upon finishing the text, i think my takeaway is that it should be
viewed solely as an attempted historical reconstruction. the politics
presented are meant to document those that existed amongst the migrant
workers, and amongst the people the migrant workers met. if i was
reading the text looking for some deep insight into the political forces
that caused the migrants' struggle, it is because i fundamentally
misunderstood the mandate of the text. if they themselves did not
understand the causes of their struggles, how could the author
demonstrate those causes and still narrate their story fairly, without
mocking them?
in fact, there's some evidence of
mocking. the fruit seems to make them sick, and they seem not to
understand that the probable cause is that it's been sprayed. did that
"medicine" kill grandpa? there's actually a lot of examples of this, but
the narrative seems to be left choppy on purpose, to prevent intruding
into their story.
if steinbeck were to delve into a
deeper understanding of causes, he would have intellectually segregated
himself from his characters, and literally lost the plot.
this
may have been a part of the reason that the reverend was left
underdeveloped. it seems clear that steinbeck wanted to use the reverend
as a sounding board, but he was shut down early in the text. steinbeck
scolds himself by pointing out how quiet the reverend has been, whenever
he's reintroduced. then he takes him out of the story at a point where
he could have been louder, only to reintroduce him in order to
kill him off completely. but, see, there's a point where john says that
he expects to see the reverend again - once again indicating that
steinbeck intended to use this character to speak.
was
the reverend silenced so as to not interfere with the story of the
migrants? and, if so, is there an unedited version with deeper dialogue?
i
would post the essay here, but he wants it done by hand. he says we'll
spend enough time typing when we're older, and that we're still young
enough that we should be practicing handwriting.
