The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

ISBN-10: ‎ 0143039431

ISBN-13: 9780670016907

Publisher: Viking

• It’s hella dusty outside and the corn can’t breathe.
• In American families, there is a patriarchal system.
• Tom Joad and his father have the same name so I’m going to refer to the former as Lil Joad.
• It’s a bonding ritual for white males to say something racist and see what the reaction is of one another.
• I swear to god, Lil Joad was about to accuse the truck driver of wanting his bussy.
• Instead of asking Lil Joad if he’s just come out of jail, the truck driver is playing sloppy 20 Questions, which pisses Lil Joad off.
• Steinbeck takes a chapter to explore the journey a tortoise trying to cross the road and I was so scared yall.
• Steinbeck refers to the tortoise as a “land turtle” so I’m actually not sure if it’s supposed to be a semi-aquatic tortoise? Considering the drought conditions, I’d think it’d be deceased if it more heavily relied on water?
• Lil Joad KIDNAPS THE TORTOISE.
• Lil Joad meets Casy, who used to be the town’s preacher. There’s something affable in the way they rekindle.
• Casy talks about loosing his affinity for preaching. After years of having premarital sex with “girls” after rousing them in the Holy Spirit, he’s come to question all of it. That’s more than I can give a lot of sex-craved preachers, but the bar isn’t so high. Casy confesses to Lil Joad that he believes in something closer to Christian universalism.
• Lil Joad points out that for a lot of people, they just like the orgasmic feeling of jumping and hollering for a collective mission, whether or not it really means anything.
• We see the highly individualistic morals Americans have coming around to fuck them up. So you stole the land from the indigenous people and now cannot believe that it’s being stolen from you by the bank? What a shame! It didn’t matter when you took something from the brown people, but to have your fellow countrymen dispose of you for being poor? Now, that’s too bad, that’s just too bad. The bank was always the enemy, but when you’re a racist, you can’t see that. You start talking tribalism but how can it be that it’s every man for themselves and the boy you knew is now a man driving a tractor over your house?
• Innovative technology isn’t the problem, it’s how we cannot opt-out of capitalism. If having tractors means that less people have to work, it cannot also be the case that not working leads to poverty/death. And yet, here we are.
• As though to mock the poor people, or to say that none of it matters to him anymore, the tractor driver has the luxury of tossing his pie crust into the dirt.
• “I’m just doing my job.” Bullshit. Instead of organizing, you decided nothing could be done but to assimilate. The enemy is not invisible.
• I’m saying this realizing that any organization that isn’t intersectional is a waste of time. You can’t go back into the past and unkill those Native Americans, but you can cast aside your racism and bind together against imperialism and capitalism. This is why our collective union efforts keep failing.
• Casy and Lil Joad run into Muley who has stayed behind while his family has moved on to find opportunities. Muley is experiencing some side effects of isolation. He’s rambling, but friendly. He says that Lil Joad’s family has moved in with their Uncle.
• Casy is inspired to preach again. Since people are moving to California, he wants to join them on the road offering sermon.
• Our class traitor, Willy Feeley, has moved on to bigger and badder things. He’s become a Deputy now and he’s spotted our trio trespassing at Lil Joad’s abandoned house.
• You give an unprincipled person an ounce of power and they abuse it to the utmost.
• I like these chapters where Steinbeck has us follow a tortoise or go into first person. They’re fun.
• The family reunites and it’s so beautiful praise Jesus
• So Grampa was a wife beater until Granma pulled up with a shotgun and now they have immortal love thanks I hate it
• Casy gives a blessing over breakfast which is mostly a ramble about how he’s got New Age ideas. Granma is like, “AMEN GEEZUS” bitch are you still in this earthly realm???
• So far I actually enjoy Casy. While I don’t agree with his beliefs, he seems chill, which is also breath of fresh air.
• Ma questions whether California will be the Land of Good and Plenty SPOILER ALERT
• They’re getting ready to leave but haven’t questioned Lil Joad about the stipulations of parole lmao
• Authors need to stop describing little girls’ chests. The way Steinbeck describes Ruthie is very predatory.
