The Grapes of Wrath: Chapters 21- 30

The Grapes of Wrath: Chapters 21- 30

Late Harvest Grapes (binary/octet-stream)

• The Grapes of Wrath. Chapters 1 -10. Plot Summary
• Grapes of Wrath Plot summary Chapters 11- 20

Chapter 21

The narrator explains the process of wage capitalism. The local militias are made of men with only a little more than the Okies. They are made to fight against their own people. 'I get paid 15 dollars a week',  a clerk may think 'but a newcomer says he'll do the work for 12', how do they compete with that? The only winner is the paymaster who keeps wages low, but the price of goods high. So, he sends out more flyers advertising work, to make pay lower and his own pockets swell. The land is rich. The silos are filled with grain. Ripe fruit bursts from the trees. But the people starve because they cannot afford what comes from the earth for free. 

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Chapter 22

The family drive into the Weedpatch camp, where one space has just come free. The camp is government run, free of crooked cops and a place where Okies govern themselves. The place is clean, with running water, baths and shower. This is a place where migrants can reclaim a sense of dignity.  Tom gets some work with new friends Timothy and Wilkie Wallace on a farm. The kind owner, Mr Thomas, tells them about a pay cut decided on by the Farmers Association. He then warns the boys about a plan to infiltrate the Weedpatch camp at the Saturday night dance. Back at the camp, Ma and Rosasharn meet the welcoming committee, who inform them about camp life. One woman, Lisbeth Sandry,  warns Rosasharn that babies of sinning parents are born still. Ma shouts at the woman to get out of her sight.

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Chapter 23

In chapter 23, the narrator describes how people have needs beyond the basic. How, when food and shelter have been met, how people require entertainment - storytelling, or music, dancing or any of the simple pleasures that they can take part in. Sometimes the drunkness becomes the lonely pleasure, while sometimes it may be romance. Sometimes a combination of the two. Pleasure and entertainment is not, the author believes, a luxury good, but rather a basic entitlement that must be satiated.  'THE MIGRANT PEOPLE looked humbly for pleasure on the roads.'

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Chapter 24

It is Saturday and the camp is preparing for the weekly dance. The central committee meets to discuss the tip-off about trouble-makers hired by the Farmer's Association.  When the dance starts, the lookouts spot three strangers. Tom and the other men stand close and, when they try to start trouble, they are instantly surrounded and non-violently ejected from the dance. The three are also migrants, bribed by desperation to cause trouble against their own kind.  Pa and the older men talk work and unions. One tells the story of rubber workers in Akron who were similarly patronized. The workers organized and marched through town with 5000 rifles for a supposed 'turkey shoot'. They were left alone after that. 

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Chapter 25

The narrator describes the fertile valleys of California, where food grows abundantly. This bumper growth is helped by the work of researchers and chemists who are ever finding new ways to improve the crop growth.  But the landowners and the wholesalers work to keep prices high. The excess produce is destroyed. And the migrants starve.  'And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth. There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize.' 

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Chapter 26

After a month in the Weedpatch camp, food and work are running low. Sad to leave, Ma decides that the Joads must depart in search of more work. Pa is angry at being overruled by a woman, but his position is now symbolic and Ma figures that his anger is a good sign - a sign that he may yet still fight.  The family get work picking peaches on the Hooper ranch. A whole day's work gets them a dollar, which is barely enough to feed them that day.  Tom meets Jim Casy, who is back from jail and organizing strikes against the treatment of migrants. As they talk, men approach and kill Casy with a pick-axe for stirring trouble. In retaliation, Tom kills one man, but is injured before he gets away. The wage drops the next day to half. Tom must hide so his broken nose doesn't give him away to the authorities. The family leave to pick cotton on another farm, and move to live in a boxcar. Tom must hide in a culvert till he heals. The family sneak him food.

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Chapter 27

The migrants know all about picking cotton. This was a crop they were familiar with. It reminded them of home and made them feel valuable again - 'Never seen no cotton like this here California cotton. Long fiber, bes' damn cotton I ever seen. Spoil the lan' pretty soon. Like a fella wants to buy some cotton lan'—Don' buy her, rent her. Then when she's cottoned on down, move someplace new.' The cotton farmers were fairer than the peach farmers. The migrants were paid enough to afford meat for a change. This might give them a little strength before the season ended and the winter set in. 

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Chapter 28

The cotton picking is going well. The Joads share a box-car with a family called the Wainwrights. They can eat. Then young Ruthie gets into an argument with other kids. She boasts that her brother has killed two men. Ma is worried and rushes to Tom, who is living in a nearby cave.  He knows he must leave. He has been thinking about Jim Casy and wants to carry on the work he started - organizing the poor so that they can get a fairer slice of the pie. It is dangerous, but the right thing to do.  The son, Al, plans to marry Aggie Wainwright. He too will leave the family.  It begins to rain and Rosasharn feels unwell. 

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Chapter 29

In the last of the narrator chapters, the omniscient voice describes the worsening weather. Antithetical to the dusty drought that drove the migrants from middle America in the opening chapters, this flood begins slowly - just a few drops at first, that gathers into deluges and torrents.  All work stops. All payment stops. 'Then the sickness came, pneumonia, and measles that went to the eyes and to the mastoids.' The families turned to begging. The pity turned to anger. Doctors were too busy to help, but not as busy as the coroner.  'The women watched the men, watched to see whether the break had come at last... And where a number of men gathered together, the fear went from their faces, and anger took its place. And the women sighed with relief, for they knew it was all right—the break had not come; and the break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath.'  

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Chapter 30

Pa, John and the remaining men work to build a dam. During this  time, Rosasharn goes into labor.  The men work tirelessly, but their graft is destroyed by an uprooted tree crashing into the dam. The water pours in and floods the field. All the vehicles are water damaged. The water continues to rise. The baby is still born, probably a result of malnutrition. The water still rises. They leave to seek higher ground.  In a barn, they find a boy and a starving old man. He is near death, devoid of all strength. He desperately needs nourishment. Rosasharn, in the book's closing image of kindness, holds him to her lactating breast and suckles him.

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