After the Storm

In both Their Eyes Were Watching God and Grapes of Wrath, the novels end in similar and dramatic ways. A storm comes through, wipes away everything, and it acts as the height of action within the plot. For Janie, it could be argued that the hurricane “ruins” her life – she is forced to uproot because of it; the storm is very chaotic and destructive, and it ultimately contributes Tea Cake’s demise. However, for the Joads, the storm at the end of the novel might not be a horrible act of nature that threatens their already meager existence, but instead, a “washing away” of sorts that ushers in a better life – or a hope for a better life.
I can’t help but think of Noah’s Ark when I read the final chapters about the storm. The language describing the storm isn’t necessarily violent, but instead Steinbeck focuses on the constant showers, and how “the rain beat on steadily”(432). The consequences of the storm are awful – it ruins crop, puts people out of work, causes illness and hunger, and wipes out the migrants already-desperate lives. However, there are indications of a silver lining within it all, as Chapter 29 ends: “Tiny points of grass came through the earth, and in a few days the hills were pale green with the beginning year”(435) – a rare moment signifying renewal in the novel.
The storm also functions as a fitting background to another violent act of nature – Rose of Sharon giving birth. Her torturous labor filled with “fierce pains”(441) also ends with something awful, as her baby is a stillborn, a “blue shriveled little mummy”(444). But the silver lining of this “storm” of labor is her saving the hungry man with her breast milk, and the uplifting final image where she “smiled mysteriously”(455). I don’t know if it’s too simplistic to say the new, growing grass at the end of the storm, and Rose of Sharon’s final act are similar to the white dove of hope at the end of Noah’s Ark, but Steinbeck does not give much insight into the next part of the Joads’ journey, but he does end the novel in a hopeful way, as all is not lost. What’s left of the the Joads will continue on, and as Ma said, “Woman looks at it like that. We ain’t gonna die out. People is goin’ on – changin’ a little, maybe, but goin’ right on”(423).