Grapes of Wrath Chapter Summaries

Question 1

What happens in Chapter One?

Answer 1

It describes the cornfields dying in Oklahoma, and the farmers have nothing to do but watch them shrivel. Their wives and children watch the men, worried the disaster will break them, but knowing they will be okay as long as their men remain “whole.”

Question 2

What happens in Chapter Two?

Answer 2

Tom Joad hitches a ride with a trucker he meets outside a roadside restaurant, having just been released from jail. The driver asks T about himself, + he says he’s returning to the fam farm- the driver is surprised as farmers have been driven off their property. T admits to having killed someone

Question 3

What happens in Chapter 3?

Answer 3

the turtle walks down the baking highway. A woman swerves her car to avoid hitting it, but then a man veers a truck to hit it. He nicks the edge of the turtle’s shell, flipping it off the highway onto its back. Eventually it manages to flip itself back over and continue on its way.

Question 4

What happens in Chapter Four?

Answer 4

T picks up the turtle, + then meets JC, who says he’s no longer a preacher. T admits that killed a man when he was drunk + describes life in prison. They both head to the Joad’s farm, but find it deserted.

Question 5

What happens in Chapter Five?

Answer 5

The landowners and the banks, unable to make high profits from tenant farming, evict the farmers from the land. The farmers protest + the owners suggest they go to California. The tractors are often driven by the farmers’ neighbors, who explain that their own families have nothing to eat and that the banks pay several dollars a day. The displaced farmers yearn to fight back, but there is nothing to be fought against.

Question 6

What happens in Chapter Six?

Answer 6

The Joad house has not been scavenged, showing that most families nearby have left. They meet Muley Graves who says the Joads are with Tom’s Uncle John + are planning to go to California. Muley says his family is also heading West as they were evicted too, + JC criticises him for staying behind. They eat a rabbit + hide from police looking for trespassers. Finally, Muley takes them to a cave where he sleeps but JC can’t sleep.

Question 7

What happens in Chapter Seven?

Answer 7

The narrator assumes the voice of a used-car salesman explaining to his employees how to cheat the departing families. There is a huge demand for cars. The salesmen fill engines with sawdust to conceal noisy transmissions and replace good batteries with cracked ones before they deliver the cars. The tenant farmers, desperate to move and with little knowledge of cars, willingly pay the skyrocketing prices.

Question 8

What happens in Chapter Eight?

Answer 8

As they go to Uncle John’s, T describes how UJ didn’t take his wife to hospital when she had a stomach ache which lead to her death, so now UJ is overly generous + protective. T is reunited with his family. They worry he illegally broke out. Gramma asks JC to say grace at breakfast + he talks of his new religion. Pa shows T the new truck, which Al helps with, who strongly admires T.

Question 9

What happens in Chapter Nine?

Answer 9

Tenant farmers prepare to leave for California. The narrator uses the voice of the families to express what their possessions + homes mean to them. They have to pawn most of their belongings, for crazy low prices.

Question 10

What happens in Chapter Ten?

Answer 10

They talk of hopes for California + trust the handbill advertising work there. Pa goes to sell some possessions but returns with only $18. The fam holds a “council” + invite JC to go West with them. They pack to leave, + JC helps salt the meat despite Ma saying it’s “women’s work.” When they are about to leave, Grampa decides he wants to stay + the others have to lace his coffee with sleeping meds. They leave.

Question 11

What happens in Chapter Eleven?

Answer 11

The narrator explains that now the farmers have left, the tractor drivers have no connection to the land. They leave the land at the end of the day + such a separation between work and life causes men to lose wonder for their work and for the land. The empty farmhouses begin to crumble into the dust + wind

Question 12

What happens in Chapter 12?

Answer 12

Long lines of cars creep down Highway 66, full of tenant farmers making their way to California. The narrator again assumes the voices of typical farmers, expressing their worries about their vehicles and the dangers of the journey. When the farmers stop to buy parts for their cars, salesmen try to cheat them. At service stations, people are hostile to them + say they should go back to where they came from. But, one family which only has a trailer gets pulled along by others in two lifts to get to California

Question 13

What happens in Chapter Thirteen?

Answer 13

The Joads travel down Route 66. Al argues with a service station attendant who implies they have no money for gas, as most ppl just beg for fuel. The garage is run down. The Joad’s dog is hit by a car+ RoS is frightened. They pass thro Oklahoma City, + in the evening they meet Ivy and Sairy Wilson, whose car has broken down. Grampa dies in their tent + the Joads bury him. They agree to travel to California with the Wilsons.

Question 14

What happens in Chapter Fourteen?

Answer 14

People who live in the West do not understand what has happened in Oklahoma and the Midwest. Families camp next to the road. Amid the deluge of poor farmers, the citizens of the western states are frightened and on edge. They fear that the dislocated farmers will come together and revolt.

Question 15

What happens in Chapter Fifteen?

