Hebrew Scripture

"Joad carefully drew the torso of a woman in the dirt, breasts, hips, pelvis."
The Grapes of Wrath--John Steinbeck (p. 30)

Steinbeck adopts a palpable likeness to the stylistic patterns of the Bible, numerous sentences recapture an essence of scared language and antiquated flow.  Compare: "Every moving thing lifted the dust into the air" (Steinbeck 4) to "every creeping thing that creeps on the earth" (NKJV Gen. 1:26).  But that point is a basically obvious one, especially when, every other page of the book is littered with Jesus, Christ, God Almighty, or pretty much any given combination of the three. I think Mark Twain was accredited with having said adjectives were like God's thunder and lightening, perchance the Lord's name has served as an adjective for Steinbeck.  Now to the reason I chose this excerpt to blog about; it comes from a passage where Jim Casey is conveying to young Tom Joad his disquieted faith, and the trouble through which he has arrived at a new outlook on life-- centrally his laying up with women after prayer meetings.  With the text's emphasis on religion, I can't help but compare the preacher's sexuality to those of people residing in Canaan at the time Israel (the Hebrew's) came into the land. The settlement resulted in cohabitation with different cultures.  Before this the Hebrew people were nomads, mostly shepherds, now there was a need to be farmers.   Unlike the Hebrew religion most other cultures were polytheistic and depended primarily on Asherah (fertility goddess) for the production of crops and continuation of life, childbearing and so forth.  Priests would hold ceremonies at the temple, there a priestess, more fittingly prostitute, would be offered to town men in a ritual to please the goddess and insure cultivation of the land.  When Joad draws the figure of a woman into the barren soil, I immediately thought Asherah. There are two relational aspects I considered: the whole forsaken, fruitless soil of the dustbowl, and the force of cultural change demanding a need to relocate.  There is strong evidence from the Bible showing people were influenced to conform from the "old ways" to new lifestyles and practices, an apparent factor for the novels characters.  Presently I am taking a Hebrew Scriptures course, so these similarities seemed note worthy to me. Whether there was any intent for this cultural correlation on the author's part is speculative.

I also perceived a tearing away from a communal mind to one centered on individual prosperity alone.  In chapter six Muley is asked if he is going to share his meal, he replies, "if a fella's got somepin to eat an' another fella's hungry--why, the first fella ain't got no choice."  But you can see the difference in charity from chapter seven's used care salesman's antics: "they hate to put you out. Make 'em put you out, an' then sock it to 'em."  That mentality could even be attributed to the Bible.  Israel were a people defined by religion: The Grapes of Wrath's tenants are a people defined by land.

Not to be overlooked are character names: Tom (Thomas), Noah, Rosasharn, Uncle John, the Peters', and the Jacobs' Every one a biblical name.  And how about Jim Casy, intials J. C.--Jesus Christ .