Doomed or Redeemed?

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath' was one of those gaps in my reading history. I knew it was supposed to be amazing - it won a Pulitzer prize - but sometimes the weight of such a reputation can lead to disappointment. As it turned out I needn't have worried. Oh my goodness no. I was gripped from the opening word to the last. And appalled. And moved. And astonished.

The story tracks the Joad family as they are forced to abandon their farm and head west out of the drought-stricken desert bowl of Oklahoma in search of work on the West coast. Along with thousands of other starving farming families, they are following the dream that a land of milk and honey awaits them - water, work, food, a solid roof over their heads. And like all the other families, they are to find nothing but suffering and wretchedness, not just in California, but in the torturous journey to get there. On arrival the few fruit-picking jobs are long since gone; but even with those, the over-supply of labour means that the greedy West coast employers have reduced what they pay to pitiful levels.

The descriptions of suffering make for hard reading. Hardest of all - and most skilful on the part of Steinbeck - is the cruelly gradual way in which the hopes of the Joad family are worn down. One by one things go wrong, eating into their parlous savings and their desperate hopes, whittling the once chirpy, energetic family down and down, until only a few of them are left, eking out a life that one wouldn't wish on a rat, let alone a human being.

Although it is a story of one family, Steinbeck is looking at the biggest issues on the planet: the crushing wheel of 'successful' economies on the less fortunate; the speed with which trust can turn to hate; the power of human kindness to ease but not solve big problems. In fact, I kept finding myself thinking of the migrant crisis engulfing Europe now: all those hundreds of thousands of people fleeing horrors in search of a better life, placing their faith in the rumoured richness of Europe, only for so many of them to meet nothing but mud and barbed wire.

Steinback famously said of 'The Grapes of Wrath, "I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags" and he certainly succeeds. The ending of the novel is shocking in the extreme. No wonder it caused such a stir when it was published in 1939. It depicts people in the direst situation imaginable, clutching at the very last threads of hope to stay alive. As I read it - and even now thinking back on it - I honestly cannot say whether Steinbeck was aiming to leave us with an image of hope or despair. Are we doomed or redeemed? I wish I knew.





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