Grapes of Wrath: Greatest American Novel...until the End

Along with my newfound Doctor Who obsession, I have also been taking my sweet time reading John Steinbeck's greatest novel, The Grapes of Wrath, which also may be the greatest American novel to date. I should have read it ages ago, and as I got started with it, I came to agree with the critics who so highly praised this book...

...until it got to the ending.

The Grapes of Wrath, though it takes place during the worst of the Great Depression, where things were much worse, as a greater proportion of the population was starving or near-starving--still resonates strongly with today's circumstances. The novel, aside from several intermittent chapters that examine the times holistically, follows the Joad family as they reunite (when Tom returns home from jail) only to slowly be torn apart as they travel to California in search of work. Each character has their own epiphany, with only Tom, Rose of Sharon, and their parents holding onto what little hope they have left in the end.

Steinbeck's interludes were poetic and resonant, touching on themes and changes that were both specific to the time and universal: the development of technology, the displacement of poor farmers, the economic disparity, big business' takeover and pushing over of the little guy, the struggle to find work and financial stability. The story could have easily been a dystopian, post-apocalyptic novel had it been any other setting, with the struggling masses, selfish masters, and rare little pockets of freedom. The characters speak in thick accented Midwestern English, put it doesn't make them seem ignorant; they're just expressing their feelings and thoughts in their own way. Sometimes what they say is even profound, characteristically and thematically.

And each character goes through his or her own transformation over the course of the novel. Tom, previously ignorant of the rampant injustice, realizes that he can't take all of this lying down, and leaves the family to fight on for equality and justice. Noah would prefer to live alone in the wilderness. Al realizes he would rather have a career as an auto mechanic than work on farms all of his life. This novel was crafted to perfection--or as perfect as Steinbeck could make a novel.

Some things are obviously dated, however: throughout the novel (moreso in the beginning), objects are often referred to as "she" rather than "it," a very sexist pronoun assignment, and several times the characters try to run over animals ON PURPOSE while they're driving their car--an idea that is completely abhorrent and that I had never even dreamed of before. Then, there is a scene from their time in the government camp in which Al rapes a girl he's met in secret--but of course is not characterized as such, and Al is supposed to be a sympathetic character.

Now, I could largely forgive the characters' lack of respect for animal and women's rights, due to the date of the text and the ignorance and struggle of these impoverished characters, and the prose, characterization, and thematic resonance are so amazingly done. But when I got to the final pages of the novel, when the handful of Joads left abandon their makeshift boxcar home to the floods and take shelter in a barn, I was left scratching my head. In the barn, there is a young boy and a starving man who is near death. Then Rosaharn, clothes soaking wet, snuggles up next to the dying man naked as if to comfort him, then looks upwards with a "mysterious smile" on her face.

Seriously. That's how it ends.

I can't figure whether to interpret the ending as good or bad. Is it good because they will still be kind to those who are even less fortunate than they are? Or is it bad because Rosaharn is acting like a slut, a "comfort woman"? Or bad because they're all just gonna starve anyway, and she's smiling because she's insane from illness? I suppose it's whatever you interpret it to be, but it seemed to be out-of-place with all the other thematically resonant scenes in the novel, and the ending is one that makes an impression.*

Still, this novel is one of America's finest. Our writers don't always make sense. 4 out of 5 stars. Oppression score: 4 (though I think most of it would be obvious to 21st-century readers, anyway). Highly recommended to people who would like to write politically-charged, controversial, or other works featuring people who speak a different dialect.

*Okay, so I did some cheatish research, and it turns out to be a reference of to the painting Roman Charity, where a woman breastfeeds her ailing father back to health. So it is, more likely, kindness that she is expressing. Excuse me for growing up so grossly uncultured. Still, it's an odd scene--even after knowing the reference.