I show a series of photographs to my students to teach them method’s of analysis in visual media. Gordon Parks has a series of photos that he took during the depression. one of which is a response to an American piece of art American Gothic. Parks was urged to not publish the photo because it was “an indictment of the United States of America”. The photo itself was of a black woman standing with a mop, in front of an American flag. Ironically, The Grapes of Wrath, the great American novel, is an indictment of the United States of America.

I show this series of photographs to my class not because I hate America. I love America, it is my home. But I want it to change. I don’t believe that there are a set of ideals that we’ve drifted from that we need to return to make our home great again. Rather, we need to take our ideals in one hand and our missteps in another and learn from them to progress as a country. If it is our intent to be a nation under God, we shouldn’t try and hide our sin from Him. Sin is crouching at the door, and we must master over it (that was a reference to the Bible, kander).

Tom Joad is a compelling protagonist. He comes off as strangely unlikable in the first chapters of the book. My initial characterization of him was an unpredictable bully, but that very quickly changed. Tom Joad is a good man. The dignity that he exists in this world with is a loadstone for how a man can treat himself in a world that is moving away from him. His friendship with Casy is beautiful and I think that the conversations that Tom has with the preacher can be a demonstration of how men communicate with one another when they are stripped down to the studs. Tom’s interactions with his family are also fascinating. Though much of the emotional depth is buried with the other men in the family, Tom is usually forthright with how he feels even if what he is about to do is contrary to how he feels. The bruskness of the advise he gives the man without the eye, The silent sobs he chokes as he drives away from the Needles Hooverville, the tenderness he expresses to his mother after the deaths of Grandma, the curiosity he feels when he sneaks away from the Peach farm, and finally, the rage he explodes with when he kills Casy’s murderer.

The family is ground into fine dust, but it never robs them of their dignity. In the situations they are put in, I would be provoked to be selfish (it doesn’t take much). But the Joad’s are generous in their destitute. These people have nothing, and they share their nothing with others. I was dumbfounded at the ending at first but I understood after a reread that Rose of Sharon at the end of her rope, is still able to share what she has with the stranger. This is one of the critical charges of America our refusal to be generous to one another as a society.

Tom remembers a single quote of scripture that Casy told him, and I think this is a central theme for the novel as a whole. He remembers the portion of Ecclesiastes where “The Preacher” describes the paradox of two being greater than one in their labor. This is one of the last moments we have with Tom before he exists stage left and we don’t see him again in the novel (like so many characters in this book). This is the danger, “for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first “we” there grows a still more dangerous thing: ‘I have a little food’ plus ‘I have none’. If from this problem the sum is ‘We have a little food’, the thing is on its way, the movement has direction… This is the beginning from ‘I’ to ‘we’ (Steinbeck, 151-152). Steinbeck, critiques our hot not because he hates it, but because he so clearly loves it and wants to see it change. America was never supposed to be about the ultra rich commanding the rhetoric to control the poor. The rich have taken control of industry, and the government, and we are being deceived. Instead of demanding change from the rich, we murder each other and blame our political adversaries. Here is the point, “you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two (the poor) squatting men apart; make them hate, fear and suspect each other” (151). We become so invested in the little crimes that are being committed between one another, that we forget the grand crimes being committed by the powerful, and the men sitting in the iron [throne] [do] not look like [men] (35).

Never have I ever been so steeped in sorrow, yet awash in human dignity.

Have no fear,

C. Randir