Answer 15

A waitress named Mae and a cook named Al work at a coffee shop on Route 66. Mae watches the many cars pass by, hoping that truckers will stop, for they leave the biggest tips. A man and his two boys enter, asking if they can buy a loaf of bread for a dime. Mae brushes them off. She reminds the man that she is not running a grocery store, and that even if she did sell him a loaf of bread she would have to charge 15 cents. Al says Mae should give the man some bread, and she finally softens. Then she notices the two boys looking longingly at some nickel candy, and she sells their father two pieces for a penny. Some truckers, watching, leave Mae an extra-large tip.

Question 16

What happens in Chapter Sixteen?

Answer 16

The Joad and Wilson families travel for 3 days. Rose of Sharon declares that when they arrive in California, she and Connie plan to live in town, where Connie can study at night in preparation for managing his own store. This worries Ma who wants the fam to stay together. The Wilsons’ car breaks down again. T and C offer to stay behind to repair it, but Ma refuses to go on without them. So JC+T go buy parts for car, + talk to an attendant who complains about his job. At the crowded camp that night, Pa Joad tells a man that he is traveling to look for work in California. The man laughs at him, saying that there is no work in there, despite what the handbills promise. Wealthy farmers, may need 800 workers, but they print 5,000 handbills, which are seen by 20,000 people. The man’s wife fam starved to death because they went to California. This worries Pa, but JC tells him that the Joads may have a different experience.

Question 17

What happens in Chapter Seventeen?

Answer 17

As masses of cars travel together and camp along the highway, little communities spring up among the migrant farmers. The communities create their own rules of conduct and their own means of enforcement. The lives of the farmers change drastically. They are no longer farmers but “migrant men.”

Question 18

What happens in Chapter Eighteen?

Answer 18

The Js and Ws arrive in California. The men find a river and go bathing. There, they meet a father and son who are returning from California because they have been unable to make a living. They also warn about resentment from locals. The Js decide to finish the journey that night. Noah decides to stay behind, saying he will live off fish from the river. Granma is very ill. A woman wants to pray for her but Ma sends her away. Police say the Js must move on+ the Ws insist they leave without them as Sairy’s ill. Police stop the truck for a routine agricultural inspection. Ma pleads with the officer to let them go, saying that Granma is in desperate need of medical attention. After, she says Granma died a while ago.

Question 19

What happens in Chapter Nineteen?

Answer 19

The narrator describes how California belonged to Mexico but was taken by hungry American squatters who believed that they owned the land because they farmed it. The descendants of these are the wealthy farmers who pay their laborers extremely low wages. They resent the “Okies” as they know that hungry people are a danger to the stability of land ownership. The Okies want only a decent wage and not to starve. Sometimes one of the them tries to grow a secret garden, but the deputies destroy it.

Question 20

What happens in Chapter Twenty?

Answer 20

Granma’s body is left in a coroner’s office as they don’t have the money to bury it. At Hooverville, a large, crowded, and dirty camp, a man, Floyd Knowles, tells Tom that when he encounters police, he must act like an unthreatening idiot. Floyd says that there are no jobs. Tom wonders why the men do not organize, but Floyd says that men who attempt to organize are put on a “blacklist,” which ensures that they will never find work. Casy discusses the injustice with Tom and wonders what he can do to help. Connie tells RoS that they should have stayed in Oklahoma. Ma cooks a stew + hands over the leftovers to hungry children. A contractor arrives to recruit for fruit-picking. When Knowles demands a set wage for the fruit pickers, Knowles is arrested on a bogus charge. A scuffle ensues. Knowles runs off. Tom trips the deputy, + Casy knocks him unconscious. Knowing that someone will need to be held responsible, Casy volunteers + is arrested. The sheriff announces that the camp will be burned. UJ tells the family that he wants to get drunk to bear his sorrow + he goes to buy alcohol. Connie leaves
+ RoS is beside herself with grief. T rounds up UJ, knocking the man unconscious in order to get him on the truck. The Joads leave. The fam is turned away from a town by a crowd of shotgun men, who were trying to keep Okies out.

Question 21

What happens in Chapter Twenty One?

Answer 21

The hostility directed toward the migrants changes them and brings them together. Property owners are terrified of “the flare of want in the eyes of the migrants.” California locals form armed bands to terrorize the “Okies.” The owners of large farms drive the smaller farmers out of business, making more and more people destitute and unable to feed themselves or their children.

Question 22

What happens in Chapter 22?

Answer 22

Later that night, the Joads come across the Weedpatch camp, a decent, government-sponsored facility where migrants govern themselves. Appointed committees ensure that the grounds remain clean and equipped with working toilets and showers. T meets Timothy and Wilkie Wallace. They take him to the ranch they have been working, where the boss, Mr. Thomas, tells the men about the Farmers’ Association, which says that he pay his laborers 25 cents/hour + no more. He says the association is planning to send instigators into Weedpatch to start a riot. The police will then have the right to enter the camp+ arrest ppl. The rest of the Joad men go to find work, and Ma is visited by Jim Rawley, the camp manager, whose kindness makes her feel human again. A religious fanatic named Mrs. Sandry appears and tells RoS to beware of the dancing and sinning that goes on: the babies of sinners are born “dead and bloody.” The camp’s Ladies Committee then drops in on Ma and RoS, introducing them to the local rules. Pa, Al, and UJ return from a day of searching for work, but Ma remains hopeful, for Tom has been hired.

