The Grapes of Wrath, Chapters 22&24 summary for class 1
As you know, at the end of Chapter 20, Tom is at a breaking point and is feeling there’s no escape from
the injustices his family is suffering. At one point, Tom angrily explains to Ma, “[I]f it was the law they
was workin’ with, why, we could take it. But it ain’t the law. They’re a workin’ away at our spirits.
They’re a tryin’ to make us cringe an’ crawl like a whipped bitch. They tryin’ to break us. Why, Jesus
Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on’y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin’ a sock at a cop.
They’re workin’ on our decency” (278-9, author’s emphasis). At this point, the family is confronted by
the mob of men who “ain’t gonna have no goddamn Okies in this town” (279). After tricking the mob
and heading south despite the mob’s threats, Tom takes the family south to the “gov’ment” camp in
Weedpatch.
Chapter 22:
This camp turns out to be a whole new world for the Joads where they finally experience being treated
like human beings. In this camp run by the government (and created by FDR’s new initiatives to support
and protect those most affected by the Great Depression), there is a small weekly charge to stay, but if a
family cannot afford to pay, they can do odd jobs around the camp (cleaning bathrooms, sweeping,
providing nursery service for children, etc.) to make up for what can’t be paid. If a family has difficulty
finding work, the camp makes sure the family doesn’t starve by offering up to $5 credit at the store so
that the family can buy food without feeling like a charity case (Steinbeck consistently intimates that
though these “Okies” may be considered bums, they certainly are not). The restrooms are clean and
have modern plumbing, so many of these families are experiencing flush toilets and hot showers for the
first time. Perhaps most important of all, the police are not allowed in the government camps without a
warrant, so they can’t come in simply to intimidate the migrant families. These families seem to find
that having a clean, quiet place to live with access to food and being surrounded by people who have
similar experiences to theirs helps the families get their dignity back. For the first time in a while, these
families aren’t being treated like criminals or vagrants; they are being treated like people.
One of the persons responsible for treating the folks at the camp like humans is the camp manager, Jim
Rawley. When Ma first meets him, she expects that he’ll treat her in the same way the deputy had
treated her in an earlier chapter. Instead, Rawley “came to the fire and squatted on his hams” (304, my
emphasis), a sure sign that he was a regular person just like Ma. Rawley shared a cup of coffee with Ma
and just checked in to make sure she and the family were ok. His kindness had an effect on Ma, who
later explained to Rose of Sharon, “We’re Joads. We don’t look up to nobody. Grampa’s grampa, he fit
in the Revolution. We was farm people till the debt. And then—them people. They done somepin to
us. Ever’ time they come seemed like they was a-whippin’ me—all of us. An’ in Needles, that police. He
done somepin to me, made me feel mean. Made me feel ashamed. An’ now I ain’t ashamed. These
folks is our folks—is our folks. An’ that manager, he come an’ set an’ drank coffee, an’ he says, ‘Mrs.
Joad’ this, an’ ‘Mrs. Joad’ that—an’ ‘How you getting’ on, Mrs. Joad?’ … Why, I feel like people again”
(307).
Unfortunately, no place is perfect, and in the “gov’ment” camp, there is a woman, a self-described
“Jesus-lover” (309), who corners Rose of Sharon and points out how “[t]he devil was jus’ a-struttin’
through this here camp” because of what she deems to be the sinful ways of all the folks there,
especially the dancing and play-acting (309). She warns Rose of Sharon, “An’ don’ you think them
sinners is puttin’ nothin’ over on God, neither. No, sir, He’s a-chalkin’ ‘em up sin by sin, an’ He’s drawin’
His line an’ addin’ ‘em up sin by sin. God’s a-watchin’, an’ I’m a-watchin’. He’s awready smoked two of
‘em out. … I seen it. Girl a-carryin’ a little one, jes’ like you. An’ she play-acted, an’ she hug-danced.
