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Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Dust:
Dust is a prominent motif throughout the novel, which is set during a period of extreme dust-storms and diminished agricultural yields in the American Southwest now known as The Dust Bowl. The dust, released by both drought and the erosion of topsoil by agricultural practices, covers the property of the Joad family and their neighbors. This motif is introduced in the first chapter of the novel, as Steinbeck describes the pervasiveness of the dust:
In the roads where the teams moved, where the wheels milled the ground and the hooves of the horses beat the ground, the dirt crust broke and the dust formed. Every moving thing lifted the dust into the air: a walking man lifted a thin layer as high as his waist, and a wagon lifted the dust as high as the fence tops, and an automobile boiled a cloud behind it. The dust was long in settling back again.
Here, Steinbeck emphasizes the inescapable nature of the dust that covers “every moving thing” and that falls back into place as soon as it is disturbed. In the novel, as in history, the dust impedes the agricultural work which many people living in Oklahoma relied upon. Later, Muley blames the dust for mass-eviction of the Oklahoma tenant farmers in conversation with Tom:
You know what kinda years we been havin’. Dust comin’ up an’ spoilin’ ever’thing so a man didn’t get enough crop to plug up an ant’s ass. An’ ever’body got bills at the grocery. You know how it is. Well, the folks that owns the lan’ says, ‘We can’t afford to keep no tenants.’
When Tom asks why the property-owners have kicked families such as his off the property upon which they have lived and worked for generations, Muley blames the “dust comin’ up and spoilin’ ever’thing,” creating a situation so bad that families cannot raise enough crops to sustain themselves. Here, and throughout the novel, the motif of dust connects the environmental degradation of the Oklahoma region to the economic woes experienced by many.
Related Themes:
Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Connection to the Land :
The notion of a personal connection to the land serves as a motif throughout the novel. Steinbeck presents the tractor drivers who have supplanted the tenant-farmers as working on the land only indirectly through machine tools. As a result, he suggests, those tractor drivers have little connection to the land itself, unlike the tenant-farmers, who work with it directly and who have survived upon the land for generations. In Chapter 5, Steinbeck describes a tractor driver as a robot-like figure operating a monstrous contraption:
The driver could not control it—straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat’, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him—goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest.
Here, Steinbeck emphasizes what he believes is the lack of control the tractor drivers have over the machines that they operate. Though the driver controls the machine and could make it change direction by a mere “twitch” of his hands, the driver is not truly in control of his hands, as he himself is controlled by the company that owns the tractor. The unnamed company, which he characterizes metaphorically as a “monster,” has possessed the driver, taking possession of his “brain and muscle.” This driver, encased by the machine and manipulated by the company, is not in full possession of his senses and therefore pays little attention to the land, which he feels no connection to.
Steinbeck revisits this idea later on in Chapter 11, describing the lack of “wonder” and understanding that characterizes, for him, the tractor driver’s relationship to the land:
Then the corrugated iron doors are closed and the tractor man drives home to town, perhaps twenty miles away, and he need not come back for weeks or months, for the tractor is dead. And this is easy and efficient. So easy that the wonder goes out of work, so efficient that the wonder goes out of land and the working of it, and with the wonder the deep understanding and the relation.
While the tenant-farmers manipulate the earth around them with their own hands and hand-held tools, the “tractor man” lives far away from the land that he works upon and is away from it for “weeks or months.” Though his work is “easy and efficient,” Steinbeck feels that “the wonder goes out of the land,” and with it, the “deep understanding and the relation” to the earth. Through this motif, Steinbeck suggests that mechanized farming has alienated people from the land they live on and has contributed to the ecological degradation of the region.
Related Themes:
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Dust:
Dust is a prominent motif throughout the novel, which is set during a period of extreme dust-storms and diminished agricultural yields in the American Southwest now known as The Dust Bowl. The dust, released by both drought and the erosion of topsoil by agricultural practices, covers the property of the Joad family and their neighbors. This motif is introduced in the first chapter of the novel, as Steinbeck describes the pervasiveness of the dust:
In the roads where the teams moved, where the wheels milled the ground and the hooves of the horses beat the ground, the dirt crust broke and the dust formed. Every moving thing lifted the dust into the air: a walking man lifted a thin layer as high as his waist, and a wagon lifted the dust as high as the fence tops, and an automobile boiled a cloud behind it. The dust was long in settling back again.
