The Grapes of Wrath

by John Steinbeck

The men were silent and they did not move often. And the women came out of the houses to stand beside their men—to feel whether this time the men would break. The women studied the men’s faces secretly,

Before I knowed it, I was sayin’ out loud, ‘The hell with it! There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. It’s all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain’t nice, but that’s as far as any man got a right to say.’

Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold. And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves. Some of them hated the mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some worshiped the mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought and from feeling.

They knew that a man so hurt and so perplexed may turn in anger, even on people he loves. They left the men alone to figure and to wonder in the dust.

And pulled behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long seeders—twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gears, raping methodically, raping without passion.

Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

“But where does it stop? Who can we shoot? I don’t aim to starve to death before I kill the man that’s starving me.”

Casy scratched his toes luxuriously.

“Where the hell you s’pose he’s goin’?” said Joad. “I seen turtles all my life. They’re always goin’ someplace. They always seem to want to get there.”

“Fella gets use’ to a place, it’s hard to go,” said Casy. “Fella gets use’ to a way a thinkin’, it’s hard to leave. I ain’t a preacher no more, but all the time I find I’m prayin’, not even thinkin’ what I’m doin’.”

He stood and looked at the fire, his face tense as though he were listening, and the hands that had been active to pick, to handle, to throw ideas, grew quiet, and in a moment crept into his pockets. The bats flittered in and out of the dull firelight, and the soft watery burble of a night hawk came from across the fields.

“Yeah!” he said. “I was mean like a wolf. Now I’m mean like a weasel. When you’re huntin’ somepin you’re a hunter, an’ you’re strong. Can’t nobody beat a hunter. But when you get hunted—that’s different. Somepin happens to you. You ain’t strong; maybe you’re fierce, but you ain’t strong. I been hunted now for a long time.

Pen—keep it full, keep it working. A sale’s been lost ’cause a pen didn’t work.

One of them, stretching his neck, edged forward, ready to run, and little by little he approached Tom’s legs and sniffed loudly at them. Then he backed away and watched Pa for some kind of signal. The other pup was not so brave. He looked about for something that could honorably divert his attention, saw a red chicken go mincing by, and ran at it. There was the squawk of an outraged hen, a burst of red feathers, and the hen ran off, flapping stubby wings for speed. The pup looked proudly back at the men, and then flopped down in the dust and beat its tail contentedly on the ground.

Strong, freckled arms were bare to the elbow, and her hands were chubby and delicate, like those of a plump little girl. She looked out into the sunshine. Her full face was not soft; it was controlled, kindly.

And since old Tom and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt and fear, she had practiced denying them in herself. And since, when a joyful thing happened, they looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials. But better than joy was calm. Imperturbability could be depended upon. And from her great and humble position in the family she had taken dignity and a clean calm beauty.

From her position as healer, her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess.

His timidity was set off by hers, a curious embarrassment. Each one knew the other was shy, and became more shy in the knowledge.

His was a lean excitable face with little bright eyes as evil as a frantic child’s eyes. A cantankerous, complaining, mischievous, laughing face.

There’s a thing I ain’t never had enough of. Gonna get me a whole big bunch a grapes off a bush, or whatever, an’ I’m gonna squash ’em on my face an’ let ’em run offen my chin.”

When shoes and clothes and food, when even hope is gone, we’ll have the rifle. When grampa came—did I tell you?—he had pepper and salt and a rifle. Nothing else.

How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past? No. Leave it. Burn it.

I ain’t gonna try to teach ’em nothin’. I’m gonna try to learn. Gonna learn why the folks walks in the grass, gonna hear ’em talk, gonna hear ’em sing. Gonna listen to kids eatin’ mush. Gonna hear husban’ an’ wife a-poundin’ the mattress in the night. Gonna eat with ’em an’ learn.” His eyes were wet and shining. “Gonna lay in the grass, open an’ honest with anybody that’ll have me. Gonna cuss an’ swear an’ hear the poetry of folks talkin’. All that’s holy, all that’s what I didn’ understan’. All them things is the good things.”

The people in flight from the terror behind—strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever.

“Ain’t you thinkin’ what’s it gonna be like when we get there? Ain’t you scared it won’t be nice like we thought?” “No,” she said quickly. “No, I ain’t. You can’t do that. I can’t do that. It’s too much—livin’ too many lives. Up ahead they’s a thousan’ lives we might live, but when it comes, it’ll on’y be one. If I go ahead on all of ’em, it’s too much. You got to live ahead ’cause you’re so young, but—it’s jus’ the road goin’ by for me. An’ it’s jus’ how soon they gonna wanta eat some more pork bones.”

