Soon the doctor comes out and takes Henry to see the baby, a boy. Henry
has no feeling for the child. He then goes to see Catherine, and at first
worries that she is dead. When she asks him about their son, he tells her
he was fine, and the nurse gives him a quizzical look. Ushering him
outside, the nurse tells him that the boy is not fine--he strangled on the
umbilical cord, and never began to breathe.
He goes out for dinner, and when he returns the nurse tells him that
Catherine is hemorrhaging. He is filled with terror that she will die. When
he is allowed to see her, she tells him she will die, and asks him not to
say the same things to other girls. Henry goes into the hallway while they
try to treat Catherine, but nothing works; finally, he goes back into the
room and stays with her until she dies.
The doctor offers to drive him back to the hotel, but Henry declines.
He goes back into the room and tries to say good-bye to Catherine, but says
that it was like saying good-bye to a statue. He leaves the hospital and
walks back to his hotel in the rain
CHARACTERS’ PROFILE
Frederic Henry - The novel's protagonist. A young American ambulance
driver in the Italian army during the First World War, Henry is disciplined
and courageous, but feels detached from life. When introduced to Catherine
Barkley, Henry discovers a capacity for love he had not known he possessed,
and begins a process of development that culminates with his desertion of
the Italian army. Throughout the novel, the Italian soldiers under Henry's
command call him "Tenente"--the Italian word for "lieutenant."
Catherine Barkley - An English nurse who falls in love with Frederic Henry.
Catherine's fiancee was killed in the battle of the Somme before she met
Henry. Catherine has cast aside conventional social values, and lives
according to her own values, devoting herself wholly to her love for Henry.
Her long, beautiful hair is her most distinctive physical feature.
Rinaldi - Frederic's friend, an Italian surgeon. Mischievous and wry,
Rinaldi is nevertheless a passionate and skilled doctor. Rinaldi makes a
practice of always being in love with a beautiful woman, and at the
beginning of the novel is attracted to Catherine Barkley; Rinaldi's
infatuation causes him to introduce Frederic and Catherine to one another.
Helen Ferguson - A friend of Catherine's. Though she remains fond of the
lovers and helps them, Helen is much more committed to social convention
than Henry and Catherine; she vocally disapproves of their "immoral" love
affair.
Miss Gage - An American nurse. Miss Gage becomes a friend to both Catherine
and Henry--in fact, she may be in love with Henry. Unlike Helen Ferguson,
she sets aside conventional social values to support their love affair.
Miss Van Campen - The superintendent of nurses at the American hospital
where Catherine works. Miss Van Campen is strict, cold, and unlikable; she
is obsessed with rules and regulations and has no patience for or interest
in individual feelings.
Dr. Valentini - An Italian surgeon who comes to the American hospital. Self-
assured and confident, Dr. Valentini is also a highly talented surgeon.
Frederic Henry takes an immediate liking to him.
Count Greffi - A spry ninety-four year old nobleman. Henry knows Count
Greffi from his time in Stresa, and the two play billiards together toward
the end of the novel. Despite his advanced age, the count is intelligent,
disciplined, and fully committed to life.
The Grapes of Wrath
Full Summary
Chapter One: Steinbeck begins the novel with a description of the dust bowl
climate of Oklahoma. The dust was so thick that men and women had to remain
in their houses, and when they had to leave they tied handkerchiefs over
their faces and wore goggles to protect their eyes. After the wind had
stopped, an even blanket of dust covered the earth. The corn crop was
ruined. Everybody wondered what they would do. The women and children knew
that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole, but the
men had not yet figured out what to do.
Chapter Two: A man approaches a small diner where a large red transport
truck is parked. The man is under thirty, with dark brown eyes and high
cheekbones. He wore new clothes that don't quite fit. The truck driver
exits from the diner and the man asks him for a ride, despite the "No
Riders" sticker on the truck. The man claims that sometimes a guy will do a
good thing even when a rich bastard makes him carry a sticker, and the
driver, feeling trapped by the statement, lets the man have a ride. While
driving, the truck driver asks questions, and the man finally gives his
name, Tom Joad. The truck driver claims that guys do strange things when
they drive trucks, such as make up poetry, because of the loneliness of the
job. The truck driver claims that his experience driving has trained his
memory and that he can remember everything about a person he passes.
