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."