“I been walkin’ aroun’ in the country. Ever’body’s askin’ that. What we comin’ to? Seems to me we don’t never come to nothin’. Always on the way. Always goin’ and goin’. Why don’t folks think about that? They’s movement now. People moving. We know why, an’ we know how. Movin’ ’cause they got to. That’s why folks always move. Movin’ ’cause they want somepin better’n what they got. An’ that’s the on’y way they’ll ever git it. Wantin’ it an’ needin’ it, they’ll go out an’ git it. It’s bein’ hurt that makes folks mad to fightin’. I been walkin’ aroun’ the country, an’ hearin’ folks talk like you.”

Connie was pleased with her too, and filled with wonder that she was pregnant. He liked to think he was in on the secrets she had. When she smiled slyly, he smiled slyly too, and they exchanged confidences in whispers. The world had drawn close around them, and they were in the center of it, or rather Rose of Sharon was in the center of it with Connie making a small orbit about her. Everything they said was a kind of secret.

“Law changes,” he said, “but ‘got to’s’ go on. You got the right to do what you got to do.”

“Scared again?” Ma asked. “Why, you can’t get through nine months without sorrow.” “But will it—hurt the baby?” Ma said, “They used to be a sayin’, ‘A chile born outa sorrow’ll be a happy chile.’ Isn’t that so, Mis’ Wilson?” “I heard it like that,” said Sairy. “An’ I heard the other: ‘Born outa too much joy’ll be a doleful boy.’ ”

The great owners, striking at the immediate thing, the widening government, the growing labor unity; striking at new taxes, at plans; not knowing these things are results, not causes. Results, not causes; results, not causes.

The causes lie deep and simply—the causes are a hunger in a stomach, multiplied a million times; a hunger in a single soul, hunger for joy and some security, multiplied a million times; muscles and mind aching to grow, to work, to create, multiplied a million times.

And this you can know—fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.

If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into “I,” and cuts you off forever from the “we.”

Lines of weariness around the eyes, lines of discontent down from the corners of the mouth, breasts lying heavily in little hammocks, stomach and thighs straining against cases of rubber. And the mouths panting, the eyes sullen, disliking sun and wind and earth, resenting food and weariness, hating time that rarely makes them beautiful and always makes them old.

The man picked up the bread and went out the door, and the little boys marched stiffly behind him, the red-striped sticks held tightly against their legs. They leaped like chipmunks over the front seat and onto the top of the load, and they burrowed back out of sight like chipmunks.

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.”

How’d you like to pick up a big ol’ piece a gold? Sa-a-ay! I’d git the bigges’ old son-a-bitchin’ piece a candy you ever seen. I ain’t let to swear, but I do, anyways. Me too. Le’s go to the spring. And young girls found each other and boasted shyly of their popularity and their prospects.

“If he needs a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it ’cause he feels awful poor inside hisself, and if he’s poor in hisself, there ain’t no million acres gonna make him feel rich, an’ maybe he’s disappointed that nothin’ he can do’ll make him feel rich—not

“You sure look happy as a buzzard,” Al said. “I’m jus’ gay as a toad in spring rain,” said Tom.

Uncle John’s eyes were tired and sad. “I been secret all my days,” he said. “I done things I never tol’ about.” Ma turned from the fire. “Don’ go tellin’, John,” she said. “Tell ’em to God. Don’ go burdenin’ other people with your sins. That ain’t decent.” “They’re a-eatin’ on me,” said John. “Well, don’ tell ’em. Go down the river an’ stick your head under an’ whisper ’em in the stream.”

It ain’t good for a baby to grow up with folks a-sayin’ his pa ain’t no good.”

Before five, the children were scrubbed and warned about getting dirty again; and they walked about, stiff in clean clothes, miserable with carefulness.

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

Says one time he went out in the wilderness to find his own soul, an’ he foun’ he didn’ have no soul that was his’n. Says he foun’ he jus’ got a little piece of a great big soul. Says a wilderness ain’t no good, ’cause his little piece of a soul wasn’t no good ’less it was with the rest, an’ was whole. Funny how I remember. Didn’ think I was even listenin’. But I know now a fella ain’t no good alone.”

“Woman can change better’n a man,” Ma said soothingly. “Woman got all her life in her arms. Man got it all in his head. Don’ you mind.

Seems like our life’s over an’ done.” “No, it ain’t,” Ma smiled. “It ain’t, Pa. An’ that’s one more thing a woman knows. I noticed that. Man, he lives in jerks—baby born an’ a man dies, an’ that’s a jerk—gets a farm an’ loses his farm, an’ that’s a jerk. Woman, it’s all one flow, like a stream, little eddies, little waterfalls, but the river, it goes right on. Woman looks at it like that. We ain’t gonna die out. People is goin’ on—changin’ a little, maybe, but goin’ right on.”

The women watched the men, watched to see whether the break had come at last. The women stood silently and watched. And where a number of men gathered together, the fear went from their faces, and anger took its place. And the women sighed with relief, for they knew it was all right—the break had not come; and the break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath.