Now you know well what we can take and what we can’t take. We’ll be camping out – a few pots to cook and wash in, and mattresses and comforts, lantern and buckets, and a piece of canvas. Use that for a tent. This kerosene can. Know what that is? That’s the stove. And clothes – take all the clothes. And – the rifle? Wouldn’t go out naked of a rifle. When shoes and clothes and food, when even hope is gone, we’ll have the rifle. When grampa came – did I tell you? – he had pepper and salt and a rifle. Nothing else. That goes. And a bottle for water. That just about fills us. Right up the sides of the trailer, and the kids can set in the trailer, and granma on a mattress. Tools, a shovel and saw and wrench and pliers. An ax, too. We had that ax forty years. Look how she’s wore down. And ropes, of course. The rest? Leave it – or burn it up.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 9. Steinbeck makes effective use of pathos in Chapter 9 as he explores the emotional suffering tenant families must endure when they are uprooted from their homes and lives. The chapter captures the loss of dignity for migrants forced to divest themselves of personal belongings they are unable to bring with them on the journey. They take only the few things needed for survival. The rest have been sold, or are burned. What’s left of their lives and whatever dignity they can salvage, they bravely load onto the truck to head west.