Some significant lines in John Steinbeck's The
Grapes of Wrath, found in Chapters 17 through 21, are included
below.
Ma senses that her family is falling apart as the
story progresses; a significant piece of writing is found in Chapter
18.
The woman
leaned down over Granma's face, and she seemed almost to sniff. Then she turned to Ma
and nodded quickly, her lips jiggled and her jowls quivered. "A dear soul gonna join her
Jesus," she said.Ma cried, "That ain't
so!"
Ma is struck
considerably hard when one of their number leaves or passes. She does not want to
believe that Granma might be leaving them, though in time, this does happen
again.
Later in Chapter 18, facing loss is again
expressed:
Sairy lay on the mattress, her eyes wide and
bright...Her low, beautiful voice went on, 'I wanted us to go, I knowed I wouldn' live
to the other side, but he'd be acrost anyways...He don't know. He thinks it's gonna be
all right...I ast you to come to say a prayer.'
'I ain't a
preacher,' he said softly.
'I want you should say [a
prayer] for me.'
'Maybe you'll res' a few days and' then
come on.'
She shook her head slowly from side to side. 'I'm
jus' pain covered with
skin...'
Sairy knows that she
is dying of cancer, but she has told no one, not even her
husband.
Another plight the migrant farmers face is
presented again in Chapter 19.
Three hundred thousand in California and more
coming. And in California the roads full of frantic people running like ants to pull, to
push, to lift, to work. For every manload to lift, five pairs of arms extended to lift
it; for every stomatchful of food available, five mouths
open.
Here, again, the reader
is struck with an image of the hundred and thousands of people flowing in from the
Midwest, vying for jobs. There are only so many jobs, and so many more people in need
than jobs available to them. Getting work does not simply infer that people want a job,
but that the work is all that stands between the people and the starvation of their
families.
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