Chapter 19

Chapter nineteen is filled with imagery and a historical outlook. The imagery adds to this chapter by creating a picture in one's mind, a very detailed and colorful picture. The imagery paints a dark picture, filled with sorrow and depression adding to the overall tone of The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck. Each sentence adds to the historical outlook of the book, and each sentence adds to the setting, creating a dreary, unloved, and forgotten land. "They had no more the stomach-tearing lust for a rich acre and a shining blade to plow it, for seed and a windmill beating its wings in the air. They arose in the dark no more to hear the sleepy birds' first chittering, and the morning wind around the house while they waited for the first light to go out to the dear acres."

Steinbeck tells the history of the land of California and ties that into the Joad's own life story. As the slaves brought over to take care of the large farms there were treated terribly, the Joad's were also treated badly when they came to California. It talks of how the farms became larger, tenants were kicked out and men and machines were brought in to take care of the land, but the men did not care for the land as the previous farmers and tenants had. This is the exact story of the Joad's family. This connection of the two lands shows that there is not much hope for the Joad's family as California had experienced the same troubles as Oklahoma. The working situation for the farmers and tenant farmers was no different in California as the people had thought. "And it came about that owners no longer worked on their farms. They farmed on paper; and they forgot the land, the smell, the feel of it, and remembered only that they owned it, remembered only what they gained and lost by it... Then such a farmer really became a storekeeper, and kept a store."

The combination of the imagery and the historical flashback of California create a hopeless chapter for the families, now called Okies, moving to California. This flashback also foreshadows the events yet to come for the Joad's family.