Zealotry, or: Another Thing for Which Steinbeck has Considerable Disdain

So, I skipped talking about Granma's death in Chapter 18 so I can talk about her religious ecstasy with Mrs. Sandry's similar spirituality.

In Chapter 22, Rose of Sharon is rather terrified by an especially fanatical woman named Mrs. Sandry. Sandry tells Rose of Sharon about the horrors of "clutch-an'-hug dancin'" and how it's apparently evil. She also talks about the abomination that is "pretendin' to be stuff they wasn't". However, just in case the reader is worried, Mrs. Sandry makes sure to speak of how God is, in fact, watching these people and taking note of their behavior, "sin by sin". In fact, she tells us the outcome of such religiously felonious behavior: She relays the story of a woman with a baby who, after play-acting and hug-dancing, "thinned out and skinnied out" and "dropped that baby, dead."

On a side note, until the next time she talks, I wasn't certain whether the idea was the woman died and dropped the baby or if she just dropped the baby, who died. It turns out it was the latter, as she goes on to describe how the woman had to move away because nobody would talk to her. Of course, no one would talk to a dead woman, either. She goes on to talk about the manager of the camp is apparently Satan. Apparently, he said the reason the women "skinnied out" because they were hungry and overworked, not because the Wrath of God also extends to the offspring of sinners. However, he also said he doesn't believe in sin, which led Mrs. Sandry to, again, believe him to be the Devil.

The reason I brought up Granma in the beginning is because she served as a significantly less crazy version of this. Before her death, most of what she said was either spurning her husband for his sinful nature or praising God. She also, like Mrs. Sandry, appeared mostly serve as comic relief.

More important, they both served as annoyances. Sandry scared Rose of Sharon to the point of tears, only calming down after the manager ("the Devil") calmed her down, followed by her mother after Mrs. Sandry returned. While Granma isn't nearly as bad, she did badger JC into having to say grace, despite the fact that he's no longer a preacher. (Also, I at least found her to be a somewhat annoying character, though it doesn't necessarily count.)

What this says to me is that either Steinbeck dislikes the elderly (basically every major character that is elderly  also serve as jokes, as do some minor ones) or he dislikes the religious (the religious tend to be excessively so and, in the case of Sandry, basically insane).

One-Eyed Advice

(Note that this post, chronologically, takes place before the post "Selfless Preacher", which is below this one. This is because this was written before "Selfless Preacher", but it was also in desperate need of editing. Editing it caused the order to go out of sync. Blame Blogger!)

Tom appears to have a pretty impressive power. In Chapter 16, he shows he has the power to make someone feel better by getting angry at them. This become evident when he and Al go to town to get used car parts, encountering a one-eyed man who worked at the car lot.

The man (who we shall refer to as Oem to avoid ambiguity) talks about how much he hates his boss, and how he plans on killing his boss (who we shall refer to as Boss for the same reason) because of this. Ironically, Boss doesn't seem like that bad of a guy: if I'm interpreting the writing correctly, Boss offered his attractive daughter's hand in marriage to Oem. He also appears to have invited Oem to a dance and to ride on Boss's yacht. It's possible that Boss is saying all this to taunt Oem, but it doesn't seem that way. Instead, it seems like Boss is a pretty nice guy whose only fault was hiring an especially sensitive one-eyed man.

However, Oem is very sensitive about his one eye (he hasn't been out with a woman since he lost it), and the fact that Boss looks at his socket whenever he talks to him enrages him. Oem tells Tom that he plans on killing Boss with a pipe wrench.

About the point that Oem tells Tom that it isn't "so easy to get a job--not for a one-eye' man," is when he loses his temper. He tells him that he has his "eye wide open," and that he's dirty and stinks; he goes on to suggest that he must like the abuse, that it lets him feel sorry for himself. He goes on for several paragraphs, finally telling him to cover it up.

Everything he says is true, though still harsh. However, instead of having any form of anger in response (I know if someone told me I'm dirty, smell bad and enjoy abuse I wouldn't immediately accept what they say), Oem effectively asks if he can tag along with Tom and Al to California (Tom says no in his usual fashion).

I remember wondering if I will be able to learning anything from reading Grapes of Wrath. Granted, this book isn't really a fable, though I can at least jokingly say this much: Getting mad is an excellent way to make people stop kvetching.

