A social realist and political thinker, John Steinbeck was drawn to the lives of the ordinary and downtrodden and to stories of social injustice. His first novel was published in 1929, but it was the slim 1937 novella Of Mice and Men that brought him to the literary world’s attention. Two years later, with World War Two fast approaching, Steinbeck’s masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath, was published. It tells the story of the Joads, a family of tenant farmers forced to leave their smallholding in Oklahoma to seek an uncertain future in California.
ON THE ROAD
Considered as a ‘great American novel’, The Grapes of Wrath describes the poverty and desperation of the Great Depression that sent shock waves through US society. In addition to the economic crisis, during the second half of the 1930s a period of terrible dust storms known as the Dust Bowl swept acrossthe American prairies, leaving crops dying and communities destitute. Like many other ‘Okies’ – refugee farmers and workers from Oklahoma – the Joads are forced to load up their few possessions and get on the road to seek work:
“But if we go, where’ll we go? How’ll we go? We got no money.
We’re sorry, said the owner men. The bank, the fifty-thousand-acre owner can’t be responsible. You’re on land that isn’t yours.”
“Pero si nos vamos, ¿dónde vamos a ir? ¿Cómo nos vamos a ir? No tenemos dinero.
Lo sentimos –dijeron los enviados–. El banco, el propietario de cincuenta mi acres, no se hace responsable. Estáis en una tierra que no os pertenece”.
RETURNING HOME
Tom Joad, the protagonist of The Grapes of Wrath, is first encountered returning home after his release from prison. Hitching a ride in a truck, he looks out at the ruined crops and Dust Bowl landscape and can feel the driver assessing him:
“’I’ll tell you anything. Name’s Joad, Tom Joad. Old man is ol’ Tom Joad.’ His eyes rested broodingly on the driver.
‘Don’t get sore. I didn’t mean nothin’.’
‘I don’t mean nothin’ neither,’ said Joad. ‘I’m just tryin’ to get along without shovin’ nobody around.’ He stopped and looked out at the dry fields, and the starved tree clumps standing uneasily in the heated distance.’”
“–Le diré todo lo que quiera saber. Me llamo Joad, Tom Joad. Mi padre es el viejo Tom Joad –descansó la vista en el conductor, pensativo.
–No se moleste. No pretendía incomodarle.
–Yo tampoco –contestó Joad–. Intentó simplemente ir tirando sin avasallar a nadie– se interrumpió y dirigió la mirada a los campos secos y a los grupos de árboles medio muertos, que colgaban incómodos en la distancia recalentada”.
DUST TO DUST
The title of Steinbeck’s masterpiece is taken from a famous hymn by Julia Ward Howe, a social activist and advocate of abolitionism. The novel alternates between the story of the Joad family’s exodus and Steinbeck’s poetic, political, angry commentary about the rapid changes in society as industrialisation takes hold:
“And all the time the farms grew larger and the owners fewer. And there were pitifully few farmers on the land any more. And the imported serfs were beaten and frightened and starved until some went home again, and some grew fierce and were killed or driven from the country. And the farms grew larger and the owners fewer.”
“Las fincas se hicieron cada vez más extensas y el número de propietarios disminuyó. Y los granjeros eran tan pocos que daba lástima. Y los siervos de importación fueron golpeados, amedrentados y muertos de hambre hasta que algunos regresaron a sus lugares de origen y otros se volvieron feroces y les mataron o les expulsaron de la región. Las fincas siguieron extendiéndose y los propietarios fueron cada vez menos”.
BURNING BOOKS
The Joads’ story is one of tragedy but also one of hope. The Grapes of Wrath was a big success, selling ten thousand copies a week at its peak. Not everybody was impressed, though. The Associated Farmers of California called the book “communist propaganda” and it was burned and banned from many libraries. Yet the central message of the novel is one of redemption and endurance of the human spirit, family and community even in the most extreme conditions:
“Tom laughed uneasily. ‘Well, maybe like Casy says, a fellow ain’t got a soul of his own, but on’y a piece of a big one – an’ then-‘
‘Then what, Tom?’
‘Then it don’ matter. Then I’ll be aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be ever’where – wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there.”
“Tom se echó a reír incómodo.
–Bueno, quizá es como dice Casy, uno no tiene un alma suya, sino un trozo de la gran alma... y entonces...
–¿Entonces qué, Tom?
–Entonces no importa. Entonces estaré en la oscuridad. Estaré en todas partes... donde quiera que mires. En donde haya una pelea para que los hambrientos puedan comer, allí estaré”.
TRIBUTE
Steinbeck produced more than thirty works during his illustrious career, many adapted for stage and screen. John Ford directed the classic Hollywood movie version of The Grapes of Wrath in 1940, starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad. In 1962 Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Bruce Springsteen recorded a tribute album, The Ghost of Tom Joad, in 1995.