And … she thinned out and she skinnied out, an’—she dropped that baby, dead” (309-10). We already
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapters 22&24 summary for class 2
know that Rose of Sharon is too sensitive as it is, so she takes the woman’s words to heart and becomes
worried about the safety of her child—after all, Rose of Sharon has danced and play-acted (311). The
camp manager Mr. Rawley tries to convince Ma and Rose of Sharon to ignore the old woman because,
according to Rawley, “She isn’t well. She just isn’t well. … I wish she’d go away. … She brings more
trouble on the camp than all the rest together” (321). Mr. Rawley doesn’t buy in to her strict religious
beliefs, especially as he seems to be more akin to Casy’s beliefs: “He don’ believe in sin.” In fact, Rawley
believes “the sin is bein’ hungry. … [T]he sin is bein’ cold” (310).
One bit of good news is that Tom is able to find some work digging ditches almost immediately. He
meets a family the morning after the Joads arrived in the camp, and they give him breakfast and take
him to their temporary job to try to get him work there. For once in this book, we meet a kind boss,
named Mr. Thomas. Thomas pays his workers as fairly as he can, and Tom Joad’s (note the difference
between Mr. Thomas and Tom Joad) new friends, Wilkie and Timothy, both respect Mr. Thomas.1
The problem, though, is that we learn that Mr. Thomas is being pressured by other land owners to pay
his workers less. Thomas explains to Tom, Wilkie, and Timothy, “The Bank of the West (which, by the
way, is a pseudonym for The Bank of America) … owns most of this valley, and it’s got paper on
everything it don’t own. So last night the member from the bank told me, he said, ‘You’re paying thirty
cents an hour. You’d better cut it down to twenty-five.’ I said, ‘I’ve got good men. They’re worth
thirty.’ And he says, ‘It isn’t that,’ he says. ‘The wage is twenty-five now. If you pay thirty, it’ll only
cause unrest. And by the way,’ he says, ‘you going to need the usual amount for a crop loan next year?’
… Mr. Bank hires two thousand men an’ I hire three. I’ve got paper to meet. Now if you can figure some
way out, by Christ, I’ll take it! They got me” (294-5). So we see through the bank’s threat not to
continue its loan to Mr. Thomas that even good, fair bosses like Mr. Thomas are forced to pay low wages
even though Thomas laments, “I don’t know how you men can feed a family on what you get now”
(295). Furthermore, Mr. Thomas claims that the banks and owners pretend there are “red agitators”
anytime they want to cut workers’ pay. That way, the newspapers will report that the “red agitators”
are causing problems and forcing the owners to cut pay. Thomas shows today’s newspaper, which
reports, “Citizens, angered at red agitators, burn squatters’ camp. Last night a band of citizens,
infuriated at the agitation going on in the local squatters’ camp, burned the tents to the ground and
warned agitators to get out of the county” (295). This camp referred to in the paper was the same
“Hooverville” that the Joads had left the previous night before it was burned out by the police and other
citizens of the area.
Mr. Thomas also tells Tom, Wilkie, and Timothy of a plan the police have come up with to get in to the
government camp by creating a ruckus (in the form of a large fight, leading potentially to a riot) in the
government camp where the Joads, Wilkie, and Timothy are all staying. Remember, the police can’t go
into the government camps without a warrant—or without an immediate threat. A riot, caused by some
migrants hired by the police to start a fight, would give the police reason to get into the camp. Tom,
Wilkie, and Timothy wonder why the police feel like they need to bother the folks in the camp, and
Thomas explains, “Those folks in the camp are getting used to being treated like humans. When they go
back to the squatters’ camps they’ll be hard to handle” (296). Timothy adds another motivation for
breaking up the government camp—the owners fear what might happen if the migrants start acting as
one, just as Steinbeck suggests they eventually will do: “Seems like they got to drive us. … They’re scairt
we’ll organize, I guess. An’ maybe they’re right. This here camp is a organization. People there look out
1
By the way, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Steinbeck’s editor is named Tom, and he managed to make two of
his most likeable characters also named some version of Tom.
