Blogs
Tragedy, Language and Foreboding
After reading sixteen chapters of John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, I have noticed one thing in particular. Steinbeck has paid very close attention to this language. Each and every word contains meaning and it is all done with intent. Nothing is just thrown in there for the heck of it. He mainly uses language to convey a mood, through descriptions of the characters and of the landscape. All of these descriptions create and overwhelming sense of tragedy and foreboding. The reader is just waiting and waiting for more tragic circumstances to surround these characters.
One of my favorite quotes from first third of the book was from the beginning of chapter 11. "There is a warmth of life in the barn, and the heat and smell of life. But when the motor of a tractor stops, it is as dead as the ore it came from. The heat goes out of it like the living heat that leaves a corpse" (Steinbeck, 115). This quote occurs right after the Joad family leaves the land that they are familiar with. They are embarking out onto the road, in hopes of a better time and place, but the wording Steinbeck uses makes the reader feel as though things might not end well. The negative connotations from the words "corpse" and "death" stand out more than the positive connotation of the word "warmth". Not only does life leave the farm and the tractor and their old existence, but life also leaves Grandpa when he has a stroke during the journey out West.
Even before that, in chapter 9, Steinbeck writes, "we'll start over. But we can't. Only a baby can start. You and me - why, we're all that's been. The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that's us. This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can't start again." This particular quote adds to the sense of impending tragedy that the reader experiences throughout the story.
It seems as though no matter how hard the characters try, they will never be able to truly start again and rebuild their lives the way they once were - prosperous and secure. Steinbeck's use of language was clearly intentional throughout the duration of this book. He wants to readers to feel the desperation and the tragedy of the characters and of the nation as a whole during this era. The effect is something the reader cannot ignore. As I was not assigned the book in high school, I have no clue how this story ends, but based solely on the language of the book, even if it does somehow end well, the road to that ending must be tragic and difficult.
Tragic intention
The quote you picked out from chapter 9: "We'll start over. But we can't. Only a baby can start. You and me - why, we're all that's been. The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that's us. This land, this red land, is us; the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can't start again."
I had underlined this as well. So much of Grapes of Wrath resonates so easily and readily within me, along with the photograph you've chosen, that it makes me wonder if it isn't partially because of the state our country is in right now. I tried to read Grapes of Wrath years and years ago, and it didn't click. But now, I can't get enough, of this book, of the photographs from this era, of pamphlets or fliers or history or recordings or anything.
The feeling of being unable to start over, particularly, hits home to me. I know that many people I know, along with myself, think that America is too far gone down too many bad roads to recover in any real way. It has proved its inability to truly reform itself once already...after the first Great Depression. Only a baby can start. And although the US is a relative baby, compared to the other countries of the world, it has been mired in old familiar problems since the time it was born. Part of me thinks that the absurd and emotional pride "America" invokes in some is at least half sorrow and anticipated sadness for something that cannot be maintained, cannot last. That our country is so explosive, so leading edge in some ways it falls off other edges, too big, too insane, too primitive, too coarse for the monetary power it has, too filled with insane prophesy and expectation and dreams and ideals, too fairy-tale, too uneducated, too everything that it is impossible for it to survive. Some part of it will collapse or it will destroy itself. It is so volatile. But there is so much holding it up, and it keeps getting patched, and people keep getting reassured, so now there is immense pressure and immense confidence that it will not burst.