• Not a fan of how he describes Rose of Sharon either. Women do not turn into ethereal sex-repulsed entities of wisdom when they get pregnant lmfao
• Also I have no idea how old Rose of Sharon is, only that her husband, Connie, is 19.
• Grampa gets cold feet at the last minute so they drug his old ass with some ear ache medicine
• Muley comes by to wish them farewell. They don’t have space for all of their animals, so they ask Muley to keep them. Some dogs would do him some good.
• Muley asks Lil Joad about breaking parole and he responds, “WELL WOULD U LOOK AT THE TIME WE BETTER GET GOING HAHA”
• So the stray cats are probably going to die because they aren’t feral and don’t really have the skillset to hunt as a means of survival. Just like that drop that info because there’s this misconception that cats will just successfully adapt.
• They begin driving and Steinbeck loosely mentions the speed they’re going. It looks like back then the max was around 55mph. Oh hell nah, I’ve hit 90 driving North to South for an 11.5hr trip. No wonder y’all gave a ten day estimate of arrival.
• Remember comrades, they’ll try to divide us up through tribal differences but look at how their end game is to swindle and torment us.
• The gas station owner keeps mumbling “What’s the country coming to” until Lil Joad tells him off
• No, don’t apologize to him, Lil Joad
• Again it’s just…the cognitive dissonance of living in a country born of colonization and then whining that the capital market is fucking YOU over now like…yeah, my guy
• Oof the dog immediately gets fucked by a hit and run drive-by you will pay for this
• Rose of Sharon thinks either seeing the dog die or panicking because she saw the dog die is going to harm her unborn. Ma’am have you…spoken with a doctor yet (let’s stop fucking around, of course not. And it’s also highly unlikely she and her husband have gotten any childcare education because these are sacred things women should just know)
• Hell nah, Granma fell asleep on the porcelain throne
• The Joads make some friends with the Wilsons on the side of the road and then Grampa dies from a stroke…maybe drugging him wasn’t the best move hindsight is 20/20
• No, suppressing your emotions doesn’t make you more manly, stop it stop
• Lil Joad is like, “Listen, I am a wanted fugitive we have to consider every step we make–” so they don’t mound Grampa’s grave
• Casy: Mōichido yoku miro―omae wa sudeni shinde iru.
• They speculate again about whether there will be enough work in California for everyone. It’s nuts post 2025 seeing how Whites won’t touch crop picking jobs with a 32 n a half foot pole, but in the 1930s this was good prospects. Also, they haven’t considered the expense of living in California vs. Oklahoma.
• By golly, now if we take our our cars together, we’ll certainly get to Calyfornya
• Fergie: If you ain’t got no money, take your broke ass h–[This just in: Police unable to apprehend man seen running around foreclosed properties with dogs and chickens]
• Crackas just trying to make it
• “Married people are gross ew they’re out of shAPE OH MY GOD THEY’RE WEARING MASCARA”
• We visit another diner (the same diner, idk) and Mae gets chewed out by Al because she won’t sell some poor guy their bread when she knows they’ll get more anyways.
• Stop sticking your neck out for companies, you know they’ll fire you in a heartbeat so you might as well help a motherfucker
• Also, the cook plays the slots to pay off people’s meals so like, girl, you trippin
• Rose of Sharon tells Ma that she and Connie want to live on their own and Ma screams internally
• Also we learn that no, she has not yet seen any medical professional for the baby but she wants to
• Oop the Dodge gets a boo-boo
• Ma has an external panic attack when Lil Joad suggests that while he and Casy fix the Dodge the rest keep going to California, so instead they drop off some of them at a camp site so they can fix the car
• Granma is going nuts
• Al wants to spend money drinking…are…you stupid? No, like, are you actually stupid?
• I just feel like the times I had no money flowing in, I wasn’t like, “yeah let me buy excess cuz I’m putting in job apps it’s fine”
• They meet a grody guy at a scrap yard and like he lets them take stuff but he keeps wining like an incel until Lil Joad tells him to get a fucking grip
• I don’t think disabled people should have to hide their disabilities in order to be accepted, but homeboy could stand to take some etiquette courses like PLEASE DONT WIPE SNOT ON YOUR COVERALLS???
