Surely the Joad's had a right to shoot somebody. Perhaps the tractor operator who’s bulldozing their home? Or maybe the company-man who served the eviction notice? Or, better yet, the head of the evicting bank itself? But no amount of blood-letting will stop the inevitable. The Joad’s are broke and now homeless.
In the old days things weren’t this way. People looked out for one another. A few years of drouth didn’t cause lenders to call-up debts. No, the farmers to whom they leant came to their office, looked one another in the eyes, and shook hands, understanding full well that lean years were always followed by prosperous ones. But these new banks, these new companies, can’t weather loss, “because these creatures don’t breath air; don’t eat side-meat. They breath profits; they eat the interest on money.” These new companies are much like the tractors which they use to replace men and horses; certainly more efficient, yes, but at what cost? “When a horse stops work and goes into the barn there is a life and a vitality left. There is a warmth of life in the barn, and the heat and smell of life. But when the motor of a tractor stops, it is as dead as the ore it comes from.”
Death is something the Joad’s are familiar with. Hadn’t they buried generations of kin in their very yard? But not this kind of death, not the kind one feels when loading up all their worldly belongings into a decrepit jalopy, being forced to stare back through a dust trail and say goodbye to the home which they had built with their own hands. It didn’t matter, though, this longing. What they had lost they could regain, if only they could get to California. Hadn’t the handbills promised work, endless work? Didn’t acres of oranges and lemons and grapes need picked? And weren’t the Joad’s everything that the property owners wanted in employees, honest and hard-working? For even grandma and grandpa were willing to labor, and so too the two young children, and even the pregnant daughter. But honesty and effort aren’t sufficient for the Joad’s now. No, they’re entering a new world, one exemplified by their constant dealings with mendacious scrap yard owners. “You go steal that tire and you’re a thief,” they realize. “But he tried to steal your four dollars for a busted tire. They call that sound business.” It seems everyday things like this are happening. The world is growing more and more confusing, more and more dangerous.
The farm had confusing troubles, too, but troubles are easier to navigate when the family’s whole and there’s a bulwark called a house behind you. Now the family’s breaking apart. Grandpa dies and is buried on the side of the road like a pauper, never to be visited by mourners as is proper. The pregnant daughter’s husband vanishes, already overcome by responsibility that hadn’t even borne it’s full pressure. And then there’s Tom, the eldest son, who’s breaking his parole by leaving Oklahoma and is one chance visit away by the police from going back to the pen. But this crime is but like many the impoverished face, designed seemingly to keep them oppressed. “Laws changes,” Tom says with perspicacity, “but got to’s’ go on. You got the right to do what you got to do.”
The Joad’s keep on doing what they have to do. Money’s growing tight, though. Even when they reach California the work that was promised to be available isn’t there. The family’s struck by this. The land is the Eden that the handbills promised. Fruit trees green every hill and valley, groaning under the weight of juicy produce eager to be harvested. The family wants to work, is desperate to work, will even sweat under the glinting sun for twelve hours just to earn enough to buy one meal, something they eventually resort to. Yet for every Joad family there’s a hundred more; nay, a thousand more. Confusingly, inhumanely, the landowners use this as leverage, and when one day they pay a dime a pound for peaches, the next day they pay only a nickel. The families argue this injustice, but to no avail. The landowners don’t see gaunt human faces pleading for food; no, they know only numbers, worshipping math, “because it promised a refuge from thought and from feeling.” If the math doesn’t add up, so what if families go hungry?
As the summer wanes, the numbers increasingly don’t add up. Now there’s too many oranges, too many potatoes, too many pigs—too much of everything. There’s no sense in harvesting anything since nothing can be gained by it. “The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price . . . Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground . . 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 now the Joad’s and others like them are harassed, treated like villains for trying to gather some of this waste. But if there’s any law breaking here, it’s this needless destruction. “There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our successes. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange.”
In the end, the Joad’s realize one sorrowful truth. When in need, “go to the poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help.”
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