been going crazy, yelling and talking to herself.
Al asks Tom about what he felt when he killed a man. Tom admits that prison
has a tendency to drive a man insane. Tom and Al find a junkyard where they
find a part to replace the broken con-rod in the Wilson's car. The one-eyed
man working at the junkyard complains about his boss, and says that he
might kill him. Tom tells off the one-eyed man for blaming all of his
problems on his eye, and then criticizes Al for his constant worry that
people will blame him for the car breaking down. Tom, Casy and Al rejoin
the rest of the family at a campground not far away. To stay at the
campground, the three would have to pay an additional charge, for they
would be charged with vagrancy if they slept out in the open. Tom, Casy and
Uncle John eventually decide to go on ahead and meet up with everyone else
in the morning. A ragged man at the camp, when he hears that the Joads are
going to pick oranges in California, laughs. The man, who is returning from
California, tells how the handbills are a fraud. They ask for eight hundred
people, but get several thousand people who want to work. This drives down
wages. The proprietor of the campground suspects that the ragged man is
trying to stir up trouble for labor.
Chapter Seventeen: A strange thing happened for the migrant laborers.
During the day, as they traveled, the cars were separate and lonely, yet in
the evening a strange thing happened: at the campgrounds where they stayed
the twenty or so families became one. Their losses and their concerns
became communal. The families were at first timid, but they gradually built
small societies within the campgrounds, with codes of behavior and rights
that must be observed. For transgressions, there were only two punishments:
violence or ostracism. Leaders emerged, generally the wise elders. The
various families found connections to one another
Chapter Eighteen: When the Joads reach Arizona, a border guard stops them
and nearly turns them back, but does let them continue. They eventually
reach the desert of California. The terrain is barren and desolate. While
washing themselves during a stop, the Joads encounter migrant workers who
want to turn back. They tell them that the Californians hate the migrant
workers. A good deal of the land is owned by the Land and Cattle Company
that leaves the land largely untouched. Sheriffs push around migrant
workers, whom they derisively call "Okies." Noah tells Tom that he is going
to leave everyone, for they don't care about him. Although Tom protests,
Noah leaves them. Granma remains ill, suffering from delusions. She
believes that she sees Grampa. A Jehovite woman visits their tent to help
Granma, and tells Ma that she will die soon. The woman wants to organize a
prayer meeting, but Ma orders them not to do so. Nevertheless, soon she can
hear from a distance chanting and singing that eventually descends into
crying. Granma whines with the whining, then eventually falls asleep. Rose
of Sharon wonders where Connie is. Deputies come to the tent and tell Ma
that they cannot stay there and that they don't want any Okies around. Tom
returns to the tent after the policeman leaves, and is glad that he wasn't
there; he admits that he would have hit the cop. He tells Ma about Noah.
The Wilsons decide to remain even if they face arrest, since Sairy is too
sick to leave without any rest. Sairy asks Casy to say a prayer for her.
The Joads move on, and at a stop a boy remarks how hard-looking Okies are
and how they are less than human. Uncle John speaks with Casy, worried that
he brings bad luck to people. Connie and Rose of Sharon need privacy. Yet
again the Joads are pulled over for inspection, but Ma Joad insists that
they must continue because Granma needs medical attention. The next morning
when they reach the orange groves, Ma tells them that Granma is dead. She
died before they were pulled over for inspection.
Chapter Nineteen: California once belonged to Mexico and its land to the
Mexicans. But a horde of tattered feverish American poured in, with such
great hunger for the land that they took it. Farming became an industry as
the Americans took over. They imported Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and
Filipino workers who became essentially slaves. The owners of the farms
ceased to be farmers and became businessmen. They hated the Okies who came
because they could not profft from them. Other laborers hated the Okies
because they pushed down wages. While the Californians had aspirations of
social success and luxury, the barbarous Okies only wanted land and food.
Hoovervilles arose at the edge of every town. The Okies were forced to
secretly plant gardens in the evenings. The deputies overreacted to the
Okies, spurred by stories that an eleven year old Okie shot a deputy. The
great owners realized that when property accumulates in too few hands it is
taken away and that when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they
will take by force what they need.
