tjs_whatnot (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tjs_whatnot) wrote2013-10-16 01:15 am
tjs_whatnot) wrote2013-10-16 01:15 am
Literary Lads: Tom Joad
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck tells the story of the Joad family as they traveled from Oklahoma to California in the midst of the Dust Bowl. It won the National Book Award and the Pulitizer Prize in 1939 and turned into a movie starring Henry Ford as Tom Joad in 1940. It is an epic, historical, sweeping American classic that tells about poverty, desperation and loss of hope.
Focus in closer and it tells the story of a family, The Joads, as they struggle to keep together when absolutely no odds are in the favor and shitty thing after another happens to them as they go from one promise of redemption to another, desperation mounting.
It’s not a happy book by any stretch. But focus even closer and it’s about one man, Tom Joad and his transformation.
Ah, Tom. I have loved this man for a very long time. Sitting here trying to describe why is, however, proving problematic. You see, what Steinbeck does masterfully, is he creates characters with quiet subtlety so they work their way under your skin and you carry them around with you for the rest of your life until they are just a part of you. How are you to explain why you love your arm, or your knees?
But okay, I’ll give it a try.
We first meet Tom on the day he gets out of prison on a 4 year stretch for homicide. In a drunken rage, Tom killed a man and even after incarceration he tells us that under the same circumstances, he would do it the same way. Okay, sure the circumstances were that the man stabbed him with a knife and maybe the killing was a bit of self defense. Maybe.
So, what do we learn about Tom in the first few pages of the novel? We learn that he’s a bit scary and that he is a bit self involved. He did his time and now he just wants to go home and live his life the way he wants and he doesn’t want to think about anyone else.
Yeah. That doesn’t work for him too well.
On his way home he meets a friend, John Casey, who was a preacher but is wandering around having a bit of an existential crisis. They head to the Joad’s just in time to discover that his entire family are leaving Oklahoma where they have lost their farm and are heading to California where it is all sunshine and roses and jobs a plenty. HAHAHA! *laughing forever*
It is when we see Tom decide to break his parole by leaving the state and going with his family that we see him relent a bit on his selfish proclamations. Please understand, I do not mean to imply that his selfishness was a negative attribute, because selfish characters can still be heroic and intriguing (sometimes more so--especially when they have ~reasons~) and also, even in the beginning when you weren’t sure about this guy, weren’t sure about his character, you knew, no matter what he claimed, his family mattered. Besides, if he didn’t go, it would have been a much different novel. If he hadn’t gone, I wager they wouldn’t have even gotten out of Oklahoma.
It becomes very clear from the first day on the road that Ma Joad wears the pants in the family (Steinbeck does an amazing and lyrical job explaining why this is) and Tom, though not the oldest son, is definitely Ma’s right hand man (and favorite). More and more his sense of self gets tied into his family, as does his definition of family. All the while he has this philosophical, defunct preacher jabbering in his ear things like, "Maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of" and is it any wonder that Tom’s transformation is complete when he once again gets in trouble with the law, this time, not for his own self defense, but for another?
And it’s then that he gets to utter one of the best bit of dialogue of ever:
Haven't convinced you? Here, have some beautiful poetry set to music that does a much better job at articulating just what Tom Joad means to the make up of the American literary landscape and how he became an anthem, a archetype and a icon.
Tom Joad--lyrics by Woody Guthrie
The Ghost of Tom Joad--lyrics by Bruce Sprinsteen
And here, here is Bruce and Tom Morello (from Rage Against the Machine who famously covered the song) performing it at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Focus in closer and it tells the story of a family, The Joads, as they struggle to keep together when absolutely no odds are in the favor and shitty thing after another happens to them as they go from one promise of redemption to another, desperation mounting.
It’s not a happy book by any stretch. But focus even closer and it’s about one man, Tom Joad and his transformation.
Ah, Tom. I have loved this man for a very long time. Sitting here trying to describe why is, however, proving problematic. You see, what Steinbeck does masterfully, is he creates characters with quiet subtlety so they work their way under your skin and you carry them around with you for the rest of your life until they are just a part of you. How are you to explain why you love your arm, or your knees?
But okay, I’ll give it a try.
We first meet Tom on the day he gets out of prison on a 4 year stretch for homicide. In a drunken rage, Tom killed a man and even after incarceration he tells us that under the same circumstances, he would do it the same way. Okay, sure the circumstances were that the man stabbed him with a knife and maybe the killing was a bit of self defense. Maybe.
So, what do we learn about Tom in the first few pages of the novel? We learn that he’s a bit scary and that he is a bit self involved. He did his time and now he just wants to go home and live his life the way he wants and he doesn’t want to think about anyone else.
Yeah. That doesn’t work for him too well.
On his way home he meets a friend, John Casey, who was a preacher but is wandering around having a bit of an existential crisis. They head to the Joad’s just in time to discover that his entire family are leaving Oklahoma where they have lost their farm and are heading to California where it is all sunshine and roses and jobs a plenty. HAHAHA! *laughing forever*
It is when we see Tom decide to break his parole by leaving the state and going with his family that we see him relent a bit on his selfish proclamations. Please understand, I do not mean to imply that his selfishness was a negative attribute, because selfish characters can still be heroic and intriguing (sometimes more so--especially when they have ~reasons~) and also, even in the beginning when you weren’t sure about this guy, weren’t sure about his character, you knew, no matter what he claimed, his family mattered. Besides, if he didn’t go, it would have been a much different novel. If he hadn’t gone, I wager they wouldn’t have even gotten out of Oklahoma.
It becomes very clear from the first day on the road that Ma Joad wears the pants in the family (Steinbeck does an amazing and lyrical job explaining why this is) and Tom, though not the oldest son, is definitely Ma’s right hand man (and favorite). More and more his sense of self gets tied into his family, as does his definition of family. All the while he has this philosophical, defunct preacher jabbering in his ear things like, "Maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of" and is it any wonder that Tom’s transformation is complete when he once again gets in trouble with the law, this time, not for his own self defense, but for another?
And it’s then that he gets to utter one of the best bit of dialogue of ever:
Haven't convinced you? Here, have some beautiful poetry set to music that does a much better job at articulating just what Tom Joad means to the make up of the American literary landscape and how he became an anthem, a archetype and a icon.
Tom Joad--lyrics by Woody Guthrie
The Ghost of Tom Joad--lyrics by Bruce Sprinsteen
And here, here is Bruce and Tom Morello (from Rage Against the Machine who famously covered the song) performing it at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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