• I hate how saying that they have a ’25 Dodge no longer immediately indicates 1925 LMFAO
• I don’t know what most of those words mean but car fixed yay
• Cars are truly the mistake of all time. Look how much garbage is being left on the side of the road or in scrap yards. Look how much stress it’s causing people because their maintenance is so expensive. Salespeople are purposely selling lemons (jalopies) and for what? You get to California and there’s nothing. A train would have you there and back within days, not weeks.
• Al purposefully hits a rabbit with the car wtf dude
• So having a nap on the side of the road will set the coppers after you and this fucker is running a business to let travelers camp out. On one hand, it’s reasonable that they should have to pay something because the homeowner will have to clean up after them if they leave trash, but also if you know these people are dirt poor, lower the price.
• A guy hanging around laughs at everyone for being so optimistic. He tells them how he’s returning from California and he got absolutely fucked over. His wife and two children died from malnutrition. The hiring process is predatory and pay rate is determined by how desperate you are.
• California has the second highest number of homeless people in the USA circa 2024. Nice to know that we’re still fucked.
• The homeowner accuses this poor guy of being a troublemaker, aka A UNION REP?? He got mad at Lil Joad earlier, too.
• Wheh wheh take it or leave it Kulak, We Are Going to TAKE YOUR HOUSE
• LMFAO Only time you’re allowed to be in a union is if it’s the KKK
• Pa is panicking.
• Of all the people gathering about, we’ve heard some mention of Cherokee lineage, but nobody being straight-up Native or Black or other ethnicity.
• You know idgaf about this country because I did NOT know Arizona was right next to California. Why’d I’d think that shit was next to Louisiana??? LMFAO
• Another guy tells the Joads how shitty the job market in California is. Basically a bunch of rich people own most of the land and won’t hire people to work it
• Noah is like “nah” and walks off into the sunset. He’s heard enough.
• Some Jehovah’s Witnesses smell Granma dying and won’t back off until Ma freaks out
• Jehovah’s Witnesses inbreds confirmed
• Rose of Sharon is 18 but hell she’s stupider than a sack of potatoes. Just asks questions becoming of an 8 year old.
• A sheriff tries to rustle Ma’s jimmies and she almost knocks his lil dumb-ass out with a cast iron skillet
• Yeah so turns out being poor will also make the cops hate you
• Sairy Wilson ain’t doing so hot, so the Wilson’s stay behind
• Lil Joad gotta ding dong hee hee!!!1
• Casy cannot escape his history of being a preacher. He has wisdom, which unfortunately others can’t divorce from religion.
• Oh, I guess Connie and Rose of Sharon are actually horny idk Steinbeck’s initial description of her was still weird.
• Uncle John is obsessed knowing whether or not he’s sinned man guilt is one hell of a drug
• While obviously it’s not out of character that the Joads are heavily religious like most Americans, it’s important for the narrative to insist this to the reader so that when passers-by call them “stupid” and “gorillas” they are more heartbroken.
• They have to stop again to be inspected for vegetables and seeds and you know this shit is diabolical because they’re not asking about foreign seeds, they ask about stuff native to California.
• Ma uses Granma as a distraction so that they don’t get inspected, though they don’t have any contraband anyway.
• Lord, Granny was deader than a doornail the whole time
• Lil Joad runs over a rattlesnake on purpose what is with these people and harming animals for no reason YES I UNDERSTAND RATTLESNAKES ARE VENOMOUS doesn’t make you better for hitting one that’s not bothering you
• We get some more deets on how the country came to be the way it is and again, this is totally centered for a white audience. When you have a hypothetical cop say, “They’re just as bad as niggers”, it’s to rally revulsion toward The Man that he should dare accuse you, a white person, of being so lowly. “if they should ever get together…” well 100+ years in hindsight hasn’t produced that fearful harmony. It turns out that you still think of us as niggers first.
