The Grapes of Wrath Essays | GradeSaver

If Casey knowed, why,

I'll be in the ways guys yell when they're mad an' I'll be in the way kids

laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks

eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build - why, I'll be

there (Steinbeck 537).



And when the Okies finally do rise from poverty and make it on

their own, the mentality of Tom's fight is still there also. With the

collective soul in Tom's mind, when one person succeeds, all who belong

succeed too (Critical 5).



The characters of Ma and Rose of Sharon add to the collective soul

as well. The speeches of Ma show that when people have nothing else, they

are at the very least, kind to each other. Ma says, “Use' to be family was

fust. It ain't so now. It's anybody. Worse off we get, the more we got

to do” (Steinbeck 569). This shows that Ma has shifted from a person who

was always dead set to keep the family together to a person who is looking

out for everyone in the collective soul, not just the family (Critical 4).



A change is also evident in Rose of Sharon for the benefit of the

collective soul. At the beginning of the novel, she is a self-centered

person who does not think very highly of the family or of the people in

similar circumstances. However, her attitude undergoes a change toward the

end of the novel. With the loss of her husband, Connie, and her still-born

baby, she transforms into a dynamic character who puts the cause of the

group, survival, before the well-being of herself (Critical 4). This is

shown in the end of the story when she makes the greatest sacrifice and

gives a dying man sustenance through the milk from her breast. This

illustrates the importance of the group soul as opposed to Rose of Sharon's

individual soul.



The idea of the oversoul is also emphasized through some of the

writing techniques utilized by Steinbeck. One in particular is the use of

alternating chapters. The even numbered chapters of the book are dedicated

to the tale of the Joad's plight, and the odd numbered chapters portray

images and the movement of the entire migration west by the Okies.

Steinbeck does this deliberately to show the Joads do belong to a larger

group and many people are having the same difficulties and hardships as

they are (Critical 3). These alternating chapters are used as a way of

filling in the larger picture. Steinbeck uses a variety of literary

devices to minimize their interruption of the narrative action, such as

dramatization, juxtaposition, and the prose style itself (Lisca 92). The

same folk dialect and figurative language reappear in the interchapters to

continue the natural flow of the story. To put the Joads in a necessary

situation to fulfill a larger picture would destroy their credibility as

particular and real people (92). Again, the theory of a collective soul is

strongly pointed at by the alternating chapters.



The collective soul is not a new idea, but it does clash with the

ideas that America was founded on. Steinbeck started to write the Grapes

of Wrath with the idea of changing the philosophy in place in California,

but it expanded to changing the idea of the system in place in America.

Steinbeck wished to make his mark in the field of American literature, and

that he did with this novel. Through the novel, Steinbeck shows that there

is not just one singular soul, but something bigger, which all men belong

to.