I have, on many occasions, beat the dead horse of the men-folk "...squatted on their hams and found sticks with which to mark the dust" in chapter 5. Recently, I finally got the light-bulb from what's been itching at the back of my brain-shell every time I talked or thought about the hams and dust-drawing.
Please allow me to refer to John 8: 2-11. Everyone knows "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone” (8:7), but what of Jesus' actions before he made this statement? As the accusers brought the woman to him and accused her of adultery, he "...bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger" (8:6). After speaking, he again "...stooped down and wrote on the ground" (8:8). There are many anecdotes and theories about what Jesus wrote in the sand, but Jeremiah (17:13) gives the explanation. Despite this, the questions around what Jesus was doing still abounds.
A little Hebrew (Moses') law; when an accused person(s) was brought before a priest, the priest would write the broken law and the names of the accused in some way that was not permanent. The dust on the floor was the usual custom. In John, the Pharisees accused the woman without witnesses (at least two were required by Moses' Law), and stood around chuntering about following the same laws they weren't following. With Jesus' "first stone" statement, he threw the actions of law back on the Pharisees which, in essence, chased them off one at a time.
Now, a few correlations. In chapter 5, The "machines" and "monsters" of banks (the law) was being explained by the owners, or the owners' men. These are the pharisees explaining what the unfeeling banks (Moses' Law?) are expecting to be done. The land is dying and needs to be fixed (are the land and farmers the accused?), and the banks have the only answer.
The men of the fields are on their hams drawing in the dust while the owners (or owners' men) are yacking about the cotton leaching the land (the accusation that the farmers killed the land because they had to resort to cotton to live in the dust?). What are the men drawing in the dust? Are they doodling or are they drawing names and laws in the dust?
The women-folk, sitting in the background seeing how it all pans out, like the locals would do if Jesus were confronted by the pharisees in this public way?
Steinbeck wrote in chapter 5, "The owner
men went on leading to their point: You know the land’s getting poorer.
You know what cotton does to the land; robs it, sucks all the blood out
of it." Steinbeck then writes "The squatters nodded—they knew, God knew." So Jesus/the farmers squatted and drew in the sand/dust, while the owners/pharisees babble on about things they knew little about. And lastly, the squatters - "they knew, God knew" puts the farmers in the same context as Jesus.
The symbolism could be intended, or perhaps the men in Grapes squatted and drew to avoid face-to-face altercations with the owners. With the other religious metaphors and outright insanity, is this another example, or am I grasping for straws?
Whether Steinbeck intended it or not, this is a really interesting perspective to bring to bear, Jim, and I don't think you're grasping at straws. Whether he means to or not, the novel definitely picks up that meaning in this pattern of imagery. If you *really* wanted to dig on this, check out *Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath.* I've studied it, and can't remember him mentioning anything specific about this image, but there may be sommething in there. And even if not, it's a compelling bit of symbolism. At the end of the day, the *intentionality* of the image isn't the whole story.
ReplyDeleteThe Jeremiah passage is especially revealing as well--this book is commonly referred to as a Jeremiad, in fact.