Book Report on The Grapes of Wrath

 

                                     

Introduction：John Steinbeck is renowned for his realistic and imaginative writing, combining with keen social perception. One of his masterpieces, The Grapes of Wrath, is regarded as a modern epic of the working class during the Great Depression. It is overt to be seemed that John Steinbeck employed the idea of archetypes when he was creating the passionate depiction of the plight of the poor. This paper is dedicated to explore the hero archetype of this masterpiece by making a contrast study of Moses and Tom, revealing one of the most significant themes in this novel: the human spirit is holy.

Part One

By the mid-1930s, America entered a historical stage called the Great Depression. In the same time, a severe drought led to a massive failure in some parts of the Great Plains, in which, the western Oklahoma was particularly dragged into tragedy. These areas, at that time, were covered with loose and exposed topsoil due to the over-cultivation done by the farmers during the period after the World War I. Crops withered and died finally with the absence of rain. The soil there also lost the capacity of anchoring the growing roots. The whole region was picked up by the winds and carried in the grey clouds. Harsh dust storms blew across the plains, sometimes blocking out the sun and even suffocating the people and cattle’s to death. Hence, the catastrophic areas at that time were known by people as the “Dust Bowl”.

Nevertheless, this was merely the superficial reason of the Great Depression. Underneath the “Dust Bowl”, the origin of the crisis was hidden. World War I made American agriculture prosper initially. Then American agriculture borrowed money for machinery and more land. Europe resumed production after the war, so American farm owners had to struggle to repay loans. Simultaneously, in 1929, the stock market crashed and the world economy entered a deep depression. Banks seized more farms, leaving sharecroppers and farm laborers without work. As a result, many of them moved west, to California. Farm jobs in California were thought to be plentiful partly because of its favorable climate year round.

The Grapes of Wrath depicts the story of the Joad Family, which can vividly capture a turbulent moment during the Great Depression. The novel vibrates the common American people with a touching echo, just as the words once the critic Robert Demott noted: “entered both the American consciousness and conscience” (15). Furthermore, to write this novel, John Steinbeck not only intended to portray the plight of migrant workers during the Great Depression, but attempted to provide a modern times chronicle that could lead people to reconsider the policies and the economic system that aroused the crisis. Taking this goal into account, he presents the characters as embodiments of universal ideals and struggles rather than probes into the specific individual mental state. Hence, Steinbeck frequently presents the characters as idealized archetypes.

Part Two

In The Grapes of Wrath, the protagonist, Tom Joad, Pa and Ma Joad’s most beloved son, is a kind of hero. We can find the reference, Moses, in one of the greatest religious and mythical works--the Holy Bible.

The Exodus, the second part of The Old Testament, right after The Genesis, narrates the exodus of the common people of Israel out of Egypt. Among them, Moses is the leader. Moses guides them through the wilderness to Mount Sinai. There the God of Israel, through Moses, gives the Hebrew their laws and enters into a covenant with them, by which he will give them the land of Canaan, which is also called the Promised Land, in return for their faithfulness.

Heroes are a small part of a culture’s mythology. They have been useful for thousands of years to the people for whom they serve as an idealized human, a sort of “super” person, capable of dealing with problems that surpass normal humans and their abilities. In this sense, both Moses and Tom Joad can be considered as the heroes. One is in the ancient time while Tom Joad can be regarded as a hero in the modern time. What’s more, they share a lot of similarities.

The reason why the common people in the ancient time and the modern time need to abandon their hometown is the same. They are all cruelly oppressed by the others. For the Israelites, they are persecuted by the Pharoah: “the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly” and “So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out, so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel. The Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously; and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and at all kinds of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them” (93). As for the common people in The Grapes of Wrath, they are actually oppressed mainly by the greedy bankers after the stock market crashed, just as mentioned in part one. Besides, the subordinate reason is that the environment in both the ancient time in The Exodus and the modern time in The Grapes of Wrath is harsh. Egypt is cursed by the God, which leads the land of Egypt to suffer a lot of enormous plagues: the plague of blood, the plague of frogs, the plague of gnats, the plague of flies, the plague of livestock, the plague of boils, the plague of hail, the plague of locusts, the plague of darkness and the plague on the firstborn (103-09). And the migrant farm workers are also tortured by the untimely villainous weather. The whole region turns into a “dust bowl”. This miserable condition is presented realistically in the first chapter: “To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth... In the middle of that night the wind passed on and left the land quiet. The dust-filled air muffled sound more completely than fog does. The people, lying in their beds, heard the wind stop. They awakened when the rushing wind was gone. They lay quietly and listened deep into the stillness. Then the roosters crowed, and their voices were muffled, and the people stirred restlessly in their beds and wanted the morning. They knew it would take a long time for the dust to settle out of the air. In the morning the dust hung like fog, and the sun was as red as ripe new blood. All day the dust sifted down from the sky, and the next day it sifted down. An even blanket covered the earth. It settled on the corn, piled up on the tops of the fence posts, piled up on the wires; it settled on roofs, blanketed the weeds and trees. 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 (1-3, Steinbeck).”