Realizing that the truck driver is pressing for information, Tom finally
admits that he had just been released from McAlester prison for homicide.
He had been sentenced to seven years and was released after only four, for
good behavior.
Chapter Three: At the side of the roadside, a turtle crawled, dragging his
shell over the grass. He came to the embankment at the road and, with great
effort, climbed onto the road. As the turtle attempts to cross the road, it
is nearby hit by a sedan. A truck swerves to hit the turtle, but its wheel
only strikes the edge of its shell and spins it back off the highway. The
turtle lays on its back, but finally pulls itself over.
Chapter Four: After getting out of the truck, Tom Joad begins walking home.
He sees the turtle of the previous chapter and picks it up. He stops in the
shade of a tree to rest and meets a man who sits there, singing "Jesus is
My Savior." The man, Jim Casy, had a long, bony frame and sharp features. A
former minister, he recognizes Tom immediately. He was a "Burning Busher"
who used to "howl out the name of Jesus to glory," but he lost the calling
because he has too many sinful ideas that seem sensible. Tom tells Casy
that he took the turtle for his little brother, and he replies that nobody
can keep a turtle, for they eventually just go off on their own. Casy
claims that he doesn't know where he's going now, and Tom tells him to lead
people, even if he doesn't know where to lead them. Casy tells Tom that
part of the reason he quit preaching was that he too often succumbed to
temptation, having sex with many of the girls he Њsaved.' Finally he
realized that perhaps what he was doing wasn't a sin, and there isn't
really sin or virtue there are simply things people do.
He realized he didn't Њknow Jesus,' he merely knew the stories of the
Bible. Tom tells Casy why he was in jail: he was at a dance drunk, and got
in a fight with a man. The man cut Tom with a knife, so he hit him over the
head with a shovel. Tom tells him that he was treated relatively well in
McAlester. He ate regularly, got clean clothes and bathed. He even tells
about how someone broke his parole to go back. Tom tells how his father
Њstole' their house. There was a family living there that moved away, so
his father, uncle and grandfather cut the house in two and dragged part of
it first, only to find that Wink Manley took the other half. They get to
the boundary fence of their property, and Tom tells him that they didn't
need a fence, but it gave Pa a feeling that their forty acres was forty
acres. Tom and Casy get to the house: something has happened nobody is
there.
Chapter Five: This chapter describes the coming of the bank representatives
to evict the farmers. Some of the men were kind because they knew how cruel
their job was, while some were angry because they hated to be cruel, and
others were merely cold and hardened by their job. They are mostly pawns of
a system that they can merely obey. The tenant system has become untenable
for the banks, for one man on a tractor can take the place of a dozen
families. The farmers raise the possibility of armed insurrection, but what
would they fight against? They will be murderers if they stay, fighting
against the wrong targets.
Steinbeck describes the arrival of the tractors. They crawled over the
ground, cutting the earth like surgery and violating it like rape. The
tractor driver does his job simply out of necessity: he has to feed his
kids, even if it comes at the expense of dozens of families. Steinbeck
dramatizes a conversation between a truck driver and an evicted tenant
farmer. The farmer threatens to kill the driver, but even if he does so, he
will not stop the bank. Another driver will come. Even if the farmer
murders the president of the bank and board of directors, the bank is
controlled by the East. There is no effective target which could prevent
the evictions.
Chapter Six: Casy and Tom approached the Joad home. The house was mashed at
one corner and appeared deserted. Casy says that it looks like the arm of
the Lord had struck. Tom can tell that Ma isn't there, for she would have
never left the gate unhooked. They only see one resident (the cat), but Tom
wonders why the cat didn't go to find another family if his family had
moved, or why the neighbors hadn't taken the rest of the belongings in the
house. Muley Graves approaches, a short, lean old man with the truculent
look of an ornery child. Muley tells Tom that his mother was worrying about
him. His family was evicted, and had to move in with his Uncle John. They
were forced to chop cotton to make enough money to go west. Casy suggests
going west to pick grapes in California. Muley tells Tom and Casy that the
loss of the farm broke up his family his wife and kids went off to
California, while Muley chose to stay. He has been forced to eat wild game.
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