December 22, 2014
I only have a half day of work tomorrow, then a 12 day break! I'm looking forward to it, even though we just had a whole week off last month. I'm feeling a bit worn out, and my goal is to get energized and revamp my curriculum with the time I have to plan and reflect. And of course to read; I've already more than met my Goodreads goal for the year, but more is more when it comes to quality literature.
A colleague of mine at my last job loved this book, and was determined to use it with one of her high school classes. At the time I thought it was ill-advised: it's pretty lengthy, and may not be fully accessible to the struggling readers. But she persisted, and unfortunately, even her most avid readers were unimpressed. Now, I can understand her enthusiasm, as I loved this book, too. I'd say now that Of Mice and Men would have been a much better choice. The length wouldn't psych the kids out, and there are similar themes. Plus, my appreciation for the shorter work led me to pick this one up, and I'm definitely not sorry.
I couldn't help comparing this book to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Both show the problems of a huge, underrepresented population and the injustices they face through the story of a single family. Unlike The Jungle, the story of the Joad family isn't so lugubrious, though lots of shit happens to them.
Now, there are many fictional works about the experiences of farmers during the Depression, especially those in the Dust Bowl. But Steinbeck wrote and published about the plight of the migrant worker while it was going on. It's definitely a political work; Steinbeck shows how migrant workers are subject to harassment by corrupt police officers and how they're ripped off by corporate farms, who lured all these people out to California in the first place! They wanted as cheap of labor as they could get, and fuck the rest. "Okies" are kept from forming unions or speaking out by police brutality. And thousands of families are nickeled and dimed literally to death.
The story of the Joads lacks in hope from the beginning. In much shorter chapters between the ones following the Joads, Steinbeck describes the bleak situations that displaced "Oakies" faced: crooked used car salesmen, judgemental store owners, cynical money-grubbing landowners, few job opportunities, less and less means for food. The Joad family, kicked off their dusty farmland, head to California with some hopes, but really because they didn't know what else to do. For several months, they lost family members (Granpa, Granma, dead; Noah and Connie, both off on their own; Casy, their ex-preacher friend who started a union but was killed; Tom, who ran off after killing Casy's killer), they lived out of one-room shacks or boxcars or tents; they worked hard for pennies when they could actually get a job; they lived like animals and were just glad when they had enough for food. Things look bleak for the Joads at the end: out of money, heavy rains and no work, car flooded out. Will they die? Will they find a way to...somewhere? Shit, where? They have no where, nothing.
And yet, on the last page, they still give what little they have to a dying man. Rose of Sharon (awesome name) had a stillborn child, but she still had milk, and she gives it to a starving man in a barn. That's heartbreaking, yet described so matter-of-factly. Because the Joads (especially Ma) are strong people, and are determined to move forward. But are they stronger than others who have died or been defeated before them? The reader doesn't know for sure.
It's no wonder that this is Steinbeck's most celebrated work. I think high schoolers should be exposed to Steinbeck, but maybe The Grapes of Wrath would work best with an advanced class. Of Mice and Men could get some younger readers moving in the right direction. I think that both of these are essential classics, and I'm glad they're part of the many books I've been able to read this year.
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