Question 23

What happens in Chapter 23?

Answer 23

When the people are not working or looking for work, they make music and tell folktales together. If they have money, they can buy alcohol, which, like music, temporarily distracts them from their miseries. Preachers give fire-and-brimstone sermons about evil and sin, haranguing the people until they grovel on the ground, and conduct mass baptisms.

Question 24

What happens in Chapter 24?

Answer 24

The night of the camp dance is the night that the Farmers’ Association plans to start a riot. Ezra Huston, the chairman of the camp committee, hires twenty men to look out for instigators. RoS doesn’t dance for fear of the effect it might have on her baby. 3 dubious-looking men are spotted, one of which picks a fight by stepping in to dance with another man’s date. The men evict the trio from the camp. When asked why they would turn against their own, the men confess that they have been well paid to start a riot. Later that night, a man tells a story about people hired as cheap labor by a rubber company in Akron. When they joined a union, they were run out of town. In response, 5000 workers marched through the town centre with rifles. The story concludes that there has been no trouble between the townspeople and the workers since then.

Question 25

What happens in Chapter 25?

Answer 25

Spring is beautiful in California, but, like the migrants, many small local farmers stand to be ruined by large landowners, who monopolize the industry. Small farmers watch their crops wither and their debts rise- anger and resentment spreads. The narrator comments, “In the souls of the people, the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

Question 26

What happens in Chapter 26?

Answer 26

After nearly a month in Weedpatch, the Joads’ supplies running low and work is scarce. Ma convinces the others that they must leave. The truck has a flat tire, + as they are fixing it, a man in a suit tells the Js they can go to work picking peaches only 35miles away. When they arrive, they find angry mobs outside. They learn that they will be paid only 5 cents a box for picking peaches; desperate for food, they take the job. All day, they only earn one dollar. They spend all their wages on their meal that night, + are still hungry. Tom sneaks under the gate to investigate the trouble outside the farm. He finds JC in a tent who tells T about his time in prison + says that he now organizes the farmers. He explains that the men went on strike. Now the owner has hired a new group of men. 2 police approach them, recognizing Casy as the workers’ leader. 1 of them crushes his skull with a pick handle. Tom flies into a rage and wields the pick handle on Casy’s murderer, killing him before receiving a blow to his own head. He manages to run away and makes it back to his family. In the morning, when they discover his wounds and hear his story, Tom offers to leave so as not to bring any trouble to them. Ma insists that he stay. They leave the farm and head off + T hides in a culvert close to the plantation + the family sneaks food to him.

Question 27

What happens in Chapter 27?

Answer 27

Signs appear everywhere advertising work in the cotton fields. Wages are decent, but workers without cotton-picking sacks are forced to buy them on credit. There are so many workers that some are unable to do enough work even to pay for their sacks. Some of the owners are crooked and rig the scales used to weigh the cotton. To counter this practice, the migrants often load stones in their sacks.

Question 28

What happens in Chapter 28?

Answer 28

At the cotton fields, the Joads are given a boxcar to live in, which they share with the Wainwright fam. They make enough to buy food and clothing, and Ma is treats Ruthie and Winfield to a box of Cracker Jack candy. When another girl picks a fight with her, Ruthie boasts that her older bro has killed 2 men + is in hiding. Ma warns T that his secret has been revealed. She urges him to leave. T shares JC’s wisdom: every man’s soul is simply a small piece of a great soul. T says that he has decided to organize the people. As Ma returns, the owner of a small farm tells her he needs pickers for his 20 acres. Al announces that he + Agnes Wainwright plan to be married. The next day, the two families travel to the small farm, where so many workers have amassed that the entire crop is picked before noon. Glumly, the family returns to the boxcar, and it begins to rain.

Question 29

What happens in Chapter 29?

Answer 29

Rain lashes the land, and no work can be done during the deluge. Rivers overflow, and cars wash away in the coursing mud. The men are forced to beg and to steal food. The women watch the men in apprehension, worried that they might finally see them break. Instead, however, they see the men’s fear turning to anger. The women know that their men will remain strong as long as they can maintain their rage.

Question 30

What happens in Chapter 30?

Answer 30

On the third day of the storm, the skies show no sign of clearing. RoS goes into labor. The truck has flooded, so the family must remain in the boxcar. At Pa’s urging, the men work to build a makeshift dam but an uprooted tree destroys it. When Pa returns, Mrs. Wainwright says RoS has delivered a stillborn baby. UJ places the baby’s improvised coffin in the stream, + watches it wash away. Pa spends the last of the money on food. On the sixth day of rain, the boxcar begins to flood, and Ma decides they must seek dry ground. Al stays with the Wainwrights. Traveling on foot, the Js spot a barn where they find a dying man and small boy. The boy tells them that his father has not eaten for 6 days, giving all food to his son. He now cannot digest solid food. Ma looks to RoS, and the girl understands. She asks everyone to leave the barn and suckles him despite his protests.