1014 steinbeck, John
he should travel with them, gathering in a circle
around their truck while Casy, the outsider, waits
beyond the circle for a verdict. The family dynamics
initially change when they invite Casy to symboli-
cally join their circle, and thus their family. Next,
the Wilsons bond with the Joads after helping
to bury Grandpa, and the common experience of
death unites them. Steinbeck’s conception of fam-
ily is best exemplified through Weed Patch, an
idyllic government camp where residents become
a new family with a common desire to persevere
against poverty and injustice. Over and over again,
Steinbeck’s vision of family transcends physical and
biological limits.
Ma’s greatest fear has been the breakdown of her
own family, but her individual failure provides the
chance for collective success among the migrants.
This concept is illustrated by the failed strike Casy
leads at the Hooper ranch because families will
accept lower wages to keep from starving. Tom first
defends his own family’s right to food but later
comprehends Casy’s idea of community collabora-
tion. “Think Pa’s gonna give up his meat on account
a other fellas?” he questions Casy. A pivotal turning
point occurs when Tom must leave the family after
killing a deputy to protect the strikers. Tom’s fare-
well words to Ma articulate Steinbeck’s conception
of family: All humans are connected as little pieces
of one big soul, implying individual needs must be
secondary to the greater good of all.
The final scene of the novel embodies Tom’s
prophetic words to Ma and functions as a visual
tableau to represent Steinbeck’s collective definition
of family. The novel seems to end in despair after
the anticlimactic birth of Rose of Sharon’s stillborn
baby, the flood, and Pa’s failed attempt to build a
dam. However, Steinbeck suggests there is still hope
for the oppressed. In a highly symbolic yet contro-
versial action, Rose of Sharon offers her breast milk
to a starving man. In the midst of defeat for the
Joads, she represents the mother of all humanity,
a life-giving force that, through unselfishness, can
preserve human life and, thus, hope for the suffer-
ing migrants.
The sustaining force of the family is an impor-
tant theme in The Grapes of Wrath, though Stein-
beck’s definition of family expands to include all
suffering humans. In a world where the forces
of nature and powers of injustice seem to conspire
against the ordinary person, individuals can survive
and ultimately triumph by helping one another
because there is strength in unity.
Stephanie TamanahareLIGIon in The Grapes of Wrath
One of the central concerns of John Steinbeck’s The
Grapes of Wrath is to question the place of religion
in a society where everything that once gave our
lives structure has eroded beyond repair. The Great
Depression exerts tremendous pressures on the Joad
family and the other migrants who struggle to find
answers to comprehend their intense sufferings.
They are constantly cheated, their children begin
to starve to death due to the cruel greed of other
supposed Christians, and ascertaining the correct
human response to this injustice is central to the
novel. Interestingly, the text does not present a theo-
dicy (a justification of why God allows the righteous
to suffer). Instead, it assumes that religion is a social
construct and therefore untrue, and it attempts to
craft a new philosophy of living based in love for
humanity, opposition to injustice and evil, and a
belief in the fundamental unity and holiness of all.
In contrast to the new religion advocated by the
novel, the inadequacies of traditional Christianity
are clearly presented. Mainline denominations are
depicted as buttressing the establishment and turn-
ing a blind eye to the sufferings of the poor, while
charismatic Christianity is depicted as the domain
of false preachers who greedily collect money from
the poor and pretend to help them through short-
term solutions that merely distract them from their
troubles.
Steinbeck presents his vision of social justice
through his account of one of the novel’s central
characters, Jim Casy, a former charismatic preacher
who visits the Joads’ community in western Okla-
homa several times. On each occasion, the people
were overcome with emotions that they took for
the baptism of the Holy Spirit. However, a break
with Casy’s belief in Christianity comes through his
intense desire—after preaching—to have sex with
girls who had listened to him and who, through an
apparently widespread association of the spiritual