The Grapes of Wrath Betrayal Quotes

"Well, what you doing this kind of work for – against your own people?"
"Three dollars a day. I got damn sick of creeping for my dinner – and not getting it. I got a wife and kids. We got to eat."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 5. The tenant farmer accuses the tractor driver of betraying his own class. The bank is paying the son of a local farmer to plough up the tenant farmer’s repossessed land. But the tractor driver explains that he has no choice, he must earn money to feed his wife and children.

"But for your three dollars a day fifteen or twenty families can’t eat at all. Nearly a hundred people have to go out and wander on the roads for your three dollars a day. Is that right?"
And the driver said, "Can’t think of that. Got to think of my own kids."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 5. The tenant farmer excoriates the tractor driver for driving a hundred people to homelessness and hunger just to earn three dollars a day. He feels that what the driver is doing is a betrayal of his own class. But the tractor man asserts that his priority is his family’s welfare which takes precedence over the dispossessed tenant.

"Times are changed, don’t you know? Thinking about stuff like that don’t feed the kids. Get your three dollars a day, feed your kids. You got no call to worry about anybody’s kids but your own. You get a reputation for talking like that, and you’ll never get three dollars a day if you worry about anything but your three dollars a day."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 5. The important themes of betrayal, money and hunger are illustrated in this speech from the tractor driver. He defends taking a three dollar a day job to tractor out tenant farms that have been repossessed in his neighborhood. The tenant farmer should go and do the same job and feed his own children, the tractor man advises him.

"I got orders wherever there’s a family not moved out – if I have an accident – you know, get too close and cave the house in a little – well, I might get a couple of dollars. And my youngest kid never had no shoes yet."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 5. The tractor driver demonstrates his greed for a few extra bucks and his betrayal of his own people here. For a few dollars he is willing to do the dirty work of his bank employers and "accidentally" cave in a local tenant farmer’s house with the tractor. This shows how much he has been corrupted by the system, showing no humanity and thinking only of his own self-interest.

"Don’t knife your own folks. We’re tryin’ to get along, havin’ fun an’ keepin’ order. Don’t tear all that down. Jes’ think about it. You’re jes’ harmin’ yourself. Awright, boys, put ’em over the back fence. An’ don’t hurt ’em. They don’t know what they’re doin’."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 24. Ezra Huston’s forgiveness of the three migrant troublemakers intending to start a riot at Weedpatch echoes the final words of Jesus dying on the cross. According to Luke 23:24 Jesus said: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Migrant leader Huston’s humanity stands in stark contrast to the betrayal of the troublemakers and cruelty of the Farmers’ Association who sent them.
Close