Grapes Guide.pdf - Minnesota Opera

This is precisely the strategy in The Grapes of Wrath. Whatever value the Joads have as individuals is “incidental” to
their primary function as a “personalized group.” Kenneth Burke has pointed out that “… most of the characters derive
their role, which is to say their personality, purely from their relationship to the basic situation.” 31 What he takes to be
a serious weakness is actually one of the book’s greatest accomplishments. The characters are so absorbed into the novel’s
materials that the reader’s response goes beyond sympathy for the individuals to moral indignation at their social
condition. This is, of course, precisely Steinbeck’s intention. And certainly the Joads are adequate for this purpose. This
conception of character is a parallel to the fusing of the “scenic” and “panoramic” techniques in the narrative and
interchapters.
Although the diverse materials of The Grapes of Wrath made organization by a unifying plot difficult, nevertheless the
novel does have structural form. The action progresses through three successive movements, and its significance is
revealed by an intricate system of themes and symbols.
The Grapes of Wrath is divided into thirty consecutive chapters with no larger grouping, but even a cursory reading
reveals that the novel is made up of three major parts: the drought, the journey, and California. The first section ends
with chapter 10. It is separated from the second section, the journey, by two interchapters. The first of these chapters
presents a picture of the deserted land – “The houses were left vacant on the land, and the land was vacant because of
this.” The second interchapter is devoted to Highway 66 and is followed by chapter 13, which begins the Joads’ journey
– “The ancient overloaded Hudson creaked and grunted to the highway at Sallisaw and turned west, arid the sun was
blinding.” The journey section extends past the geographical California border, across the desert to Bakersfield. This
section ends with chapter 18, “And the truck rolled down the mountain into the great valley,” and the next chapter
begins the California section by introducing the reader to labor conditions in that state. Steinbeck had this tripartite
division in mind as early as September of 1937, when he told Joseph Henry Jackson that he was working on “the first
of three related longer novels.” 32
Like the prose style of the philosophical passages in the interchapters, this structure has its roots in the Old Testament.
The novel’s three sections correspond to the oppression in Egypt, the exodus, and the sojourn in the land of Canaan,
which in both accounts is first viewed from the mountains. This parallel is not worked out in detail, but the grand
design is there: the plagues (erosion), the Egyptians (banks), the exodus (journey), and the hostile tribes of Canaan
(Californians).
This Biblical structure is supported by a continuum of symbols and symbolic actions. The most pervasive symbolism is
that of grapes. The novel’s title, taken from “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” (“He is trampling out the vintage
where the grapes of wrath are stored”) is itself a reference to Revelation: “And the angel thrust in his sickle into the
earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.” (14:19) Similarly,
in Deuteronomy: “Their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter. Their wine is the poison of serpents….”
(32:32); in Jeremiah: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and their children’s teeth are set on edge.’ (31:29) Sometimes
this meaning of the symbol is stated in the novel’s interchapters: “In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are
filling and growing heavy, heavy for the vintage.”
Steinbeck also uses grapes for symbols of plenty, as the one huge cluster of grapes which Joshua and Oshea bring back
from their first excursion into tie rich land of Canaan is a symbol of plenty, a cluster so huge that “they bare it between
two on a staff.” (Numbers, 18:23) It is this meaning of grapes that is frequently alluded to by Grampa Joad: “Gonna
get me a whole big bunch a grapes off a bush, or whatever, an’ I’m gonna squash ‘em on my face an’ let ‘em run often
my chin.” Although Grampa dies long before the Joads get to California, he is symbolically present through the
anonymous old man in the barn (stable), who is saved from starvation by Rosasharn’s breasts: “This thy stature is like
to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.” 33 (Canticles, 7:7) Rosasharn’s giving of new life to the old man is
another reference to the orthodox interpretation of Canticles “I [Christ] am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys”
(2:1); and to the Gospels: “take, eat; this is my body.” Still another important Biblical symbol is Jim Casy (Jesus Christ),
who will be discussed in another connection.
appendix a
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