The Grapes of Wrath

by John Steinbeck

Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole.

We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it’s no good, it’s still ours.

That man who is more than his chemistry, walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch; that man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis.

“There’s no beholden in a time of dying,’’

I never seen nobody that’s busy as a prairie dog collectin’ stuff that wasn’t disappointed.’’ He

A preacher ain’t nothin’ but a man.’’

Now farming became industry, and the owners followed Rome, although they did not know it. They imported slaves, although they did not call them slaves: Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos.

They farmed on paper; and they forgot the land, the smell, the feel of it, and remembered only that they owned it, remembered only what they gained and lost by it.

and that man could know how a fallow field is a sin and the unused land a crime against the thin children.

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