Selfless Preacher or: How JC's existence as the Jesus Figure is Now Only More Evident

JC effectively sacrifices himself in Chapter 20. He had been talking about leaving the group for a while now, but in Chapter 20 he does so in a rather...different way.
He had earlier spoken of leaving, saying he was being a burden; he's eating their food and isn't really helping in return. He suggested that he could go get a job and pay them back for all the Joads have done for him. Tom brushes him off, effectively telling him not to worry about it and that Jim's pretty much family to them.
It turns out this was foreshadowing. In Chapter 20, Floyd Knowles of Hooverville asks for a contract and set payment for work (the contractors seem to be rather fond of cheating people out of a fair salary), which caused the contractor to get a police deputy, who arrests Floyd and threatens others. This begins a fight, causing Floyd to run off, causing the deputy to shoot at him, instead shooting a woman in the hand. Tom jumps in and trips the deputy and Jim knocks him unconscious. JC volunteers to be arrested instead of Jim, reminding him that he had broken parole.
I'd previously mentioned Jim Casy has the same initials as Jesus Christ, which I mentioned was probably not an accident. JC's sacrifice made it evident that this is definitely true; in the New Testament, Jesus willingly died for the sins of the people, basically allowing the world to go on. In The Grapes of Wrath, Jim allows himself to be arrested to allow Jim to continue. By being arrested, Jim is no longer involved in the story, effectively "killing" himself.

See, I'm not that bad at symbolism.

Like if Mercutio Were Really Old

Grampa's death in Chapter 13 was actually somewhat strange. He only lasted about five chapters, some of which not containing him. To be fair, he was just comic relief with about two or three different jokes, all of them based around his senility.
My theory is that he was killed off because he wasn't really bringing much to the story; he was just a senile old man who really wanted to go to California, going into great detail about eating grapes and how he was going to do so. It's possible that Steinbeck figured that Grampa would serve more as a memory than as recurring character, so he was removed. Alternatively, it shows that it's going to be a rough journey, with many people leaving one way or another.

How Steinbeck's Character Doesn't Understand Herself

So, Rose of Sharon is so stereotypically pregnant it's terrifying. It's stated that, before the pregnancy, she was apparently very bold and outgoing, yet now she's rather secretive (it even says on page 129 that she's "all secrets now that she was pregnant") and somewhat quiet. I first listened to this book on tape and then scanned the physical book for extra detail, and the narrator depicted Rose of Sharon with a very quiet and almost nervous voice.
In Chapter 13, she witnesses a dog being hit by a car and almost constantly asks, "D'you think it'll hurt?" or "You suppose it might of [sic] hurt?", both referring to her unborn child. Being afraid that witnessing something gruesome is bad for a child is like thinking the sound of jackhammers is bad for a child.

Though this happens a decent bit later, she also is terrified by a zealous woman (something I will also have to talk about in a future post) who tells her about women who were doing some form of "evil" dancing who died suddenly. This causes her to be absolutely horrified, and almost inconsolable, until her mother explains to her how nonsensical it all was.

Grandparents, or: Steinbeck's Considerable Disdain for the Elderly

Chapter 8 introduces two...let's say "eccentric" characters, Granma and Grampa. Grampa is a mostly-senile dirty old man who provides considerable comic relief, mainly to the tune of him rambling about nonsense. Granma is a religious zealot of sorts; the first words we hear her utter are "Pu-raise Gawd fur vittory!", which I can only assume (dialects are rather annoying to attempt to understand) is "Praise God for victory!".

Grampa jumps between thought processes, first referring to Tom Joad as a "...jailbird. Ain't been no Joads in jail for a hell of a time.", and immediately stating that there wasn't any "right to put 'im in jail."

Granma later instructs Jim Casy to say a prayer for their meal (ignoring the fact he no longer considers himself a preacher). This scene also intrigued me, partially because of his "prayer" (which is him talking about the holiness of man, rather than God) and mostly due to how nobody actually appears to be listening. That is to say, Granma just said "Amen" or "Hallelujah" whenever he paused (not paying attention to what was being said, something she apparently did with regular prayers as well), and nobody raised their head until he said "amen."

The Great Dealership Monologue

Chapter 7 is a strange example for me; it's a narrative of a used car dealership owner, mostly with him scamming people out of their money (selling "jalopies", or old, broken-down cars, for prices far higher than they're worth). I rather enjoyed it, which was unexpected for me, considering my disdain for Catcher in the Rye, a book that was nothing but a narrative; I assumed that I just disliked narratives, but it appears it was just Salinger's narratives.