The Grapes of Wrath: Chapter 16

For the first time, when a chapter was talking about the Joad family, it said “Joads and Wilsons” (Steinbeck 163). I think that this shows just how the people were back then, they met a family one day, and they were basically one big family the next.

Then it starts to focus in on how the family is becoming used to traveling, used to their new lifestyle. “They settled into a new technique of living; the highway became their home and movement their medium of expression. Little by little they settled into the new life. Ruthie and Winfield first, then Al, then Connie and Rose of Sharon, and last, the older ones” (Steinbeck 163). It would be hard for anyone to live on a farm all of their life, then have to spend several days living on the road, so I guess that is why the younger ones were used to it first, they’ve spent less time in one place than the older ones have.

Rose of Sharon talks to Ma Joad about all of the things that her and Connie are going to do out there in California, so it seems like everybody is excited and expects it to be a golden land of opportunity there, it has to be, or else there would be no reason to go (Steinbeck 164). Then the truck breaks, and when Tom suggests that him and the preacher stay behind to fix it while the rest of the family goes on, Ma Joad explodes, grabs some iron bar, and threatens to beat anybody who tries to tell her that she’s going to be separated from her son again, so they end up agreeing to go only a little farther up and wait where there’s water while Tom, Al, and Casy fix the truck. So they fix it and Tom goes Dr. Phil mode on the junkyard worker, and they make it back to where the rest of the family is.

The family’s staying in a lot that costs fifty cents to get in, but they paid anyway because Granma was pretty much going crazy; talking to herself like she was talking to Granpa. The family can not figure out why she is acting like this, but I think it may have something to do with her husband just dying, it’s just a hunch.

While they’re there, and all the men are talking about going to California to work, one shady guy starts raining on their parade, saying that the pamphlets lie and that there are too many people working there. He reveals that he is coming back from California because he is starving and just wants to die at home. He tells stories about how the labor bosses only hire people who they can tell will work for barely any money, or maybe even just for food. Two of his kids and his wife died from the harsh conditions (Steinbeck 191). Even after all of this, the men just shake it off and go to bed. Seems like there might be something wrong with the situation, but the men just won’t believe it.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.