• It’s also a highly imperalist narrative. These are AMERICANS, some that have Union OR CONFEDERATE bloodlines, or who once killed Native Americans. Where’s their food?? They’re hungry!!! WHITE!!! Idk fuck off and die colonizers, you’ll fail to organize because you’ll never escape your imperalist roots that depend on the exploitation of the marginalized like those niggers you’ve been so keen on despising.
• Also lmfao at organizing with Black people. When a Southern White person sees a Black person, their conditioned reaction is to start frothing at the mouth. We’re talking about people who have burned down peaceful Black communities because they’re so full of hate. And people in the North are just more inconspicuous in their hatred. You cannot work with this. My own contemporaries (DoB 1995) have been run down by racists.
• Oh, no worries, there’s mention of the exploitation of other minorities–it’s framed as condemnation, yes, but where are those people now? They didn’t all go back across the seas. You didn’t have a problem before telling them to get fucked. They’re not in the caravans with you.
• Like, Steinbeck is on the cusp of realizing the deeper imperalist issue but never gets there because it’s important in rallying the typical American to his cause of worker unionization.
• Funerals are expensive and you can’t not pay something when a loved one dies and you’re broke.
• They get to town and find a Hoovervile and immediately run into a guy who’s gone nuts from the constant abuse.
• Things ain’t looking so hot. Lil Joad and Al make the acquaintance of someone in the camp name Floyd and he tells them this place is absolutely fucked. There’s no work and when there is, demand for the positions determine the rate of pay, which is always peanuts.
• There are stool pigeons (stoolies, informants) in the camp
• Ma tries to make a meal but a bunch of hungry children crowd around and when she feeds them the leftovers another mom has a bitchfit like she’s the source of all their suffering. Y’all’d rather yell at each other for offering your child food than burn a mansion down such is your adherence to individualism. Wack.
• A contractor pulls up in a Chevy and talks about how he’s got jobs but he won’t commit to a pay rate and when Floyd presses him about putting something in writing, he has a Deputy Sheriff accuse the guy of theft and communist propaganda.
• Even though Floyd warned Lil Joad not to stick his neck out, he’s clearly had enough of the harassment and can’t follow his own advice.
• Lil Joad doesn’t like this one bit and gives the Sheriff a single with fries (that’s tough) and the contractor drives off like a bitch. Unfortunately this brings a police unit and the deputy blew a poor lady’s fingers to Timbuktu before passing out.
• Casy takes the blame because he has nothing to lose and Lil Joad and Floyd flee to the brush for a bit.
• Uncle John is having a nervous breakdown again because Casy’s self-sacrifice makes him feel pitiful. Anyway, what’s with these people and holding onto secret money and then being forgiven like have you taken a look around whatever he gets drunk
• Connie may have run off because he didn’t think shit would be this crazy. Ma says not to talk bad about him because he has an unborn child and I’m gunna have to side with Pa on this one. Santa isn’t real and your dad was a quitter.
• As they leave off, they run into the Jan. 6 mob with torches and shit who tell them to go the other fucking way. This pisses Lil Joad off so fucking bad he starts to cry because he’s just promised Ma he would try to behave around these unsympathetic Californians.
• So the mob goes to burn down the Hooverville. See, these people just have violence in their blood.
• Lil Joad wants to find the fabled camp run by the government where no one is treated bad and there’s hot water and plumbing. God speed, brother…
• Lawd have mercy, they arrive at the camp and there’s space for them
• Lil Joad is blown away that the cost of living is just…work for the commune. It’s like some kind of utopia in a world that’s been hellishly unkind.
• So Lil Joad wakes up early and shares some breakfast with some nice neighbors. They have outside work and take him along. They haven’t been in the camp long, but have been in California for months and have the same story of strife that everyone’s been sharing.
• So this farmer has them doing pipe-laying work but not before he gives them an earful about how he’s losing money and might lose his farm and that he’s got to pay them 5 cents less if he’s able to keep up. Looks like he’d have something to gain by banding together with the workers but Americans are terribly selfish in this regard, so he won’t stick his neck out except to warn them that the Committee is planning to get the camp shutdown on Saturday.
