Maybe we can start again, in the new rich land – in California, where the fruit grows. We’ll start over.
But you can’t start. Only a baby can start. You and me – why, we’re all that’s been. The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that’s us. This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can’t start again.
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 9. Tenant farmers discuss the question of starting again in the new rich land of California. Steinbeck is commenting on the hopelessness felt by the tenant farmers. The passage begins on an optimistic note that tenant farmers can restart new lives in California. But the tone then significantly changes. A mood of despondancy takes over, as the farmers realize that the umbilical cord that bonded them to the land has been broken, that connection which was their source of life and meaning is gone, and they can’t start again. It’s all a deception.