safely — rings like a cruel bell. Like a timer, or a clock, or an alarm. For me, it functioned as a resonating clang at the end of the story; I wondered what could possibly come next.

And what came to pass was a flood of biblical proportion.

Rose cannot survive in the dirty, cold waters as they rise in the boxcar; her family makes a final desperate decision to leave the car and the makeshift home on foot. They make it into a seemingly abandoned barn up the road, where the water has yet to rise.

There, they find two men — a starving father and son — and Rosasharn feeds the father with her breast. He gave the last of their food to his son. I read the scene as another iteration of what we’ve seen in previous chapters: Ma giving every last drop of food to the starving children at camp. Families sharing even their meagre portions with one another. A pull toward the collective, especially when you have nothing left.

I’m used to seeing dystopian stories where the pull to selfishness rules all those left in the ruins of dust storms and floods, fires and war. Where stealing rations or cheating others to gain their stores or violence commences when desperation hits.

I’m struck, as I reflected on the novel over the last week, that Steinbeck veers away from that impulse. He chooses to show what happens when people take a different road through their desperation and pain and loss.

Rosasharn, who has lost perhaps the most by the end, is willing to give. To feed. To nourish a stranger. She’s willing to continue doing the work of staying alive, and keeping others alive, too. For me, the “mysterious” smile she gives at her family in the barn as she cradles the man’s head captures the depth of the humanity here. She has nothing left to give — and then realizes she does. And gives it.

Here’s a short-list of what I’d read next, now that we’ve finished The Grapes of Wrath and Working Days. Two nonfiction, two fiction. Consider this your shortlist — and paid subscribers, watch for a more comprehensive list, including academic articles, coming to your inbox soon.

This slim volume is packed with insights, and has helped me read the novel more deeply with every new chapter.

This historical retelling of The Dust Bowl from a well-respected journalist gives deeper context on how the Dust Bowl happened and what it was like for the families who stayed (unlike the Joads, who go on the road).

I had no idea Netflix is putting out an adaptation later this year. I can’t recommend East of Eden enough — and it remains my favorite Steinbeck novel, despite how much I liked Grapes. I first read this novel in 2021, and I think about it all the time since.

Readers have been making connections to Homer’s epic since we started reading, and not just because of Christopher Nolan’s latest project. Having not read the poem in its entirety, I can’t heartily recommend any specific translations — I’m linking to Emily Wilson’s but I’ve heard very mixed reviews. Should I embark on my own Odyssey with the poem later this fall/winter, I’ll absolutely invite you along — and by then, I may have a more clear sense of which translation is going to work best for me.

12pm MT on Sunday, August 23rd

Join me for a one-hour lecture and conversation on the novel. I’ll lead us through some key areas I want to share and explore deeply, and then we’ll open up the floor to those who’d like to share their own reflections, insights, questions and thoughts.

Please, use the comments this week to tell me what you’re most eager to discuss, and any research areas you’d like me to dig in on.

We did it. We finished BIG BOOK SUMMER in a major way by wrapping up the novel. I’d love to hear your reflections on the final chapters and final entries.