A Break from the Wrath
By Elizabeth Guzzo, with comments by Michael Oelbaum and Eric Weiss
[1] The scene in which Pa Joad along with his two children enter the truck stop may not have as much action or drama as others in The Grapes of Wrath, but it is nonetheless very important to the film. Ford utilizes this scene in order to show the audience a shallow and superficial waitress’s change of heart toward the Okies. We first see this woman, who is not named, flirting at the table with a truck driver, worrying only about her appearance and the attractive truck driver, her biggest concern receiving a number. The contrast between this carefree woman and the care-ridden Joads is made even more grotesquely laughable when we notice through the window a truck labeled “New Mexico,†showing just how far this poor but proud family has come and how much farther they need to travel.
[2] The waitress has a good standard of living; she has a stable job, dresses decently, and can support herself. The Joads, on the other hand, are living in a jalopy and cannot even afford a sandwich. Their opposite lifestyles are reinforced by the waitress’s reaction when Pa Joad comes into the truck stop. Ford shoots from a distance in order for us to see the waitress flirting with the truck driver but also Pa Joad entering the door. She is on the left-hand side, facing toward the camera, so that she looks in the audience’s direction. We then see her say “Jesus†with a disgruntled look on her face. She evidently is nothing like the Joads, or else she would have sympathy towards them and their situation. Instead, she views them as a nuisance and as beggars, and she feels no desire to sell them an essential loaf of bread.
[3] This inhumane attitude, however, is tested when the waitress witnesses Pa Joad’s pride and character first hand. She initially refuses to sell them bread and argues with Bert when he challenges her decision. And after reluctantly retrieving the food, she curtly throws it on the table in front of Pa and the children, once again emphasizing that the loaf is worth fifteen cents. We see her at her worst in this moment. The waitress has already made painfully clear that she and Bert are being ripped off by selling the loaf; by reiterating it again with her cruel gesture, she throws salt on Pa’s wounded pride. Pa Joad knows he cannot afford food, and he could have jumped at Bert’s suggestion that the waitress just give him the bread. Instead, he replies, “No sir, we want to buy a ten-cents worth, that’s all†and later, after buying the bread, “it may sound funny, being so tight, but we’ve got a thousand miles to go and we don’t know if we’ll make it.†Pa Joad is not a beggar. He is not looking for an easy way out, and he has no choice other than to be careful with his limited money supply.
[4] After the once-cold waitress listens to Bert, we begin to see the change of heart in her character. The annoyed look melts off her face. She seems embarrassed by the way she handled the situation. The camera stays far enough back to show the candy and check-out station but also close enough to display her face. She has a pitiful look, and she realizes that she has been unkind to the family. We now see her at her best moment. In order to make up for her uncharitable first encounter, the waitress tells Pa Joad that the candies are two for a penny. In doing this, she helps Pa Joad without further damaging his self-respect. She could have confirmed that the candies are five cents before handing them over, like she did with the bread, but, instead, she learns from her previous mistake. She allows Pa Joad to feel like he can buy for his family, she cheers up the children by giving them candy, and she ultimately feels better about herself for being more compassionate. (see comment by Michael Oelbaum)
[5] This scene is important because, in a movie full of apparent villains, we witness acts of kindness. It proves that people can change and be more understanding toward families like the Joads. If other characters in the film had transformations like the waitress, the Joads' situation would not seem so tragic. This scene gives hope that there are good people in America at this time who would willingly help suffering migrants. (see comment by Eric Weiss)
Comments
Guzzo captures and analyzes the altruism of the waitress and its importance well. I would like to add on by emphasizing the sheer poverty the Joads are in. Here is the “breadwinner,†Pa Joad, who is supposed to feed and take care of the family. In this case he, quite literally, is trying to get bread for his family. This scene has so much meaning because the man of the house is reduced to, to some extent, a beggar. While Guzzo points out how honorable Pa Joad is, and I do not disagree that he maintains his pride while trying to purchase the bread, the fact is that Pa fails in his ability to adequately provide for his family. If it wasn’t for the waitress’s generosity, Pa Joad could not have purchased the loaf of bread and his family would not have had food. This is an important scene because it illustrates that when a man is unable to provide for his family, the failure overtakes him and he becomes depressed. It is very important for a man to feel that he can take care of his family and his pride as well, as illustrated in the last scene of the film, in which Pa Joad and the rest of the family rely on Ma Joad for support. In this last scene, Pa Joad officially cannot provide for the family and is in a disheveled state, as evidenced by his blank stare ahead and his confession that Ma Joad is the one keeping the family together. Thus, while Pa Joad may be gallant in failure, Steinbeck portrays the wife as the head of the household and the rock of the family, which is revolutionary for the time period.
While Guzzo's analysis of the importance of this seemingly insignificant scene is spot on, I believe that she glosses over the point that distinguishes this moment from other transitionary scenes in the film. The initial prejudice that the waitress has toward Pa exposes the audience to the blind prejudice that the majority of the Californians have toward Okies. While it is true that the waitress sees the error in her thinking during her short interaction with Pa Joad, it is more relevant to the themes of the film that her terse attitude demonstrates the widespread injustice that the Okies had to endure on their pilgrimage for work. As the majority of tenant farmers lost their jobs and land to the omnipotent and intangible corporation, the surplus of jobs in California became a surplus of Okies in the west. The public perception of these homeless migrants was extremely negative; they were dirty foragers who could not take care of themselves. Although Guzzo fleshes the scene out well, her conclusion fails to mention what the waitress's prejudice implies about the public perception of the Okies: nobody wanted to help any of them because they were seen as not only nuisances but also as beggars in the west.
Listen, for instance, to this Californian quoted in the April 1939 Fortune magazine: "We didn’t ask these Okies and Arkies to come out here. They were failures where they lived, and they came because our relief payments are about the biggest in the country. Most of them aren’t the kind of people who make good citizens. They’re naturally dirty, ignorant, immoral, and superstitious. If you do anything for them they don’t appreciate it, and if you let them on your ground, they dirty it up and destroy property -- they’re used to living like trash. They’ve been inbreeding so long that they’re low-grade stock."
