"Cliff Notes - Grapes of Wrath, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

^^^^^^^^^^THE GRAPES OF WRATH: THE JOAD FAMILY

Although each person in the Joad family is a separate individual, the family often acts as though it were one person. It makes decisions as a group, travels as a single unit, and reacts uniformly to events. Yet the family's personality is derived from the distinct qualities of each member. Uncle John is sad and lonely; Granma is religious; Al loves a good time. And Ma, the sturdy one, is the centerpiece of the Joads, around whom the whole family gathers. If you examine all the Joads--Grampa, Pa, Tom, Noah, Rose of Sharon, Ruthie, and Winfield--each can be tagged with a different label. Even Connie, who is a Joad only by marriage, contributes to the complex personality of the family.

As you might expect, experience changes the family's personality. Who wouldn't change after being evicted from home, traveling half-way across the continent, and scrounging for bread? Before the Joads leave home, Granma and Grampa rule the roost, at least in name. When the family breaks its ties to the land and joins the migrant exodus, the old generation gives way to the new. Pa becomes the leader, but his authority is fleeting. Ma gradually takes over. Her powerful personality and steady hand hold the family together for a time, in spite of forces that threaten to tear it apart. When, for example, Tom plans to remain with the Wilsons' disabled car until it's fixed, Ma vows to smash him with a jack handle if he insists that the family go on without him. The rest of the family is amazed at Ma's forcefulness, but from then on she is the leader of the Joads.

She oversees an increasingly fragmented group of people. Grampa and Granma die; Noah and Connie go their own ways; Al takes up with his fiancee's family; and Tom finally leaves in order to carry Casy's message to the workers.

It's literally true that Ma fails to hold the family together. Does that mean that she is a failure? You could take that position, but you also have to take into account that Ma eventually adopts a much larger family--the family of Man--to replace the one she's lost.

Presumably the Joads' experience parallels that of countless migrant families. Should we assume, therefore, that Steinbeck intends to show us how a whole class of good and honest migrant farmers wilted under social and economic pressure? That may be so if you think that the Joads' breakup represents their failure as a family. On the other hand, since many of the Joads remain undefeated in the end, Steinbeck may want us to admire the migrants' ability to endure, even against insurmountable odds.

At the end of the book the Joads have lost their family identity. But they've replaced it with something equally worthy: they've found kinship with other migrant families. The Joads merge with the Wainwrights, and earlier in the book, with the Wilsons, because each family needed the other. When "I," as Steinbeck writes, becomes "we," the fragmented family becomes whole again. The members don't share last names, but they give sustenance and support to each other in the form of food, blankets, a kind word, medicine, advice, even love. At the book's end, Rose of Sharon shares the milk from her breast with a dying man she has never seen before. That the man is a human being in need is reason enough to treat him like family.

When isolated families fuse with one another, a larger family, a family of Man, develops. Numerous characters and events in The Grapes of Wrath help transform the Joads into members of a universal family. Think of what Casy says about the soul--that nobody has an individual soul, but everybody's just got a piece of a great big soul. By opening their tent to the Joads, the Wilsons are saying, "Welcome, brother!" At the Weedpatch Camp, the Wallaces, father and son, invite Tom Joad to work alongside them, even though they'll earn less money as a result. Casy lives and dies for others, and at the end Tom will walk in Casy's footsteps. Finally, when Rose of Sharon offers her milk to a stranger, she wears an enigmatic smile, suggesting that she, too, has discovered the joy that comes from adopting all men as brothers.

^^^^^^^^^^THE GRAPES OF WRATH: TOM JOAD

Imagine what The Grapes of Wrath would be like if Steinbeck had made Tom Joad a tractor repairman or dry-goods merchant instead of an ex-convict. If Tom were meek and mild, someone like Rose of Sharon's husband Connie, for instance, what would be lost? Think of what Tom can do that Connie wouldn't dare. We know that Tom, who killed a man in a drunken brawl, can burst into violence at any moment, especially when provoked. Tom almost instinctively knocks the abusive deputy sheriff off his feet during a scuffle at the Hooverville camp, for example. Later, in a rage, he clubs to death the man who kills Casy. As one of the principal characters in the story, Tom has to be someone sturdy enough not just to take care of himself but to support and defend others.

There's no doubt that Tom has a quick temper. He speaks harshly to the truck driver who gives him a lift; he scolds the one-eyed man for feeling self-pity; he tells off the fat man who runs the filling station. Perhaps Tom's belligerence can be explained by his four years in prison, although he claims to have no regrets about them. However, there may be another explanation. If you ignore what he says and ask why he berates these people, you find that Tom doesn't despise each man, but only what each stands for. Each feels defeated by life's hardships. Tom gives them all a brutally frank pep talk, as though he wants to get them moving again. Tom can't just throw up his hands and walk away from problems. And he doesn't want to see others do that either.

Tom is on parole. If he gets in trouble or is caught leaving Oklahoma, he could be sent right back to McAlester. You might expect that a man in constant danger of being imprisoned would be less aggressive, but sitting back is not in Tom's nature. If it were, we'd never have seen him going off at the end of the book to devote his life to help organize strikes.

Just as Tom accepted his prison sentence, he accepts the harsh blows that Nature and the banks have dealt to his family. What he cannot tolerate, however, is unfair or abusive treatment. He hates being forced to hide from the deputies on his very own land, for example. Several times in the novel Tom and others get pushed around by the authorities. What makes Tom strike out at abuses? Is it his strong sense of fairness? Or is Tom merely a victim of a short temper? Perhaps both impulses rule Tom to some extent.

