A social realist and political thinker, John Steinbeck was drawn to the lives of the ordinary and downtrodden and to stories of social injustice. His first novel was published in 1929, but it was the slim 1937 novella Of Mice and Men that brought him to the literary world’s attention. Two years later, with World War Two fast approaching, Steinbeck’s masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath, was published. It tells the story of the Joads, a family of tenant farmers forced to leave their smallholding in Oklahoma to seek an uncertain future in California.
ON THE ROAD
Considered as a ‘great American novel’, The Grapes of Wrath describes the poverty and desperation of the Great Depression that sent shock waves through US society. In addition to the economic crisis, during the second half of the 1930s a period of terrible dust storms known as the Dust Bowl swept acrossthe American prairies, leaving crops dying and communities destitute. Like many other ‘Okies’ – refugee farmers and workers from Oklahoma – the Joads are forced to load up their few possessions and get on the road to seek work:
“But if we go, where’ll we go? How’ll we go? We got no money.
We’re sorry, said the owner men. The bank, the fifty-thousand-acre owner can’t be responsible. You’re on land that isn’t yours.”
“Ma dove andremo se ce ne andiamo? Come faremo? Non abbiamo denaro.
Ci dispiace, dicevano i delegati. Non è una responsabilità della banca, del proprietario di cinquantamila acri. Siete su una terra che non vi appartiene.”
RETURNING HOME
Tom Joad, the protagonist of The Grapes of Wrath, is first encountered returning home after his release from prison. Hitching a ride in a truck, he looks out at the ruined crops and Dust Bowl landscape and can feel the driver assessing him:
“’I’ll tell you anything. Name’s Joad, Tom Joad. Old man is ol’ Tom Joad.’ His eyes rested broodingly on the driver.
‘Don’t get sore. I didn’t mean nothin’.’
‘I don’t mean nothin’ neither,’ said Joad. ‘I’m just tryin’ to get along without shovin’ nobody around.’ He stopped and looked out at the dry fields, and the starved tree clumps standing uneasily in the heated distance.’”
““Ti dico tutto io. Mi chiamo Jod, Tom Joad. E il mio vecchio si chiama uguale, Tom Joad.” Fissò l’autista con aria di sfida.
“Non te la pigliare. Mica t’ho detto qualcosa.”
“Manco io ti ho detto qualcosa,” disse Joad. “Vedo solo di tirare dritto senza seccare nessuno.” Tacque e si voltò a guardare i campi riarsi nell’aria torrida, le chiome pendule degli alberi in lontananza.”
DUST TO DUST
The title of Steinbeck’s masterpiece is taken from a famous hymn by Julia Ward Howe, a social activist and advocate of abolitionism. The novel alternates between the story of the Joad family’s exodus and Steinbeck’s poetic, political, angry commentary about the rapid changes in society as industrialisation takes hold:
“And all the time the farms grew larger and the owners fewer. And there were pitifully few farmers on the land any more. And the imported serfs were beaten and frightened and starved until some went home again, and some grew fierce and were killed or driven from the country. And the farms grew larger and the owners fewer.”
“E le fattorie continuavano a ingrandirsi e i proprietari a diminuire. E ormai gli agricoltori nei campi erano disperatamente pochi. E i servi importati venivano picchiati e spaventati e affamati, tanto che alcuni di loro se ne tornavano in patria, altri si ribellavano e venivano uccisi o scacciati dal paese. E le fattorie s’ingrandivano e i proprietari diminuivano.”
BURNING BOOKS
The Joads’ story is one of tragedy but also one of hope. The Grapes of Wrath was a big success, selling ten thousand copies a week at its peak. Not everybody was impressed, though. The Associated Farmers of California called the book “communist propaganda” and it was burned and banned from many libraries. Yet the central message of the novel is one of redemption and endurance of the human spirit, family and community even in the most extreme conditions:
“Tom laughed uneasily. ‘Well, maybe like Casy says, a fellow ain’t got a soul of his own, but on’y a piece of a big one – an’ then-‘
‘Then what, Tom?’
‘Then it don’ matter. Then I’ll be aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be ever’where – wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there.”
“Tom fece una risatina imbarazzata. “Be’, magari è come diceva Casy, che uno non ha un’anima tutta sua ma solo un pezzo di un’anima grande... e così...”
“E così che, Tom?”
“E così non importa. Perché io ci sarò sempre, nascosto e dappertutto. Sarò in tutt’i posti... dappertutto dove ti giri a guardare. Dove c’è qualcuno che lotta per dar da mangiare a chi ha fame, io sarò lì.”
TRIBUTE
Steinbeck produced more than thirty works during his illustrious career, many adapted for stage and screen. John Ford directed the classic Hollywood movie version of The Grapes of Wrath in 1940, starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad. In 1962 Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Bruce Springsteen recorded a tribute album, The Ghost of Tom Joad, in 1995.