"If on’y they didn’t tell me I got to get off, why, I’d prob’y be in California right now a-eatin’ grapes an’ a-pickin’ an orange when I wanted. But them sons-a-bitches says I got to get off – an’, Jesus Christ, a man can’t, when he’s tol’ to!"
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 6. An angry Muley Graves reveals that the only reason he is not in California with his family is because he won’t told what to do. The landowners told him to leave, so he showed his resistance by staying. Muley is the classic example of a stubborn person, choosing dignity and resistance over what others would see as pragmatism. He is the solitary one among all the evicted tenant farmers who remains behind.