The Joads: Empathetic Above All Things

The label of “Okie” is an accurate one for the Joads; they are, indeed, from Oklahoma. But the negative connotation the word has is obviously one gained from more than mere identification. It implies a social class, a set of morals, and a level of hygiene not favorable to the accused. Bewildered by the word, the Joads are forced to face their status in California: not hardworking, honest men, but starving, desperate migrants who are being taken advantage of at every turn, and who are unwelcome in the land they viewed as being made of milk and honey.

The New York Times’ article “Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?” notes that “if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor, you’re well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities of life — like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering.” One example given is of a man arrested for sleeping on a sidewalk in a Washington suburb—criminal trespassing—which a shelter advocate points out is arresting “a homeless man…for being homeless.” Likewise, the Joads are not responsible for their own situation—it is the fault of the bank, the weather, the poor agricultural techniques—and yet are faulted by the more fortunate and powerful around them both for that situation and the decisions they made as a result of it, for “engaging in the biological necessities of life.”

Remarkably, these injustices seem not to harden them, but instead to make them more open to accepting strangers into their lives, to share the burden of others at their own expense. Carroll Britch and Cliff Lewis’ article “Growth of the Family in the Grapes of Wrath,” concludes: “…[The Joads] have reached out in kindness to strangers, and as strangers have accepted kindness. Through it all they have come to know or to sense that their plight is not unique…” As they move along the road to California, they incorporate first Jim Casy, then the Wilsons into their group, despite Casy’s lack of any kind of physical contribution, and the illness of Sairy Wison. Key to this acceptance is Ma, whose “sense of we-ness seems always to have extended beyond the immediate family.” Perhaps key in this sense is the combination of great strength and great empathy. She lies beside Granma long after the old woman has died, in order for the family to move on; she sees the plight of her own family in others they come across. And ultimately, she seeks to teach that strength and empathy to her daughter, Rose of Sharon, in the book’s concluding scene.