Hence, we can infer that when human beings are rebelling against the ruling class (here refers to Pharoah and the bankers) , they tend to react in the same way. What’s more, it is prone to appear a hero as a leader. Moses is the “primordial image” or archetype. According to Jung, the image is primoridal when the image is in striking accord with familiar mythological motifs. It then expresses material primarily derived from the collective unconscious, and indicates at the same time that the factors influencing the conscious situation of the moment are collective rather than personal…The primordial image, also termed archetype, is always collective. In all probability the most important mythological motifs are common to all times and races (Knox, 746). The rebellion against the ruling class has always been happening throughout the human history. The factors that cause the rebellion in The Exodus and The Grapes of Wrath are similar: the oppression and the harsh environment. Due to the familiar and the same mythological motifs, the heroes here, Moses and Tom Joad, are functioning as the same. These factors are collective rather than personal.

Moses and Tom Joad are heroes and both of them undertake a long journey. Individuation is the Jungian process of psychic growth conceived as the realization of wholeness and fulfillment of the promised potential held out by the self as telos (Gray, 289). The basic pattern of individuation is provided in the Hero’s Journey. Leo Frobenius first described it as the journey of Solar Hero. Later, Jung, Campbell, Kerenyi and others saw the same pattern as it reappeared in dreams, myth and the path of individuation. Jung identified the journey with the introversion and reemergence of libido and saw the pattern as recurring many times through the life of an individual (Grey, 94). And the hero journey can be summarized as below:

1. Unusual circumstances of birth; sometimes in danger or born into royalty

2. Leaves family or land and lives with others

3. An event, sometimes traumatic, leads to adventure or quest.

4. Hero has a special weapon only he can wield.

5. Hero always has supernatural help.

6. The Hero must prove himself many times while on adventure.

7. Hero experiences atonement with the father.

8. When the hero dies, he is rewarded spiritually.

When we are applying this pattern, it is obvious that Moses and Tom Joad possess some features which belong to this pattern of Hero Journey. Besides, they have transformed to some degree. At first, Moses is born legendarily. He could have been killed due to the persecution released by the king of Egypt. His mother places him among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. But he is lucky enough to be saved by Pharaoh’s daughter. She names him Moses. He lives with the Pharoah’s daughter instead of his own mother. Tom Joad’s birth is not mentioned in the novel, however, he killed a man and has been separated from his family for four years and he does not waste his time with regrets. This process is corresponding to the beginning of a hero archetype. He does leave his own family and lives with the other prisoners.

The event which triggers Moses to quest is that he kills an Egyptian. But he kills the people for righteousness: “He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people (94).”

Moses definitely “has a special weapon only he (and his brother Aaron ) can wield”. The sign that the God gave him is a staff. “Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. Then the LORD said to him, ‘reach out your hand and take it by the tail.’ So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand (97).” This staff is a tremendous weapon. It helps to defeat Pharoah’s officials.

And it is also a crucial weapon when they are crossing the the Sea. Moses stretches out the staff and all that night the LORD drives the sea back with a strong east wind and turns it into dry land. The water is divided, so the Israelites can go through the sea. The Egyptians pursue them into the sea. But in the morning, Moses stretches the staff again, and the Egyptians are all drowned to death.

Nevertheless, this journey is not a smooth sailing. Pharoah does not supply the Israelites straw but still requires them to produce bricks. When they cannot reach the demand, he beats them; They have once lost their faith of God due to the lack of water and food; The Pharoah’s pursuers are always disturbing: “As Pharoah approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD.They said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no grave in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die what you have done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert (115)! ’” But for Moses’ perseverance and his unswerving faith of God, as well as God’s help (supernatural help), they eventually succeed and arrive at the Promised Land -- Cannan, the place flowing with milk and honey. The most significant event is their spiritual transcendence: the Israelites strengthen their faith to God.

Tom is good-natured and thoughtful, but he was punished in an Oklahoma state prison with serving four years for a manslaughter conviction: “‘I’d do what I done, again,’ said Joad. ‘I killed a guy in a fight. We was drunk at a dance. He got a knife in me, an’ I killed him with a shovel that was layin’ there. Knocked his head plumb to squash (Steinbeck , 28) .’”

