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Rating: “And the children suffering from pellagra must die because no profit can be made from an orange. [..] The hungry arrive with nets to fish out the potatoes thrown into the river, but the guards push them back; they arrive with rattling old trucks to collect the oranges meant for disposal, but find them soaked in kerosene. So they remain motionless watching the potatoes carried away by the current, listening to the screams of pigs slaughtered in ditches and covered with quicklime, watching the mountains of oranges melting into a putrid mush; and in their eyes, fury grows. In the souls of the hungry, the seeds of fury have become grapes, with the grapes now ready for harvest”.
The essence of what is considered John Steinbeck's masterpiece is condensed in this excerpt. “The Grapes of Wrath” is a novel of social criticism against the plight of the countryside during the Great Depression, against the logic of vile money trampling the rights of the weakest, against discrimination, against the power of banks. A sense of powerlessness and abandonment pervades the entire novel, the miserable condition of man struggling for survival, the faint hope of revival, the bitter truth of constant defeat.
The novel recounts the experiences of the Joad family, evicted from their home and native land in Oklahoma and forced to pilgrimage towards California in desperate search of a job. In this almost biblical migration, their story intertwines with that of other families also moving westward, a swarm of caravans heading to the promised land, where the sun shines year-round and work in the orchards and cotton plantations is plentiful. Upon arriving in California, however, the situation is completely different; thousands of people, in order to work, are willing to sell themselves for a pittance, and the migrants are seen by the local population as plagued and thus are crammed into veritable shantytowns. The Joad family faces one misfortune after another, such as the death of the grandparents, like two trees uprooted from their roots, the loss of some family members who choose different paths, the premature death of a newborn. In this chaos, exacerbated by the lack of home and job, the figure that stands above all is that of the mother, who with her large arms has the strength to keep the family united, taking on the role of the head of the family. The story of the Joad family teaches us that history repeats itself, with different characters and plots, but the logic of power and the “god” money seem to be still the only forces driving the “modern” world, where the only possible human condition seems to be that of suffering.
Steinbeck gifted us a milestone to read today and pass on to future generations. Alongside the condition of man stands the magnificence of the natural and urban landscape, red lands scorched by the sun, stretches of cotton fields interrupted here and there by abandoned farms, night skies black as oil illuminated by twinkling stars, car garages smelling of gasoline and scrap iron, scorching asphalt burning feet and tires.
The realism of this novel is heartbreaking, the drama of some sequences devours the reader, but if one wants to understand America and Americans, it is necessary to read Steinbeck.
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By ilfreddo
It is a huge gesture for her, who, just a few hours earlier, lost everything: a sublime way to capture the misery of the crisis and the immense solidarity that often follows.
Once you land in California, your fists will probably begin to clench, your knuckles will whiten... that wall of ink you will face will become unbearable unless you are robots or people with a fin on the back.
