Grapes of Wrath Chapters 24 and 25

Chapter 24 was a very happy chapter (that's three good feeling inducing chapters in a row!) in which the camp put on a dance. Rose of Sharon had many admirers that asked her to dance, but because of crazy lady Mrs. Sandry, Rosasharn has the idea in her head that if she dances her baby will die and she will go to hell. I thought that the boys asking Rose of Sharon to dance (Steinbeck 341) were very kind and that helped boost her self confidence. After Connie left her and the whole going to hell incident with the crazy Christian lady, Rosasharn was feeling slightly depressed and that wasn't good for the baby. Giving her the attention and esteem boost was a nice thing to for Steinbeck to do, and that gave me hope that everything will turn out okay for her.

Chapter 25 broke the happiness spell and went back to the usual sad and depressing tone. The geneticists and chemists create perfect seeds that will produce the best fruit and prevent disease and sickness in the plant (Steinbeck 346). Then because the banks and corporations only care about themselves (see post on chapter 23), the fruit doesn't get harvested because the selling price of fruit is too low to hire labor. Then the farmers don't want people to eat their fruit, so it is destroyed or made inedible. That makes me so mad! If the banks could have worked something out with the farmers and the workers, there wouldn't be this problem! Urg! So much suffering could have been prevented and everyone would be happy!

Also in that chapter the Okies and everyone who doesn't have a job have "grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage" (Steinbeck 349) in their souls. So that is why the book is called Grapes of Wrath! The metaphorical grapes symbolize the great anger that the people have toward the banks, corporations, and police. As the grapes grow and become fertile and ready to be picked, the anger level grows. That makes a lot more sense then the wrath of the fruit being left on the trees instead of harvest is causing all of this disrupt (although if grapes were not inanimate objects, I am sure that they would be very displeased with how they are being treated).

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