The journey of Tom Joad and his family is also full of tribulation. And their confidence has once vacillated. Initially they envision California as their Promised Land which can provide them a lot of job opportunities. Nonetheless, Grandpa Joad dies on the road right after they leave. When they are close to California, they hear ominous rumors of a depleted job market. One migrant tells them a brutal fact: 20000 people show up for every 800 jobs and his own children have starved to death. Despite the press, they insist to keep moving on. However, the first day they arrive in California proves to be a tragical day because Grandma Joad dies. The remaining members try desperately to hold their family together. They move from one camp to the next and keep searching for job opportunity in vain, struggling to find food. Yet soon, the eldest brother of Tom, Noah and Connie who is married to Tom’s sister Rose of Sharon, abandon the family.

The family meets with much hostility in California. The camps are overcrowded and full of starving migrants, who are often nasty to each other. The locals are fearful and angry at the flood of the migrants. They are called “Okies” derisively. The market is overwhelmingly dominated by the large landowners. Hence, the wage is not even enough for the migrants to buy a decent meal. The landowners try everything to keep the migrants poor and dependent in case of their uprising. At this moment, Tom stands out and argues with a sheriff that whether the workers there should organize into a union. When the argument turns to be violent, Jim Casy, the preacher, knocks the sheriff unconscious and he confesses his crime in order to protect the others.

Afterwards, Tom runs into Jim Casy, who has begun organizing the migrants after being released from jail. And he also has made many enemies among the landowners. When the sheriff kills Jim before Tom, Tom takes a revenge and murders a policeman. In the end, Tom heads off to fulfill Jim’s task of organizing the migrant workers.

Tom’s transformation is fulfilled throughout the journey to the west. In Jung’s word, he called this kind of change as the archetypes of transformation. They are situations, places, ways and means that symbolize the transformation in question (Jung, 81). These archetypes exist primarily as energy - and are useful in organizational development, personal and organizational change management (Edinger, 95). At the beginning of the novel, he is some kind of person with practical self-interest. He claims the prison life has molded him into someone who devotes his time and energies the present moment: “‘they didn’t give you no beatin’s or nothin’ like that? ‘‘No, I jus’ tended my own affais’ (Steinbeck, 60). “He undertakes the most significant transformation as he switches his “carpe diem” philosophy to a commitment to improving the circumstance for the whole working class. Jim repeatedly emphasizes that a human being can have little effect on the world when he’s acting alone. Only by devoting oneself to one’s fellow class, man can achieve wholeness. Yet Tom at first is not reluctant to accept Jim’s philosophy. And he does not follow Jim to organize the workers. However, the hardship and the contempt the family has been confronted during the journey convert him to believe Jim’s words. He realizes that he cannot stand still silently just to witness the injustices any longer. The death of Jim Casy fulfills the transformation of Tom into a man willing to take responsibility for the future. Throughout the journey that Tom undergoes, we cannot find a concrete magical weapon. Yet he owns a more powerful spiritual weapon—the support of other workers, family and the most important, Jim Casy. This is actually a configuration of archetype. In real life, people are not helped by God, but solely depend on the resolution agaist oppression and the collective unconcious of unity when confronted with catastrophe. It is a kind of Holy Spirit. Tom assures his mother that regardless of whether he lives or dies, his spirit will keep moving on among the triumphs and turmoil of the world: “Then I’ll be all aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be ever’where, wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’, I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an live in the houses they build, why, I’ll be there. See? God, I’m talkin’ like Casy (Steinbeck, 553). ” In chapter 8, Jim Casy once asserts that “…how we was holy when we was one thing, an’ mankin’ was holy when it was one thing. An’ it on’y got unholy w,hen one mis’able little fella got the bit in his teeth an run off his own way, kickin’ an draggin’ an’ fightin’. Fella like that bust the holiness. But when they’re all workin’ together, not one fella for another fella, but one fella kind of harnessed to the whole shebang, that’s right, that’s holy (Steinbeck, 26).” And in chapter 28, Tom explains Jim’s understanding of holy spirit as: “ 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 (Steinbeck, 551).” Tom’s statement not only echoes Jim’s definition of “holy spirit” but also proves his transformation.

Conclusion

Steinbeck applied archetypal method to express the “holy spirit” in his mind. The Holy Bible says that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John, 160). ” Moses receives much help from God, while the migrants can only depend on themselves. Hence, the true holy spirit is within human beings. When human beings are confronted of catastrophe, they will be united as the whole and be concentrating their efforts on monolithic solidarity. Although they will come across lots of difficulties, they will triumph ultimately. This hero arhcetype and hero journey pattern are rooted in all human being and they parts of our racial collective unconscious. There is always hope in the midst of process of human civilization. This novel is a prominent hymn dedicated to glorify the holy spirit of human beings as well as our union and social responsibility. Just as John Steinbeck said in his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech: In the end is the word, and the word is with man, and the word is man.