The Turntable

Throughout The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck continually incorporates long passages of exposition that include dense descriptions of machines, their parts, and how they work. The reader is continually berated with mechanical lingo and vivid descriptions such as how the tractors and their “shining disks” rape the earth (36). These passages are vital because they clue the reader into the importance of the machine throughout the work and the ways in which machines affect peoples lives. One of the most interesting descriptions occurs in chapter 15 when the narrator carefully describes the inner workings of a turntable and the movement of a nickel as it falls through the mechanism.

This passage is seemingly innocuous. It falls in the middles of an odd numbered chapter that depicts life in a diner rather than following the Joad family. In this passage the narrator states, “The nickel, which has caused all this mechanism to work, has caused Crosby to sing and an orchestra to play-this nickel drops from between the contact points into the box where the profits go. This nickel, unlike most money, has actually done a job of work, has been physically responsible for a reaction” (158). These two sentences address the major themes of the book. They point to the importance of machines, movement, and work, but most importantly they suggest that money puts things in motion. The Joad family was thrown off their land because they could not make a prophet and pay back the bank. Thousands of families who lost their farms move west in search of jobs and therefore money. This nickel is different however because it actually performs a function. It is tangible and is able to become a physical being that creates work rather than simply a representation of five cents.

These few sentences not only address the major themes of the work but also suggest the futility of money. Money, like the bank, is an intangible entity and yet they controls these people’s lives completely. Money is nothing more than medium of exchanged used to purchase goods and yet because it is seemingly unattainable for many of these families it becomes their lifeblood .