“One month we been here. An’ Tom had five days’ work. An’ the rest of
you scrabblin’ out ever’ day, an’ no work. An’ scairt to talk. An’ the money
gone. You’re scairt to talk it out. Ever’ night you jus’ eat , an’ then you get
wanderin’ away. Can’t bear to talk it out. Well you got to.”
Once again, Ma shows she is the leader of the home. While it
is the men who go out and try to find jobs to put food on the table, it’s Ma
who takes charge after seeing the situation and knowing something needs to
change. The family has hot water and
toilets, but the family is starving, and Ma is not going to let the family
starve. The men are satisfied with the status quo, not willing to leave what
they know and where they are comfortable. In a time when it was not a woman’s
right to take a man’s job, Ma is not afraid of stepping on a few toes and
saying what needs to be done. Pa even sarcastically tells ma that she is doing
a man’s job. It may be easier to sit back and allow someone else to lead and
make the tough decisions, but so far no one else has been doing that job and Ma
has had enough. Even earlier, when the men threaten to split the family up, it
is Ma who steps in and says “no” that they need to stick together because that
is the only way they will make it.
Maybe the reason we have seen other families give up on
California and go back to their homeland is because they do not have a Ma Joad
in their family. They do not have someone who sees the value of family or will
see the situation as it really is and say what needs to be said. Ma Joad is not
afraid of the unknown and will make changes when needed.
I agree, Brian. Ma is a strong character who keeps the family's faith alive. If you think back to the people who the Joads' spoke with previously about the living conditions of California they were single men who were down on life. One man just had his son and was just about ready to give up. We is better than I.
ReplyDeleteGood passage pull here, Brian. I was reading this, and remembered this op-ed from the Washington Post from a major Steinbeck scholar, arguing that we need a "President Ma" in the White House. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/75-years-after-the-grapes-of-wrath-we-need-ma-joad-in-the-white-house/2014/04/18/79e8c894-c58b-11e3-bf7a-be01a9b69cf1_story.html
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, although in the novel Tom Joad is the "Hero" and the book ends with Rosasharn's madonna scene, in the movie, Ma Joad is an even more central and powerful character. She's a static character, but static like a colossus, not like a flat, two-dimensional background character. (Jane Darwell's performance will forever affect my reading of Ma in the book. I can't think of Ma without thinking of Darwell.)
Ma Joad's strong will is the backbone of the family, and I'm pretty sure the family would not survived that long if she stood back and waited for someone else to make choices. When Sairy Wilson knew she was not going to make it, she did not tell her husband, because she knew he couldn't handle it. The women give life to a family, and also sustain it in the story.
ReplyDelete