• Ruthie and Winfield investigate the toilets and damn I guess they was Hella backwaters because they got scared when it flushed.
• None of them have experienced a shower before.
• There’s this really nice man who might be Colonel Sanders and he greets Ma. She thinks he’s super important but he’s like, “nah” and wanders on his way.
• A woman sees that Rose of Sharon is pregnant and something is immediately off with this lady.
• First, I don’t believe that she’s African-American, though she’s described as black. Steinbeck has been using this to mean that the people are weatherbeaten, tan, or dirty, and beside, from what we know of American history, it’d be highly unlikely that a black person would be peaceably accepted.
• Anyways, this lady is raving about, “I saw Goody Proctor dance with the devil” so she’s one of THOSE and the highly ignorant Rose of Sharon is scared out of her wits when she says that two pregnant women here had miscarriages because they participated in dances and plays.
• Colonel Sanders, who has been accused by this same evangelical as the devil, tries to reassure Rose of Sharon that malnutrition caused those miscarriages, not having fun. And Ma gets stern and tells her that God has more important matters than girls dancing.
• Pa won’t accept that Colonel Sanders is just a chill dude.
• Al won’t shut the hell up about working in a garage and Uncle John won’t shut the hell up about sin. Anyway, they can’t find work anyplace.
• Ma meets the women’s committee and the trio keeps bickering cuz wiminz amirite or some shit. They describe the camp structure and how everything belongs to the camp.
• There’s been a case of disappearing toilet paper and it turns out a woman was too proud to borrow funds to get her kids real food, so they were eating grapes and getting upset stomachs. The committee gets mad at her, but one of them is more sympathetic. She remembers the humiliation ritual the Salvation Army made her family go through to get assistance and assures Ma that this camp is not charity.
• Charity should not exist, not in the sense that individuals can’t give things to one another, but that our taxes should be used to provide stability and comfort. Instead it’s…not. Like, imagine being the most imperalist country in the world and your citizens still need soup kitchens LMFAO
• Ruthie is being a little brat and wants to butt into an on-going game of croquet and discovers the power of SHUNNING. Even Winfield doesn’t help her. Damn bitch, wouldn’t let that shit happen to me tho…
• Ms. DARKSIDED comes to Ma to praise JeeZUZ and then quickly begins talking mad shit about having fun. Ma gets so annoyed she takes up a stick and shakes it at her like a rabid dog. Then this bitch gets overwhelmed and starts convulsing in the Holy Ghost. Colonel Sanders apologizes for the woman’s behavior but asks Ma not to hit her because he’s a peace loving chill guy.
• The dance comes around and everyone is anticipating some villains appearing to ruin all that is good. The Evangelicals are watching everyone dance like goddamn perverts because they have 0 hobbies outside of calling everything darksided and giving all their money away to predators.
• The men’s committee is bitter about the farmers trying to ruin things. One of them recalls a story where a cop accused the camp of stealing tax money and when a guy was like, “…we’re all paying taxes on stuff” he GOT ARRESTED because fascism hates facts.
• They smoke out the troublemakers right in time. The cops are trying to break in but can’t cuz there ain’t no ruckus here, no sir.
• LAWD THEY DOING THE DOL CE DO
• There’s this guy they call Jude the half breed and he’s half Cherokee but he’s all right cuz he’s got the White!!
• They chide the bustas and it’s the same old thing. “We need food.” Yall ain’t got no togetherness.
• Pa and a group of fellas talk about rough timez and one guy again talks about union organization and fighting back as a group against injustice yeah good luck with that buddy yall ain’t built with the right stuff. Weak as hell.
• Someone mentions how good the Native Americans have it on reservations and I have some bad news for you, buddy…
• Also to get even the reservations, Native Americans had to fight to the death, which is something you’re clearly only willing to do over slaves, so…
• Rose of Sharon and Winfield are looking particularly ill and Ma has everyone sit down because there hasn’t been any work for anyone since Lil Joad got something for a little bit. They begrudgingly decide to leave.
• Never refer to a fertile hill as a breast ever again I swear to god
• As they’re moseying around, some guy with a big-ass ring asks if they’re looking for work and tells them to look for Hooper Ranch which has peach picking work.
