The Squatter’s Circle in The Grapes of Wrath

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

NOTES THE SQUATTER’S CIRCLE IN THE GRAPES OF WRATH John H. Timmerman Calvin College In John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, the indomitable Ma Joad emerges as a hero and the leader of, in her words, “the fambly of man.” In so doing, however, she also displaces Pa Joad from his traditional posi­ tion of authority in the family. While several critical studies have examined those qualities of Ma Joad that direct her leadership—qualities of humor, a steadfast vision, and a resilient ability to bend and adapt to new situa­ tions without breaking—Pa Joad has disappeared from critical scrutiny as if of no account. In fact, Steinbeck very carefully directs the reversal of leadership roles through the use of the “squatter’s circle” motif. That the migrant family of the 1930s was strongly patriarchal has been demonstrated by Tom Collins’ detailed reports on California migrant camps during the late 1930s. Collins was the manager of the Kern County Migrant Camp and was also Steinbeck’s most profitable source of information about migrant traditions. He personally escorted Steinbeck through both the established government camps and the squatters’ camps. More importantly, Steinbeck took back with him to Los Gatos hundreds of pages of Collins’ reports and assessments of migrant families. These reports figured directly into Steinbeck’s composition of his novel.1 Collins’ weekly reports from Kern County’s Arvin Camp, prototype for the Weedpatch Camp in The Grapes of Wrath, testify that these migrant families, while traditionally patriarchal, were experiencing a revolution of matriarchal uprising. As the men foundered in the bewildering tides of joblessness, indirection, and poverty, the women assumed dominant authority in the family. One of the most revealing parts of Collins’ reports in this matter of family authority appears in his weekly entry entitled “Bits of Migrant Wisdom.” Here Collins diverges from his statistical information, his detailed accounts ofcamp activities, and his necessarily objective analysis to satisfy the governmental bureaucracy, to probe intimately the nature of migrant lives. Frequently such musings and probings focus upon marital relation­ ships. After recounting at some length in his report for June 6,1936, one protracted and often violent lover’s quarrel, Collins observes: “We just let her cry. In fact we encouraged her to cry and bawl to her hearts [sic] con­ tent. That’s what she wanted to do. Migrant women are that way.”2 But he does not leave the portrait with this traditional depiction of the weakly crying woman. There is tougher stuff in the camp women, and one has an idea that Collins appreciates the woman he quotes two paragraphs fur­ ther in the story: “A woman neighbor summed the incident thusly; ‘She aint ole nuf ter u’stand men folks. She’ll lam sum day. What she shuld a-dun was ter kick him plenty in the fanny, only she wont.’” Collins observes, “we believe she will do that soon.” While he portrays the migrant women in their customary matriarchal roles of canning, housekeeping, and sewing, he also senses a tide of revolution sweeping through them. A second observation of Collins, appearing in his report for June 13, 1936, recounts a specific example of a woman revolting against the patriar­ chal system: Reversing the usual migrant system whereby the man is the master of the house, the bride in this instance rules the roost. She can be heard every evening after the boy’s return from work, laying down the law. On one occasion we saw her sitting down giving him orders on proper dish washing and later, instructions regarding sweeping out the tent and doing the family wash. He grunted a lot but went about the task as “ordered.” Collins closes with a terse reflection: “Maybe a new day has dawned for the migrant woman, eh?” If it had, nowhere would it be more evident than in Ma Joad’s reversal of the patriarchal role in the family. In The Grapes of Wrath, Ma Joad rises as the force that unifies and directs the disintegrating family. In order to do so, however, on several occa­ sions she stands up to and eventually displaces Pa from his family role. The first such...