Here, Steinbeck emphasizes the inescapable nature of the dust that covers “every moving thing” and that falls back into place as soon as it is disturbed. In the novel, as in history, the dust impedes the agricultural work which many people living in Oklahoma relied upon. Later, Muley blames the dust for mass-eviction of the Oklahoma tenant farmers in conversation with Tom:
You know what kinda years we been havin’. Dust comin’ up an’ spoilin’ ever’thing so a man didn’t get enough crop to plug up an ant’s ass. An’ ever’body got bills at the grocery. You know how it is. Well, the folks that owns the lan’ says, ‘We can’t afford to keep no tenants.’
When Tom asks why the property-owners have kicked families such as his off the property upon which they have lived and worked for generations, Muley blames the “dust comin’ up and spoilin’ ever’thing,” creating a situation so bad that families cannot raise enough crops to sustain themselves. Here, and throughout the novel, the motif of dust connects the environmental degradation of the Oklahoma region to the economic woes experienced by many.
Related Themes:
Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Jesus Christ:
Steinbeck repeatedly suggests parallels between Jim Casy and Jesus Christ, a prominent motif throughout the novel. Though Casy disclaims any similarity to Jesus, Steinbeck nevertheless presents him as a Christ-like figure, and the two share the initials "J.C." When he is asked to say grace at the Joad family’s dinner prior to their journey to California, Casy states:
I ain’t sayin’ I’m like Jesus [...] But I got tired like Him, an’ I got mixed up like Him, an’ I went into the wilderness like Him, without no campin’ stuff. Nighttime I’d lay on my back an’ look up at the stars; morning I’d set an’ watch the sun come up; midday I’d look out from a hill at the rollin’ dry country; evenin’ I’d foller the sun down.
Here, Steinbeck alludes to a biblical story in which Christ spends 40 nights fasting and praying in the desert after his baptism by John the Baptist, as recounted in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and Mark. Like Christ, then, Casy attempts to find his own soul in the wilderness, though he spends more time observing nature than he does communing with God.
Later in the novel, after Ruthie inadvertently reveals to another child that Tom has been hiding from the authorities after killing a man, Ma Joad finds Tom's hiding place in the woods in order to warn him to flee. In his final conversation with his mother in the novel, Tom describes Casy in a way that further develops these parallels to Christ:
He talked a lot. Used ta bother me. But now I been thinkin’ what he said, an’ I can remember— all of it. Says one time he went out in the wilderness to find his own soul, an’ he foun’ he didn’ have no soul that was his’n. Says he foun’ he jus’ got a little piece of a great big soul. Says a wilderness ain’t no good, ’cause his little piece of a soul wasn’t no good ’less it was with the rest, an’ was whole. Funny how I remember. Didn’ think I was even listenin’.
Casy, Tom notes, “talked a lot,” which used to “bother him.” Now, however, Tom reflects upon the dead man’s words, recalling Casy’s story about going “out in the wilderness to find his own soul.” During his sojourn in nature, Casy “foun’ he didn’t have no soul that was his’n.” Rather than finding his own soul, then, Casy “foun’ he just’ got a little piece of a great big soul.” Ultimately, Casy finds that his time in the wilderness was a failure, as a person is incomplete on their own, severed from other people, who constitute pieces of a collective soul.
Casy’s theology is unorthodox. Nevertheless, Steinbeck presents Casy, through these allusions, as a Christ-like figure, imbued with spiritual wisdom. Like Christ, he attempts to lead others towards salvation, which for Casy means living communally and harmoniously with others. Just as the disciples of Jesus spread his word after his crucifixion, Tom has been deeply influenced by Casy’s philosophy, which he now intends to spread after Casy’s death.
Related Themes:
Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Connection to the Land :
The notion of a personal connection to the land serves as a motif throughout the novel. Steinbeck presents the tractor drivers who have supplanted the tenant-farmers as working on the land only indirectly through machine tools. As a result, he suggests, those tractor drivers have little connection to the land itself, unlike the tenant-farmers, who work with it directly and who have survived upon the land for generations. In Chapter 5, Steinbeck describes a tractor driver as a robot-like figure operating a monstrous contraption:
The driver could not control it—straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat’, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him—goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest.
