"Whenever there's a fight so hungry people can eat. I'll be there." (Tom Joad)
Okies piled into their Model T's, overloaded with their worldly possessions, and rumbled down a dusty Route 66 to California during the Great Depression, searching for work in the "Promised Land". Tom Joad, the main character in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, was fed up with begging for food, begging for a job, begging for dignity. He parts ways with his family, delivering a tear-jerker speech to his mother.
"Well maybe it's like Casy says. A fella ain't got a soul of his own -- just a little piece of a big soul. The one big soul that belongs to everybody. Then it don' matter. I'll be around in the dark. I'll be everywhere -- wherever you can look. Whenever there's a fight so hungry people can eat. I'll be there. Whenever there's a cop beatin' up a guy. I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready. And when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise, and livin' in the houses they build. I'll be there, too."
To listen to the speech from the 1939 movie The Grapes of Wrath, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2JR3FmvVAw.
I recently read John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and found it to be a captivating and profound novel. The way Steinbeck captures the struggles and resilience of the "Okies" on their journey to California is nothing short of remarkable. I was so absorbed in the story that I lost track of time and even neglected my assignments, eventually needing to avail myself of assignment help London to complete them on time. This novel is truly a fantastic source of both enjoyment and deep reflection.
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