The Spring is beautiful in California. Valleys in which the fruit blossoms are fragrant pink and white waters in a shallow sea. Then the first tendrils of the grapes, swelling from the old gnarled vines, cascade down to cover the trunks. The full green hills are round and soft as breasts…The centers of the blossoms swell and grow and color.
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 25. The chapter’s opening lines describe an idyllic scene of a Golden State lush with growing fruit and set for a bountiful harvest. The California land is depicted as a pregnant woman about give birth to new life. The color imagery used, "green hills," conjures up a picture of fertility and hope. But as we will soon learn, it is a deceptively beautiful picture. There is an over-abundance of food, much of which will go to waste while many people starve.