Here, Steinbeck emphasizes what he believes is the lack of control the tractor drivers have over the machines that they operate. Though the driver controls the machine and could make it change direction by a mere “twitch” of his hands, the driver is not truly in control of his hands, as he himself is controlled by the company that owns the tractor. The unnamed company, which he characterizes metaphorically as a “monster,” has possessed the driver, taking possession of his “brain and muscle.” This driver, encased by the machine and manipulated by the company, is not in full possession of his senses and therefore pays little attention to the land, which he feels no connection to.
Steinbeck revisits this idea later on in Chapter 11, describing the lack of “wonder” and understanding that characterizes, for him, the tractor driver’s relationship to the land:
Then the corrugated iron doors are closed and the tractor man drives home to town, perhaps twenty miles away, and he need not come back for weeks or months, for the tractor is dead. And this is easy and efficient. So easy that the wonder goes out of work, so efficient that the wonder goes out of land and the working of it, and with the wonder the deep understanding and the relation.
While the tenant-farmers manipulate the earth around them with their own hands and hand-held tools, the “tractor man” lives far away from the land that he works upon and is away from it for “weeks or months.” Though his work is “easy and efficient,” Steinbeck feels that “the wonder goes out of the land,” and with it, the “deep understanding and the relation” to the earth. Through this motif, Steinbeck suggests that mechanized farming has alienated people from the land they live on and has contributed to the ecological degradation of the region.
Related Themes:
Chapter 28
Explanation and Analysis—Jesus Christ:
Steinbeck repeatedly suggests parallels between Jim Casy and Jesus Christ, a prominent motif throughout the novel. Though Casy disclaims any similarity to Jesus, Steinbeck nevertheless presents him as a Christ-like figure, and the two share the initials "J.C." When he is asked to say grace at the Joad family’s dinner prior to their journey to California, Casy states:
I ain’t sayin’ I’m like Jesus [...] But I got tired like Him, an’ I got mixed up like Him, an’ I went into the wilderness like Him, without no campin’ stuff. Nighttime I’d lay on my back an’ look up at the stars; morning I’d set an’ watch the sun come up; midday I’d look out from a hill at the rollin’ dry country; evenin’ I’d foller the sun down.
Here, Steinbeck alludes to a biblical story in which Christ spends 40 nights fasting and praying in the desert after his baptism by John the Baptist, as recounted in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and Mark. Like Christ, then, Casy attempts to find his own soul in the wilderness, though he spends more time observing nature than he does communing with God.
Later in the novel, after Ruthie inadvertently reveals to another child that Tom has been hiding from the authorities after killing a man, Ma Joad finds Tom's hiding place in the woods in order to warn him to flee. In his final conversation with his mother in the novel, Tom describes Casy in a way that further develops these parallels to Christ:
He talked a lot. Used ta bother me. But now I been thinkin’ what he said, an’ I can remember— all of it. Says one time he went out in the wilderness to find his own soul, an’ he foun’ he didn’ have no soul that was his’n. Says he foun’ he jus’ got a little piece of a great big soul. Says a wilderness ain’t no good, ’cause his little piece of a soul wasn’t no good ’less it was with the rest, an’ was whole. Funny how I remember. Didn’ think I was even listenin’.
Casy, Tom notes, “talked a lot,” which used to “bother him.” Now, however, Tom reflects upon the dead man’s words, recalling Casy’s story about going “out in the wilderness to find his own soul.” During his sojourn in nature, Casy “foun’ he didn’t have no soul that was his’n.” Rather than finding his own soul, then, Casy “foun’ he just’ got a little piece of a great big soul.” Ultimately, Casy finds that his time in the wilderness was a failure, as a person is incomplete on their own, severed from other people, who constitute pieces of a collective soul.
Casy’s theology is unorthodox. Nevertheless, Steinbeck presents Casy, through these allusions, as a Christ-like figure, imbued with spiritual wisdom. Like Christ, he attempts to lead others towards salvation, which for Casy means living communally and harmoniously with others. Just as the disciples of Jesus spread his word after his crucifixion, Tom has been deeply influenced by Casy’s philosophy, which he now intends to spread after Casy’s death.
Related Themes:
