Summary: Chapter 13
Al skillfully guides the Joads’ truck along Route 66,
listening carefully to the engine for any trouble that might cause
a breakdown. He asks Ma if she fears that California will not live
up to their expectations, and she wisely says that she cannot account
for what might be; she can only account for what is. They stop at
a service station, where Al argues with an attendant who insinuates
that the family has no money to pay for gas. The attendant laments
that most of his customers have nothing and often stop to beg for
the fuel. He explains that all the fancy new cars stop at the yellow-painted
company stations in town. Although the man has attempted to paint
his pumps yellow in imitation of the fancier stations, the underlying decrepitude
of the place shows through. While the family drinks water and rests,
their dog is hit by a car, and Rose of Sharon becomes frightened,
worrying that witnessing something so gruesome will harm her baby.
The attendant agrees to bury the dog, and the Joads continue on
their way. They pass through Oklahoma City, a larger city than the
family has ever seen. The sights and sounds of the place embarrass
and frighten Ruthie and Winfield, while Rose of Sharon and Connie
burst into giggles at the fashions they see worn for the first time.
At the end of a day’s travel, the family camps along the roadside
and meets Ivy Wilson and his wife, Sairy, whose car has broken down.
Grampa is sick, and the Wilsons offer him their tent for a rest,
but before long the old man suffers a stroke and dies. The Joads
improvise a funeral and bury their grandfather, despite the fact
that it is against the law. Later, they convince the Wilsons that both
groups would benefit from traveling together to California, and
the Wilsons agree.
Summary: Chapter 14
The last clear definite function of man—muscles
aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need—this
is man.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
People who live in the West do not understand what has
happened in Oklahoma and the Midwest. What began as a thin trickle
of migrant farmers has become a flood. Families camp next to the road,
and every ditch has become a settlement. Amid the deluge of poor
farmers, the citizens of the western states are frightened and on edge.
They fear that the dislocated farmers will come together; that the
weak, when united, will become strong—strong enough, perhaps, to
stage a revolt.
Summary: Chapter 15
A waitress named Mae and a cook named Al work at a coffee
shop on Route 66. Mae watches the many cars
pass by, hoping that truckers will stop, for they leave the biggest
tips. One day, two truckers with whom Mae is friendly drop in for
a piece of pie. They discuss the westward migration, and Mae reports
that the farmers are rumored to be thieves. Just then, a tattered
man and his two boys enter, asking if they can buy a loaf of bread
for a dime. Mae brushes them off. She reminds the man that she is
not running a grocery store, and that even if she did sell him a
loaf of bread she would have to charge fifteen cents. From behind
the counter, Al growls at Mae to give the man some bread, and she
finally softens. Then she notices the two boys looking longingly
at some nickel candy, and she sells their father two pieces for
a penny. The truckers, witnessing this scene, leave Mae an extra-large
tip.
Analysis: Chapters 13–15
As the Joads set out for California, the second phase
of the novel begins: their dramatic journey west. Almost immediately,
the Joads are exposed to the very hardships that Steinbeck describes
in the alternating expository chapters that chronicle the great
migration as a whole; the account of the family provides a close-up
on the larger picture. Thus, in Chapter 13, at the gas station,
the family encounters the hostility and suspicion described in Chapters 12, 14, and 15. The attendant unfairly pegs the Joads as
vagrants and seems sure that they have come to beg gas from him.
As Al’s reaction makes clear, this accusation comes as a great insult
to self-reliant people with a strong sense of dignity. The apologetic
attendant confides in the Joads that his livelihood has been endangered
by the fancy corporate service stations. He fears that he, like
the poor tenant farmers, will soon be forced to find another way
to make his living. Steinbeck is far from subtle in identifying
capitalism and corporate interests as a source of great human tragedy,
a form of “ritualized thievery.” Corporate gas companies have preyed
upon the attendant; the attendant, in turn, insults the Joads and
is initially loath to offer them help. The system in force here
works according to a vicious cycle, a cycle that perpetuates greed
as a method of sheer survival.
These rather bleak observations cast a pall over the Joads’
journey and point to even darker clouds on the horizon. Soon after arriving
at the gas station, the Joads’ dog is struck by a car. The dog’s gruesome
death stands as a symbol of the difficulties that await the family—difficulties
that begin as soon as the family camps for the night. Before the
family has been gone a full day, Grampa suffers a stroke and dies.
Because Grampa was, at one point, the most enthusiastic proponent
of the trip, dreaming of the day he would arrive in California and
crush fat bunches of vine-ripened grapes in his mouth, his death
foreshadows the harsh realities that await the family in the so-called
Promised Land. With Grampa, something of the family’s hope dies
too.
Still, even in this forlorn world, opportunities to display
kindness, virtue, and generosity exist. In this section, the narrator’s
statement from the end of Chapter 12 is validated: there will
be instances both of bitter cruelty and life-affirming beauty. The
story of Mae, in its simplistic illustration of morality and virtue,
functions almost like a parable, and considerably lightens the tone
of these chapters. The lesson Mae learns is a simple one: compassion
and generosity are rewarded in the world. Thus, although greed may
be self-perpetuating, as the earlier chapters insist, so is kindness.
The entrance of the Wilsons into the story also introduces a hopeful tone:
by cooperating and looking after their communal interests, the families
find a strength that they lack on their own.