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapters 22&24 summary for class 3
for theirselves. … We ain’t never had no trouble with the law. I guess the big farmers is scairt of that.
Can’t throw us in jail—why, it scares ‘em. Figger maybe if we can gove’n ourselves, maybe we’ll do
other things” (297).
Chapter 24:
In this chapter, we learn more about the owners’ and police’s motivation to shut down the government
camp. An unnamed character explains that at a major farm, Sunland Land and Cattle Company, “they
got a cop for ever’ ten people. Got one water faucet for ‘bout two hundred people” (333). Another
character added that “[t]hey got a block of shacks—thirty-five of ‘em in a row, an’ fifteen deep. An’ they
got ten crappers for the whole shebang. An’, Christ, you could smell ‘em a mile” (333). As disgusting as
this sounds, we can see the effect it would have on the workers—and how it differs from the
government camp. According to the same unnamed character, treating people decently can actually
cause trouble for owners: “One of them deputies give me the lowdown. We was settin’ aroun’, an’ he
says, ‘Them goodamn gov’ment camps,’ he says. ‘Give people hot water, an’ they gonna want hot
water. Give ‘em flush toilets, an’ they gonna want ‘em.’ He says, ‘You give them goddamn Okies stuff
like that an’ they’ll want ‘em.’ An’ he says, ‘They hol’ red meetin’s in them gov’ment camps. All figgerin’
how to git on relief,’ he says” (333).
Tom and the others are determined not to let anything happen to the government camp because they
appreciate feeling like human beings again. They know that their people even get a certain amount of
pride from the dances that are held every Saturday night. One of Tom’s new friends, Jule, explains,
“These here dances done funny things. Our people got nothing, but jes’ because they can ast their
frien’s to come here to the dance, sets ‘em up an’ makes ‘em proud. An’ the folks respects ‘em ‘count of
these here dances. Fella got a little place where I was a-workin’. He come to a dance here. I ast him
myself, an’ he come. Says we got the only decent dance in the county, where a man can take his girls
an’ his wife” (340). But because the dances are so loved, they’ve also become a target of the police. As
another camp resident, Huston, points out, “If they can git a fight goin’, then they can run in the cops an’
say we ain’t orderly. They tried it before—other places” (332). Ultimately, this attempt to break up the
camp is all a ploy to get the folks at the camps to separate from one another because separation causes
competition, and the owners can benefit from a competition between a bunch of hungry men. The fact
is that, when there’s work, no matter what is being paid, “they’ll git men. They’ll git hungry men. You
can’t feed your fam’ly on twenty cents an hour, but you’ll take anything. They got you goin’ an’ comin’.
They jes’ auction a job off. Jesus Christ, pretty soon they’re gonna make us pay to work” (338).
Fortunately, for the camp and the people there, Tom and the other men come up with a plan that
successfully prevents a fight from happening, so when the police show up at the camp gates with the
expectation of riot going on, they can’t get in because everyone is happily dancing. But this chapter
hints at what Pa calls “change a-comin’” (345). Steinbeck closes the chapter talking about a successful
strike/worker uprising at a rubber factory in Akron, Ohio. The workers ended up joining a union to
protect their rights, so the owners called them “Red.” As a response, the workers staged a turkey
shoot—that’s right, they hunted turkeys, but they did so where the owners could see 5,000 workers
with guns shooting turkeys (yes, I think there’s probably intended symbolism there). The chapter ends
with a man somewhat humorously (somewhat not so humorously) suggesting, “All our folks got guns. I
been thinkin’ maybe we ought to git up a turkey shootin’ club an’ have meetin’s ever’ Sunday” (345).
Unfortunately, though, it’s clear the Joads won’t be able to stay in the government camp long because
they simply cannot find jobs, and Rose of Sharon, Ruthie, and Winfield are starting to suffer poor health.