Chapter Twenty: The Joads take Granma to the Bakersfield coroner's office.
They can't afford a funeral for her. They go to a camp to stay and ask
about work. They ask a bearded man if he owns the camp and whether they can
stay, and he replies with the same question to them. A younger man tells
them that the crazy old man is called the Mayor. According to the man, the
Mayor has likely been pushed by the police around so much that he's been
made bull-simple (crazy). The police don't want them to settle down, for
then they could draw relief, organize and vote. The younger man tells them
about the handbill fraud, and Tom suggests that everybody organize so that
they could guarantee higher wages. The man warns Tom about the blacklist.
If he is labeled an agitator he will be prevented from getting from
anybody. Tom talks to Casy, who has recently been relatively quiet. Casy
says that the people unorganized are like an army without a harness. Casy
says that he isn't helping out the family and should go off by himself. Tom
tries to convince him to stay at least until the next day, and he relents.
Connie regrets his decision to come with the Joads. He says that if he had
stayed in Oklahoma he could have worked as a tractor driver. When Ma is
fixing dinner, groups of small children approach, asking for food. The
children tell the Joads about Weedpatch, a government camp that is nearby
where no cops can push people around and there is good drinking water. Al
goes around looking for girls, and brags about how Tom killed a man. Al
meets a man named Floyd Knowles, who tells them that there was no steady
work. A woman reprimands Ma Joad for giving her children stew. Al brings
Floyd back to the family, where he says that there will be work up north
around Santa Clara Valley. He tells them to leave quietly, because everyone
else will follow after the work. Al wants to go with Floyd no matter what.
A man arrives in a Chevrolet coupe, wearing a business suit. He tells them
about work picking fruit around Tulare County. Floyd tells the man to show
his license -this is one of the tricks that the contractor uses. Floyd
points out some of the dirty tactics that the contractor is using, such as
bringing along a cop. The cop forces Floyd into the car and says that the
Board of Health might want to shut down their camp. Floyd punched the cop
and ran off. As the deputy chased after him, Tom tripped him. The deputy
raised his gun to shoot Floyd and fires indiscriminately, shooting a woman
in the hand. Suddenly Casy kicked the deputy in the back of the neck,
knocking him unconscious. Casy tells Tom to hide, for the contractor saw
him trip the deputy. More officers come to the scene, and they take away
Casy, who has a faint smile and a look of pride. Rose of Sharon wonders
where Connie has gone. She has not seen him recently. Uncle John admits
that he had five dollars. He kept it to get drunk. Uncle John gives them
the five in exchange for two, which is enough for him. Al tells Rose of
Sharon that he saw Connie, who was leaving. Pa claims that Connie was too
big for his overalls, but Ma scolds him, telling him to act respectfully,
as if Connie were dead. Because the cops are going to burn the camp
tonight, they have to leave. Tom goes to find Uncle John, who has gone off
to get drunk. Tom finds him by the river, singing morosely. He claims that
he wants to die. Tom has to hit him to make him come. Rose of Sharon wants
to wait for Connie to return. They leave the camp, heading north toward the
government camp.
Chapter Twenty-One: The hostility that the migrant workers faced changed
them. They were united as targets of hostility, and this unity made the
little towns of Hoovervilles defend themselves. There was panic when the
migrants multiplied on the highways. The California residents feared them,
thinking them dirty, ignorant degenerates and sexual maniacs. The number of
migrant workers caused the wages to go down. The owners invented a new
method: the great owners bought canneries, where they kept the price of
fruit down to force smaller farmers out. The owners did not know that the
line between hunger and anger is a thin one.
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Joads reach the government camp, where they are
surprised to find that there are toilets and showers and running water. The
watchman at the camp explains some of the other features of the camp: there
is a central committee elected by the camp residents that keeps order and
makes rules, and the camp even holds dance nights. The next morning, two
camp residents (Timothy and Wilkie Wallace) give Tom breakfast and tell him
about work. When they reach the fields where they are to work, Mr. Thomas,
the contractor, tells them that he is reducing wages from thirty to twenty-
five cents per hour. It is not his choice, but rather orders from the
Farmers' Association, which is owned by the Bank of the West. Thomas also
Страницы: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60
