Maia Ajanaku- Locke

“The Grapes Of Wrath”
John Steinbeck
Viking Press, New York
c. 1939
Pages, 473

Reading, speaking and writing are evolutionary tools that make us better beings. We must take advantage of these tools if we are to improve our being and keep our civilization moving forward, positively.

John Steinbeck’s “Grapes Of Wrath”, a classic novel with relevancy in today’s socio-economic and political milieu, offers us another chance to evolve our problem-solving skills. At the least, we could have a more informed opinion about our current circumstances than Steinbeck’s family of Joads did in the 1930’s.

In this masterpiece, there is much to compare and contrast and so many parallels to draw between the Joads and their struggle for survival and the challenges faced by today’s multi-ethnic families.

The Joads’ struggle unfolded against the backdrop of a natural disaster – the “Dustbowl” (panhandle drought of the 1930’s) – and spirit-crushing unemployment, bankruptcy, mortgage foreclosures and extremely high rates of illiteracy.  Today’s multi-ethnic families have to maneuver through a maze of natural disasters, including storms, floods and earthquakes, while also negotiating economic downturns (bankruptcy, mortgage foreclosures and unemployment) and even higher rates of illiteracy.  

Steinbeck makes time between the ’30s and the 2010 appear seamless. The only difference is time and space. Now our economy, our politics and our religiosity is global, universal rather than just national.

Today, although the stakes are higher, the end game and the groupologies are practically unchanged. The elite class, by education and wealth, subject the uneducated and undereducated classes to psychological manipulations pitting the less affluent, illiterate and under-self-educated ethnic and racial groups against each other.

Back then, not knowing how to read or write made life way more difficult than it needed to have been. When young Tom Joad goes to prison to serve time for murder, he is completely cut-off from his family “cause, ol’ Tom Joad, his pa, didn’t like to read or write.” And, his Ma and the others couldn’t.

One of the aspects of this story is the fact that book learnt sense – the missing distinguishing water-mark between ol’ Muley Graves, a neighboring farmer, and the critters he hunted for his super – was extremely low. Thus, Muley and the critters he hunted for supper lived on the same level of life occupying the same caves and sharing the same expectations and processes of life.  If we are truly above the critters we eat, it is by our use of great literature that the distinctions shall be known, otherwise there is no real difference between our dinner and us.

We could learn a lot about ourselves from reading “Grapes of Wrath”, individually as well as, collectively.

For example, had we paid attention to Steinbeck’s “Grapes Of Wrath” in our educational system (pages 212-13), perhaps we would have a better understanding of the controversy over the “N-word” recently spurred by the Dr. Laura Show on talk radio. If Dr. Laura Schlessinger and her guest had read Steinbeck, they could have factored in the denotative and connotative meanings of words and their usage instead of falling back on the weak, uneducated “YOU TO” arguments (‘you people say the “N-word” too’; ‘I’ve heard your comedians use it on BET’; ‘Why can’t we white folk use it to?’).

In “Grapes Of Wrath”, Steinbeck’s migrants discussed the connotative meanings of the word “Okie”. In Oklahoma, “Okie” simply meant, fondly, that the person is a native of Oklahoma. However, in California, where complacency, greed and fear of loss ruled the heart and the head, the word “Okie” was taken to mean “you’re nothing but scum, a dirty son-of-a-b…h coming here to steal and plunder and bring down our way of life: we’re cattlemen; you’re a poor, ignorant, dirt former. You’re not welcome here; go back to where come from.”

After reading “Grapes Of Wrath”, I learned to appreciate the core difference between communism and capitalism. According to Steinbeck, charity and bank bailouts are necessary proponents of capitalism AND the idea of charity is compatible with Christianity as well; while with communism the rule of thumb favors the elite wealthy class without the humanity that a well-heeled religion breeds.  With communism, it’s a “root little pig or die ol’ hog” point of view; an everyman for himself when the chips are down concept.

Who today would the Nobel Prize winning Steinbeck call the “commie?”

Would it be the whiner about “too much of our money being spent on social ills while racking up insurmountable debt for our children?”  Or would it be the proponent of healthcare and the economic wellbeing for all, especially “… the least of these...”?  

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? You must read “Grapes Of Wrath” from page 1 to 473 to find out which camp – capitalism or communism – theology or woo woo that you’re really in. You just might want to rethink your position, rationally!