• They find this place and there’s some cops and ruckus going on. The Joads get ushered in and it keeps getting weird. They get assigned a hut with an iron stove. Get to work.
• So if any of the peaches get bruised the whole batch is considered bunk. Get good scrub, ten cents a bucket
• They make a dollar combined by the end of the day, which they can use at the Ranch grocery store. Ma goes in and the Eggman looking MFer is getting glee out of her not understanding the grift. Everything is priced more expensively and of poorer quality. It’s not worth driving into town (or maybe it would be if you all got together, made a comprehensive list, and sent some people in a carpool but you know…). Eggman’s got a cat though, so he pays a dime for Ma’s sugar because he’s in this hell, too.
• Lil Joad is still hella suspicious about all this so he goes sniffing about. He and Al run into a guard and ask about water and when they have the audacity to ask if there’s heating, he gets pissy. The the guard starts whining to his coworker and we find out they’re worried about their wages, too. Man, y’all’re crooked to the core.
• Another guard tells Lil Joad to fuck off cuz there are reds on the prowl. Interesting. He gets outside the barbed wire and runs into Casy!
• So Casy and his pals were working at Hooper Ranch and when they were told that they were going from $0.05 to $0.02, they were like “Oh hell nah” and went on strike. Lil Joad and the current company are currently breaking the strike ignorantly. They’re getting $0.05 right now but it’ll drop lower once the strike is destroyed completely.
• Casy pleads with Lil Joad to spread the word to the others. Lil Joad is worried that people just won’t care because their children are dying. This is the sacrifice you have to be willing to make, but if you had any class consciousness it wouldn’t have gotten to the point of your loved ones dying. Put up a fit before that.
• The boys think they hear something and quit the tent. They’re getting CHASED. Some Yankee PoS gets angry at Casy beats his head in because God forbid you advocate for fair wages.
• Lil Joad fucking loses it and probably kills this guy but not without getting his face smashed himself
• He sneaks back to the shit hut and can’t sleep for the pain but in the morning all is revealed. They gotta come up with a plan quick cuz Lil Joad is a wanted man again
• Rose of Sharon needs to be sedated lmfao It’s because of her pregnancy but holy shit she’s bugging out
• Winfield has been eating peaches nonstop because he’s starving but it’s upsetting his stomach and he’s dropped in seizure
• Good god this is just too much laaaaawd
• Anyway, they sneak Lil Joad out and leave this wack hell hole
• They get a sweet gig picking cotton hoo boy!! They’re still living in their cars, subject to the weather but lawdy lawdy theys food now!!
• Must I recount the racism?
• There’s just something mean in Ruthie. It’s to be expected given the lack of stability but it’s no less exhausting. She’s so feral, her father calls her a bitch when she partially reveals Lil Joad’s crime. He should not have called her that; it’s not her fault that her sole role models are violent women exasperated by misfortune.
• Ma tells Lil Joad Ruthie’s slip-up. Lil Joad speculates about rousing the people like Casy. Nothing comes of this and we never see him again.
• Al decides to marry the girl of a family the Joads have snuggled up with in the cotton picking camp. Yes, yes, it’s the hopeful story of resilience if only it weren’t so pathetic. Your children will starve because you won’t hold your government accountable. American Dream!
• So Rose of Sharon goes into labor but it’s raining badly all over California. So the river is beginning to flood and Pa convinces the others in the camp to dig a moat of sorts.
• Unfortunately, Rose of Sharon has a stillborn and the moat floods over. All this and someone has the audacity to get mad at Pa. Not even this will make you rebel against your government. Again, you’d prefer attacking one another.
• The car is stuck in the mire and the family is stuck with the car, but this is untenable. Ma urges the family to leave the car for now and then trek aimlessly until they find a dilapidated barn.
• You can tell an average man wrote this because no way would a sane woman have Rose of Sharon breast feed these starving peasants. It’s just plausible enough to excuse within the theme of desperation but also clearly a fetish if you have any experience with other writers doing this.
• That’s it. The grapes are wrathful but not revolutionary.