Chapters Nine & Ten: Depressing

I just recently finished chapter ten of The Grapes of Wrath. Chapter ten was extremely long and it took me a while to get through it. However, when I finished reading it, I got to thinking about how fortunate I really am to have the things I have in life. The Joad family had to attempt to pack their entire house onto one truck to take with them to California. I do not think I would be able to sell all of my furniture to leave to go to California. However, for the Joad family, moving was their only option. They had already lost everything else in Oklahoma, and wanted to start over their life. In the previous chapter, many generalizations were made. Chapter nine talked about everyone packing up their belongings and getting ready to leave. A passage I found touching in chapter ten was when Ma went through the house by herself after everyone had cleared out their possessions. Ma went into the bedroom and pulled out a stationary box full of her most prized treasures and keepsakes which included letters, a newspaper clipping of Tom's trial, and jewelry. Taking only the jewelry, she put the rest of the contents of the box into the smoldering fire. To me, this made me sad as it displayed Ma had given up hope and everything in her Oklahoma lifestyle. She was ready to move on into a new life. I found that passage touching. Also, the Joad family only has about a hundred dollars to their name. They got around eighteen dollars for selling their furniture, which to me does not seem like a whole lot. To the Joad family, the furniture they sold was full of memories and they had to sell the pieces of furniture out of desperation for money. The grandfather did not seem to want to leave Oklahoma. Throughout the chapter, he kept saying how he could not wait to eat California grapes and oranges. However, when it actually got time to leave, the grandfather did not want to go. He said his roots were in Oklahoma. Tom knew his grandfather could not manage on his own living by himself, so he, along with his ma and pa slipped a type of sleeping drug into the grandfather's drink so he could be put on the truck without a problem. Now, the Joads are on their way to California leaving two dogs, chickens, and Muley behind.