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Resurrection At The Conclusion of Grapes of Wrath
At the conclusion of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, the reader is left with two powerful and overwhelming images. One, which has continued on for multiple chapters is the rain and the flood that is overtaking the land. The second image is of Rose of Sharon breast feeding the starving man. While these two are drastically different images, one a force of mother nature, the other a force of maternal nature, they both seem to symbolize resurrection. This resurrection seems to be a far cry from the hopelessness and despair that was expressed in the chapters leading up to it.
Rain is clearly a powerful image near the end of this story. It not only engulfs everything and has the ability to destroy, but it also has the power to resurrect. It washes everything away, but then leaves a blank new canvas for rebirth. The family, when this flood comes is literally at rock bottom. They have faced too many hardships and it feels as though all hope is lost. Martha Cox addresses this idea, "The final setting for the novel is a rain-blackened barn where the Joad family--or the half that has endured--seeks refuge from the flood. Destitute, hungry, wet, and ill, they have reached the nadir of their devastating experience...Their meager possessions are under water in the box-car." However, this rain can also wash away all of their hardships, leaving them with a new season for rebirth, where they can reemerge as a strong family unit. Maybe once all of them endure the flood, they can rebuild their lives. Maybe when the flood ends the depression will end as well, leaving everyone with a bit more hope.
Along with the more figurative rain, there is another symbol of rebirth at the end of the novel. Rose of Sharon, after giving birth to a stillborn, manages to resurrect a man by breast feeding him. The Joad family encounters a man who has not been able to eat and Rose of Sharon literally gives him life. Cox says, ""Out of her own need she gives life; out of the profoundest depth of despair comes the greatest assertion of faith."" Not only is it a very Christian image, but it also symbolizes a more maternal sort of faith. The whole novel has been focusing on family and the coming together of that family during hard times and Rose of Sharon is literally joining her family with his. Maybe it is out of her own personal need or a more universal need for family and community, but the image is quite memorable.
The flood and the breast feeding are the perfect conclusions to this novel. Arguably two main themes are family and hope - so through the rebirth of this man from Rose of Sharon's nourishment and from the cleansing affect of the rain, Steinbeck truly ends the novel with those two ideas in mind. What if he had ended the novel another way? I doubt anything would have given the readers as much hope as these two images.
Weather and Symbolic Meaning
The ending of The Grapes of Wrath has always stuck me as extremely powerful and effective, and I was surprised to learn through our readings, other people’s blogs, and our class discussions that some critics found it lacking. I enjoyed your comments about the rain, in particular, because I feel the weather in general played a very central part in Steinbeck’s themes. The book opens on a blazing summer day—the Southern heat has parched the earth dry, dust has ravaged the fields, and Tom must mop the sweat off his face with his cap repeatedly throughout the first few chapters. The desert-like atmosphere only increases as the family heads West, and the sun becomes almost a grim reaper, a harbinger of doom; Grandpa’s stroke is easily attributed to the unmerciful heat, and Granma finally passes on the trip across the desolate desert. By that point, the weather has become almost as much of an enemy as the banks and corporate farms.
When the family reaches California, it almost seems like the weather has become docile again. Winter’s threat remains imminent, however, and the rain at the novel’s conclusion signals the end to a long, hard struggle. I agree that it symbolizes rebirth, but, like Rose of Sharon nursing the old man (instead of nursing her baby), it also symbolizes the struggles yet to come.