The Grapes of Wrath

With their arrival at the government camp, the Joads are given a sense of dignity and hope for the first time in California. This is in part due to sanitation, hot water, and freedom from police harassment. It is also a consequence of the feeling of community and communal self-respect that the camp fosters. Nowhere is this better epitomized than in the event and symbol of the dance. As a lookout for troublemakers says to Tom, “These here dances done funny things. Our people got nothing, but jes’ because they can ast their frien’s to come here to the dance, sets ‘em up an’ makes ‘em proud” (355). The dance, with its attendant music and dramatic performances, is an important source of joy and consolation for the migrants. It is also a focal point and celebration of the bonds that hold them together as a group. It is something they can be proud of in the eyes of others.

Moreover, this ties into Steinbeck’s view of pleasure and culture. As outlined in Chapter 23, he sees culture as essentially communal. Expressed in the figure of the storyteller, “to whom the people listened” (340), art and literature should speak to the people. It should also speak about the people, capturing and reimagining their experiences, trials, joys, and dreams. And critically it should serve to bring them together. By establishing a shared tradition of songs and stories, it should help foster a communal sense of belonging rooted in a shared past. This in turn can help generate a shared sense of future. Steinbeck even envisages a role for alcohol in this. Insofar as it breaks down the barriers between people, alcohol can serve an important unifying function. It can mold isolated people into a group and make them receptive to what he calls “the brotherhood of the worlds” (343).

However, religion as presented in The Grapes of Wrath is opposed to all of this. As represented by “Jesus-loving” Mrs. Sandry, religion tries to convince people that ordinary pleasures and consolations are sinful. Drink, sex, dancing, and theater are all immoral, and trafficking with them results in divine punishment. This is what she claims happened to a woman in the camp who miscarried. Yet the problem is not just that, as Ma says to the woman, “You’d take the little pleasure, wouldn’ you” (335). The issue is not merely that some religious authorities rob poor people of their few joys. Rather, on a deeper level, it is that religion encourages divisiveness and a desire to feel “better” than others. This is seen with the sermon Mrs. Sandry attends outside the camp. As she says, the preacher said, “Ever’body that ain’t here is a black sinner” (335). This is something she admits “made a person feel purty good to hear” (335).

Although religion claims to be about saving everyone’s souls, religion as depicted here is really about establishing the moral superiority of a few. It often involves debasing others for this goal. This is witnessed in a migrant woman’s account of her experience with the salvation army. Her family was starving, she explains, and “they made us crawl for our dinner” (331). Similarly, in a sermon by a ditch, a preacher delights in making people grovel on the ground beneath him, hoping only that he could make all men do likewise.

Worse, this worship of hierarchy extends to the political domain. Religion’s obsession with the “higher” and “lower,” implicit in the idea of “saved” and “sinners”, as well as concern that it would render them redundant, makes them opposed to social reform. This is why preachers form part of a reactionary chorus with newspapers against trade unions, at the end of Chapter 24. It also forms the kernel of Mrs. Sandry’s preacher’s opposition to the government camps. The essential “wickedness” of such places, he points out, is that with them, “the poor is tryin’ to be rich” (335). The poor need to know their place. Furthermore, while they can be occasionally offered scraps of charity and divine help, they are above all never to act for themselves. This is the opposite of Casy’s ideal of “holiness.” This is the ideal of true human equality and agency, and it can be found rather in the joy of the dance and the solidarity of political struggle for a materially better life.