The Grapes of Wrath

by John Steinbeck

The people came out of their houses and smelled the hot stinging air and covered their noses from it. And the children came out of the houses, but they did not run or shout as they would have done after a rain. Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, drying fast now, only a little green showing through the film of dust. 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, for the corn could go, as long as something else remained. The children stood near by, drawing figures in the dust with bare toes, and the children sent exploring senses out to see whether men and women would break.

But not no more,” he sighed. “Just Jim Casy now. Ain’t got the call no more. Got a lot of sinful idears—but they seem kinda sensible.”

His fingers found a twig with which to draw his thoughts on the ground. He swept the leaves from a square and smoothed the dust. And he drew angles and made little circles.

Here I got the sperit sometimes an’ nothin’ to preach about. I got the call to lead the people, an’ no place to lead ’em.” “Lead ’em around and around,” said Joad. “Sling ’em in the irrigation ditch. Tell ’em they’ll burn in hell if they don’t think like you. What the hell you want to lead ’em someplace for? Jus’ lead ’em.”

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.

We can’t depend on it. The bank—the monster has to have profits all the time. It can’t wait. It’ll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can’t stay one size.

No, you’re wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.

“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.”

They gonna need help no preachin’ can give ’em. Hope of heaven when their lives ain’t lived? Holy Sperit when their own sperit is downcast an’ sad? They gonna need help. They got to live before they can afford to die.”

“Sometimes a sad man can talk the sadness right out through his mouth. Sometimes a killin’ man can talk the murder right out of his mouth an’ not do no murder. You done right. Don’t you kill nobody if you can help it.”

Pa’s gonna be mad when he sees me do that. He don’t like no fancy stuff like that. He don’t even like word writin’. Kinda scares ’im, I guess. Ever’ time Pa seen writin’, somebody took somepin away from ’im.”

The preacher laughed softly. “You know,” he said, “it’s a nice thing not bein’ a preacher no more. Nobody use’ ta tell stories when I was there, or if they did I couldn’ laugh. An’ I couldn’ cuss. Now I cuss all I want, any time I want, an’ it does a fella good to cuss if he wants to.”

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

Tom said, “Don’t roust your faith bird-high an’ you won’t do no crawlin’ with the worms.”

For the quality of owning freezes you forever into “I,” and cuts you off forever from the “we.”

Beside them, little pot-bellied men in light suits and panama hats; clean, pink men with puzzled, worried eyes, with restless eyes. Worried because formulas do not work out; hungry for security and yet sensing its disappearance from the earth. In their lapels the insignia of lodges and service clubs, places where they can go and, by a weight of numbers of little worried men, reassure themselves that business is noble and not the curious ritualized thievery they know it is; that business men are intelligent in spite of the records of their stupidity; that they are kind and charitable in spite of the principles of sound business; that their lives are rich instead of the thin tiresome routines they know; and that a time is coming when they will not be afraid any more.

Casy said, “Seems like that’s the way. Fella havin’ fun, he don’t give a damn; but a fella mean an’ lonely an’ old an’ disappointed—he’s scared of dyin’!”

The preacher smiled, and he looked puzzled. He splashed a floating water bug away with his hand. “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 rich like Mis’ Wilson was when she give her tent when Grampa died. I ain’t tryin’ to preach no sermon, but I never seen nobody that’s busy as a prairie dog collectin’ stuff that wasn’t disappointed.”

“Yeah, but you ain’t got a sin on your soul like me.” Casy said gently, “Sure I got sins. Ever’body got sins. A sin is somepin you ain’t sure about. Them people that’s sure about ever’thing an’ ain’t got no sin—well, with that kind a son-of-a-bitch, if I was God I’d kick their ass right outa heaven! I couldn’ stand ’em!”

Tom said, “Prayer never brought in no side-meat. Takes a shoat to bring in pork.” “Yeah,” Casy said. “An’ Almighty God never raised no wages.

Well, they’re tired of bein’ rich. Horseshit! You want to hear this, or not? Well, go on then. Sure, I wanta hear it, but if I was rich, if I was rich I’d git so many pork chops—I’d cord ’em up aroun’ me like wood, an’ I’d eat my way out. Go on.

Describing the plot of a movie in which two young rich folks meet and pretend not to be rich.

Like to stay drunk all the time. Who says it’s bad? Who dares to say it’s bad? Preachers—but they got their own kinda drunkenness. Thin, barren women, but they’re too miserable to know. Reformers—but they don’t bite deep enough into living to know.

We been saved. We won’t sin no more. Wisht I knowed what all the sins was, so I could do ’em.

Describing revival meetings and the declarations of the "saved." Last sentence is a commentary of young folks observing.

“You can’t sin none,” said Pa. “You ain’t got no money. Jus’ sit tight. Cos’ you at leas’ two bucks to sin, an’ we ain’t got two bucks amongst us.” “Yeah! But I’m a-thinkin’ sin.” “Awright. You can think sin for nothin’.” “It’s jus’ as bad,” said Uncle John. “It’s a whole hell of a lot cheaper,” said Pa.

Funny as hell! Making fun of the ones who believe things like "he who lusts after a woman in his heart has committed adultery already" and such nonsense.