Chapter 11

Chapter eleven switches to an overview of many of the tenants and farmers thoughts. It talks of how the new farmers and new equipment did not care about the land. They did not care about the soil, or the minerals in the soil. They did not care about the crop, only the profit. This upsets the farmers and tenants, because they cared for the land; they knew about its behavior. They are upset at the new farmers who care only for their profits. " But the machine man, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry; and he is contemptuous of the land and of himself. When the corrugated iron doors are shut, he goes home, and his home is not the land."

Steinbeck fills this chapter with emptiness, sorrow, and coldness. He compares them to each other showing how lifeless things have gotten to be. John Steinbeck gives vivid details of the objects he is comparing drawing a cold and lifeless picture. "There is a warmth of life in the barn, and the heat and smell of life. But when the motor of a tractor stops, it is as dead as the ore it came from. The heat goes out of it like the living heat that leaves a corpse." He tells of how empty the houses and the land was because of the great move of people. " The houses were left vacant on the land, and the land was vacant because of this. And on windy nights the doors banged, and the ragged curtains fluttered in the broken windows."

Yet even though the families had left the houses, they were not always entirely empty and vacant. They were ravaged and inhabited by unwelcome characters: people, rodents, cats, and weeds. "Bands of little boys came out from the towns to break the windows and to pick over the debris, looking for treasures. And the mice moved in and stored weed seeds in corners, in boxes, in the backs of drawers in the kitchens." Still these strangers brought no joy or heart to the houses. The land was still vacant, deserted, lifeless, and without spirit.