Grapes of Wrath Chapter 20

In Chapter 20 a young man named Floyd warns Tom not to be rebellious unless he wants to be one of the "vagrant foun' dead" (Steinbeck 247). That phrase, "vagrant found dead" struck a chord with me. The Okies were being treated just like the blacks of the early 1900s and then later up until the 1960s. The blacks were lynched for things that they didn't do, or for being in the wrong place in the wrong time. The Okies were killed when they disagreed with the land owners and police. Both groups of people were killed and no one seemed to care about them. Nowadays if a group of people were killed and their bodies unlabeled and disregarded, newspapers would be covering the story and the media would cause an uproar about it. Then no one cared if another one of those pesky Okies or a rebellious black died. That was just one less person that the land owners had to worry about. We have to learn from our mistakes. Mini-genocides are happening all the time. One group of people terrorizing and killing another group of people, with the Nazis and the Jews being a more recent example. The more aware we are about it, the easier we can stop it and unnecessary killings can be avoided.

Casy took the blame for knocking out a cop (Steinbeck 266) even though Tom had done it. I think it was very good of Casy to do that. He didn't have to worry about who would feed his family or any of that since he didn't have anyone. In giving himself up, he relieved the Joads of a mouth to feed since the folks in the jail will provide food. Also he saved the Joads from the heartache of losing Tom again since he had already broke his parole and would be sent back to jail for a long period of time. Casy was very brave to stand up like that, and he repaid his debt to the Joads with his act of braveness standing up to the police and sacrificing himself.

One by one people are dropping off of the Joad truck. It seems like a game of Oregon Trail. Grampa died of a stroke. Would you like to bury him yourself or hire someone to do it for you? Granma is sick, would you like to rest for x amount of days, search for a doctor or continue on? Preacher Casy sacrifices himself for the good of the family. The food supplies ratio for everyone has increased! Man, The Learning Company should hire me and I could redesign Oregon Trail into Oregon Trail: Grapes of Wrath edition.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.