The Turtle and the Joads
John Steinbeck’s epic novel, the Grapes of Wrath, traces the journey of a migrating Oklahoma family traveling westward in desperation. In chapter three of the book, Steinbeck meticulously describes every detail of a long and tedious journey of a land turtle crossing a desolate highway. With the turtle’s travel, it was almost a complete foreshadowing of the Joad family’s own grueling ordeal.
From the onset of its journey, the turtle encounters many a great obstacles and setbacks. Along the way to the other side of the road, the turtle is hindered by red ants, hills, and oat seeds under his shell. The turtle’s determination however was strong enough to motivate him to continue reaching forward for his destination; it was even unfazed when a truck driven by a young man swerves to hit the turtle. When the turtle’s shell was clipped and went flying off the highway, it still remained focused and continued on. It struggled back to its belly and kept moving forward, inch by inch, towards his final destination.
The turtle, representing survival and the driving life force in all of mankind that cannot be beaten by neither nature nor circumstance, now represents the Joads' fully. Much like the turtle in chapter three, the Joads themselves had to face many an ordeals and hardships in their travels to California. With the planes of Oklahoma in disarray and completely worthless to provide for the family, they travel westward, on the artificial highway across the harsh summer deserts. Along the way they meet helpful people and not so helpful people, but the Joads remain steady in their course, heading steadily towards California with hope and dreams.
The red ants symbolized sickness, always there to harass the family, always there to remind them of death and annoyance. The ants serve no other purpose than be there, a scourge against the turtle. The hills represented nature. The all-engrossing nature that remained in focus and provided the hardships even in this vast strip of human-land. And as the turtle moves across the road it caries with it an oat seed until it was knocked on the other side. But it manages to flip itself over and dropped the oat leaving the three spearhead seeds struck in the ground while dragging dirt over them as the turtle continues on its way.
As the light truck approached nearer and nearer the drive saw the turtle and actually went out of his way to swerve to hit it. This act alone signifies many a great things. The driver, representing the Californians working for the large, faceless companies, was hired mainly for the sole purpose of stopping the migrants from going west, the struggle of the powerful against the little guy. The truck driver went out his way just to stomp the turtle, much like how the Californians buried food and killed livestock just to keep the Joads’ and others like them away from their dream.
But even through all of this the Joads’ persevered. They were driven by the great motivating powers to both endure poverty and survive hunger. Just as the turtle searched for food, the Joads’ were searching for paradise, the perfect garden of Eden. The grapes in California gave the Joads’ hope and a dream to attain, and it was through hard work that they made it.