Although Tom is not easy to like, you'd probably want him on your side in a tough situation. He is loyal, straightforward, and realistic, especially at the start of the novel. In contrast to Casy, who is a visionary, Tom has both feet planted on the dusty ground. He is concerned only about the here and now--where the next meal will come from, where to stay that night, how to keep the car running. He has no time for sentimentality. When his brother Al wants to tell him about Ma's feelings toward him, Tom replies, "S'pose we talk 'bout some other stuff."

Tom's inability to deal with feelings does not make him a callous person. He has strong affection for Casy, for Ma, and for Pa, too. In fact, he admires everyone who struggles to make an honest living without stepping on others. He can't abide people who throw their weight around, such as the proprietor of the Hooverville camp, the sheriffs and their deputies, and the guards at Hooper Ranch. Without Ma's firm hand on him, Tom would probably have attacked some of these authoritarians, and who can blame him?

As the Joads wander around California, Tom meets more good people who keep up the increasingly difficult struggle to live a decent life. He admires their strength, and he can't stand by idly when they are mistreated. To save Floyd from unjust arrest, Tom knocks down the deputy. To keep peace at the Saturday night dance, Tom stands watch. And to find out why workers at the Hooper Ranch entrance were angry, he ignores the guards' order to mind his own business. In the darkness he slides under the barbed wire fence surrounding the compound, meets Casy, and learns the true story of the strike.

From then on, Tom follows in Casy's footsteps. His concerns extend beyond himself and his family. They now include all downtrodden people. He feels a calling to help in any way he can. Casy's violent death probably hastens Tom's decision to work for the welfare of all poor people. While hiding from the police, Tom has a chance to think. He thinks about the meaning of Casy's words--that a man is no good alone, and that a "fella ain't got a soul of his own, but on'y a piece of a big one...." Tom becomes Casy's heir and disciple. If you think of Casy as a Christ-like figure, a good man with a message of love for the world, then Tom is like St. Paul--a tough, realistic organizer who will try to spread the word and make Casy's idealism a reality. As he says to Ma just before he leaves the family forever, "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. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there." Tom may end up dead, like Casy, but is there any doubt he'll go down swinging?

^^^^^^^^^^THE GRAPES OF WRATH: MA JOAD

Ma Joad holds the fate of her family in her big, thick hands. Without her the family ceases to function: Pa doesn't make decisions; Uncle John wallows in self-reproach; Rose of Sharon falls prey to superstition and doubt; Al goes off chasing girls; and the two young children, Ruthie and Winfield, grow up without discipline. Had Ma not stood her ground and threatened him with a jack handle, even Tom would have abandoned his kinfolk sooner than he did.

By the end of the novel we know Ma better than any other Joad, for we see her in more different situations than anyone else. Yet she is not considered the main character--although you probably could make a case for it. We see Ma first when she greets Tom, just back from prison. The family, curious about prison life, views Tom as some sort of hero. But not Ma. She's interested in Tom's frame of mind. "They didn' do nothin' in that jail to rot you out with crazy mad?" she asks. Ma's interest in the inner person sets her apart from the others in the family. She searches for meaning in people and events. When Casy tells the Joads about his religious conversion in the hills, Ma studies him, her eyes "questioning, probing and understanding."

Ma derives meaning in life from her family. She needs to protect them, guide them, help them feel safe. It's clear why Steinbeck calls her the citadel of the family. Most of all, she provides the family with nourishment--physical as well as moral. In scene after scene we see Ma buying groceries, preparing meals, doling out victuals. Even when food is scarce, she manages to scrape meals together, and sometimes she feeds strangers, too. With Ma around, no one ever goes hungry.

She has a harder time providing moral support. She would like everyone in her family to live decently, but life on the road and in the camps won't allow it. The best she can do is set an example and hope that others will be buoyed by her courage and optimism. In some ways she seems almost too good to be true. How sturdy she seems when she burns all her letters on the night before the family takes to the road. To keep the family moving, she cradles Granma's body in her arms all through the night of the desert crossing, after which Casy observes, "...there's a woman so great with love--she scares me. Makes me afraid an' mean." She comforts Rose of Sharon repeatedly and serves as peacekeeper when Al and Connie exchange harsh words. Only to Tom does she express doubts about the future, that maybe California "ain't so nice."

Ma's main ambition is to keep the family intact. Each time a person dies or leaves, Ma suffers a personal defeat. Even though the Joads leave home with 13 people and are left at the end with only six, you never get the feeling that Ma has failed. She's done her best, which in itself is a type of triumph. Also, her determination to go on strengthens with each harsh turn of events. In flight from the burning squatters' camp, she hails the promise of the people: "Us people will go on livin'.... They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people--we go on."

As her immediate family dissolves, Ma adopts a larger group, the people, as her family. Don't Casy's words about Ma's boundless love seem prophetic now? "Use' ta be the family was fust," Ma tells Mrs. Wainwright in the boxcar. "It ain't so now. It's anybody." Realistically, Ma can't include everybody in her concept of family. She must be talking about people in need--the poor, homeless, downtrodden rejects of society.

Ma is not a leader of the people, as Casy tries to be and Tom may one day become. Rather, she embodies the qualities of the people. Since Steinbeck often uses characters as symbols, you might think of Ma as symbolic of the people's strength and endurance. But you can recognize human qualities in Ma as well. She's sentimental, loving, protective, and feisty.