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

^^^^^^^^^^THE GRAPES OF WRATH: AL JOAD

During the story, Al Joad, the third son (after Noah and Tom), leaps from youth to adulthood. We meet him first when he's returning from a night of "tom-cattin'," or girl-chasing. That's what he does with his Life--he enjoys himself. In some ways he's a little kid. He admires his big brother Tom, for example, not for Tom's meritorious qualities but for his reputation as a killer. Tom's parole disappoints Al. He would have preferred Tom to break out of prison.

Al represents a new breed of Joads. He plans to leave the land. Someday Al wants to own a garage in town because he knows a lot about cars and engines.

When the family takes to the road, Al's knowledge becomes very important. He's assigned the task of buying a truck and keeping it in good repair. It's a big responsibility, which he takes very seriously.

Because Al has suddenly become a vital member of the family, he is taken into the circle of adult men who make decisions. Underneath, however, Al is still a boy. He lacks the confidence of manhood. Every time the truck breaks down he's afraid that he'll be blamed. He doesn't want to disappoint the family, especially not Tom. After the Wilsons' Dodge breaks a con-rod (short for "connecting rod," a rigid rod that transmits power from the crankshaft to a piston in an internal combustion engine), Ma rescues him from self-doubt. She tells Al, "It ain't your fault." Tom, on the other hand, pushes his kid brother. He won't allow Al to feel sorry for himself. If Al is going to be a man, he'll have to act and feel like one. When Al makes up an excuse for a burned-out bearing even though no one has blamed him, Tom lashes out: "Young fella, all full a piss an' vinegar. Wanta be a hell of a guy all the time. But, goddamn it, Al, don' keep ya guard up when nobody ain't sparrin' with ya. You gonna be all right."

Although he continues to leave broken-hearted girls behind him as the family wanders around California, Al does turn out all right at the end. He's the last Joad to leave the family. When flood waters damage the truck almost beyond repair, he knows his job as family mechanic is done. Guiltlessly, he can set off on his own, shape a life as a garage owner. His love life has settled down, too, for he plans to marry Aggie Wainwright.

^^^^^^^^^^THE GRAPES OF WRATH: ROSE OF SHARON

They say that mothers-to-be are sometimes irritable, often sickly, and always unpredictable. Rose of Sharon, the Joads' older daughter, qualifies in all three respects.

Anyone on a difficult overland journey has every right to become upset and cross. But because she's pregnant, Rose of Sharon complains more than most, particularly after the family reaches California.

She frets mostly over her baby. Will it be healthy if she can't get good food to eat? Will the baby be hurt by a bumpy road? The family dog gets killed on the highway as Rose of Sharon looks on. Will the shock harm the infant?

A religious fanatic at the government camp plants the thought in Rose of Sharon's head that sinful mothers make their babies die. Rose of Sharon thinks she's sinned by dancing and by acting in a play back in Oklahoma. In spite of Ma's assurances, Rose of Sharon can't stop believing that if her baby isn't damned in one way, it is doomed in another.

Do Rose of Sharon's antics make her seem immature, almost too young to be a mother? She is at a tender age, probably not yet 18. When Tom left for prison four years back, she was only a child. Now she's a woman, married to Connie Rivers.

Connie and Rose of Sharon set themselves apart from the mundane matters that occupy the rest of the family. They focus solely on the baby. That they are bringing new life to the world allows them to dwell in the future instead of the here and now. They dream of the house they'll buy for the baby in California, about the car they'll drive, and about Connie's schooling and job.

When the going gets tough, Connie abandons his young wife. What a setback for Rose of Sharon! Her every ache and worry are compounded. She grows sick and lethargic.

At the boxcar camp some of Rose of Sharon's ailments go away. She gets plenty of rest and nourishing food. But feelings of bitterness over being deserted stay put. Secret jealousy and self-pity keep her from taking part in Al and Aggie's engagement celebration.

As time for the birth approaches, Rose of Sharon does a surprising thing for someone in her delicate state. She insists on picking cotton with the rest of her family. Is she being ruled by a self-destructive impulse? Downhearted people often are. Or might her sudden desire to work be just one of those odd urges that pregnant women feel?

Out in the cotton field she is chilled by the cold and wind. She develops a fever and lies in bed for three days. The next day, as the floodwaters rise around the boxcar, she goes into long and painful labor. The baby is born dead.

Rose of Sharon takes the news stoically, which is unlike her. Maybe she's relieved to know that she won't have to raise a child in awesome poverty. Suffering through childbirth has perhaps opened her eyes. Throughout the book we've seen her concerned almost exclusively with herself and her problems. Now she looks out at the world and turns completely about. In an act of extreme charity, she suckles a dying man with the milk of human kindness.

What Ma learned during months of suffering, Rose of Sharon discovered all at once: everybody must be treated as family if we are to endure. It's a message of love, which Rose of Sharon powerfully dramatizes for us in a barn.

^^^^^^^^^^THE GRAPES OF WRATH: CONNIE RIVERS

Connie is Rose of Sharon's 19-year-old husband. He probably would have been a faithful and affectionate father, but he never got the chance.

He was proud of Rose of Sharon's pregnancy and a little frightened, too. The changes taking place in his young wife happened so quickly they startled him. Like Rose of Sharon, he was obsessed by the baby. He lets the baby rule his thoughts and dreams. Whatever Rose of Sharon might want for the baby, he'll work to get it. First he'll get a house, then a car. He'll get an education and shape a cozy life for his little family.

Connie makes all sorts of plans and promises, in fact, all of which grow further from reality the closer he gets to California. Hooverville is a far cry from the little white house of his dreams. "If I'd of knowed it would be like this I wouldn' of came," he laments to Rose of Sharon.

Disappointments defeat him. Just like that, he walks out on Rose of Sharon and the rest of the Joads.

Pa's comment about his son-in-law could serve as Connie's epitaph: "Connie wasn' no good." He probably didn't deserve a place in a family known for its ability to endure hardship.