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The Grapes of WrathAuthor(s): Thomas F. DunnSource: College English, Vol. 24, No. 7 (Apr., 1963), pp. 566-567Published by: National Council of Teachers of EnglishStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/372896 .

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566 COLLEGE ENGLISHthat the difference between Oedipus (trag-edy) and Tristram (comedy) is "theamount of suffering involved." The suffer-ing is "illusory" in Tristram (comedy) andreal in Oedipus (tragedy), which leads Mr.Eskin to conclude that there must be a"quantitative difference in the amount ofpain and terror involved" in the two genres.Similarly Fontenelle says the difference be-tween tears and laughter is in the amountof pain involved. You tickle a man and hewill laugh with pleasure, but increase thepressure enough and he will cry with pain;while conversely a situation that would beunbearably painful to witness in real life ispleasurable to witness on the stage, the de-gree or quantity of pain having been re-duced by changing reality into illusion.Thus both Fontenelle and Eskin must holdthat comedy and tragedy, pleasure and painspring from the same causes and towardsthe same effects, differing from one another

only in terms of quantity and not in termsof nature.My only reason for bothering to makethis comparison is that Fontenelle wasneatly refuted by David Hume in 1757. Asmost readers will recall, the essay in whichhe does so, "On Tragedy," is a classic in itsfield and basic reading for students of thetheory of tragedy. The refutation (Humemodestly presents it as only a slight modifi-cation is based on the common-sense ideathat pleasure is opposite from pain ratherthan a weakened form of it. Even thoughcomedy may involve the same painful ideasand materials, it has the power to convertand subordinate them. So that-very for-tunately, it seems to me-pleasure and pain,comedy and tragedy remain qualitativelydistinct.

JAMES CHROETERIllinois Institute of Technology

THE GRAPES OF WRATHH. Kelly Crockett (CE, Dec. 1962) iden-tifies Jim Casy of The Grapes with Jesus

and Tom with St. Peter-failing to find ananalogue for Ma Joad-and asserts that theculvert and mattress are grave symbols,Rose of Sharon's milk is the Eucharist andthat Chapter 17 is the Oakies' Deuteronomy.A correction is required.The analogies are all from the Old Testa-ment. The vigorous and decisive Ma findsher counterpart in Deborah (Judges iv:14)who as a prophetess foresees trouble(Grapes, 4th Bantam printing, p. 111), andmakes the decisions for the family from p.111 on to the end, admittedly doing so byPa, p. 491. Chapter 17 is the Ten Command-ments, coming approximately half waythrough the book as Chapter 20 does in

Exodus. Its identificationwith Deuteronomyis too general.The parallel between himself and Jesusthat Casy admits refers to his going intothe wilderness (p. 99) and is in the past.But he denies any other likeness in thesamebreath.He denies,further,any knowl-edge of anyone named Jesus (p. 27) andsays that the Joads will need help on theroad (p. 63) no preachingcan give. He isAaronthe fluentspeaker(Exodus iv: 14-16)whom Moses meets on his return.Tom himselfis Moses,who is "spokefor"as well as New Testament personagesare,andhe, not Casy, beginsto teach the radicalnew doctrine of cooperation (pp. 447 ff.).Like Moses Tom hadbeen away from homebecauseof a homicide.Like Moseshe turns

REPLYThe justification for the choice is not thatit is a curiosity but, as the article makesclear enough, that Tristram Shandy dealswith the idea of destiny with an insistenceuncommon in comic works but more com-

mon in tragic ones. I am distressed that myspeculation should land me on the side of

the sieur de Fontenelle in direct conflictwith David Hume, but not too distressed.And surely the fact that everybody elsehashad a word to say on the subjectjustifiesin itself one more man'sfling at it.STANLEY. ESKINUniversity of California

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REBUTTAL 567aside to the huge red truck with its shim-mering vertical exhaust that does not con-sume the truck. Like Moses he loosens andtakes off his shoes (Grapes 6, 19) and meetshis spokesman, Casy, shortly thereafter.Tom's doctrine of cooperation is finallylearned by the hitherto most selfish Joad,when Rose of Sharon (the name is of OldTestament origin) gives her breast at Ma'sinstigation to the starving man. The milkhas as its best parallel the manna given tothe Hebrews in the wilderness who findthat the food decays when they gather toomuch just as the old man had vomited thebread he had eaten the night before.The novel is about flight and change.

The dominant motif is that of Exodus withboth the Hebrews and the Oakies still inflight at the end of each book. The Petrineattitude in his resistance to the sheet of ani-mals, in his Judaizing which brought onPaul's rebuke (Galatians ii:14), and inecumenical tradition was one opposed tochange. Tom provides no parallel becauseTom is a radical. Nor, Mr. Crockett to thecontrary, does the swordsman who strikesfor Jesus flee as Tom flees after killingCasy's murderer. Finally, there is in thenovel no convincing evidence of gravesymbolism nor any need for it.

THOMAS . DUNNStillwater, Okla.

THE OTHER CHEEKNo writer can exhaust all possible ave-nues of analysis, although apparently Mr.Dunn seems to criticize my Decemberarticle on biblical parallels in Steinbeck'sThe Grapes of Wrath for failing to do so.Actually, much of the content of his "cor-rection" could be added to my interpreta-tions-symbolic and related elements areenriched by increasing the scope of theirmeaning. The suggested similarity of Maand Pa to Deborah and Barak is interesting;I would like to see it elaborated on. But Ifind most objectionable the attempt to nar-row the significance of Ma to a mereanalogy with the barbarous, bloodthirstyDeborah. I think I may be excused for pre-ferring my own interpretation.Likewise, I cannot accept the dogmatic

premise of Mr. Dunn that all the analogiesin The Grapesarefrom the Old Testament.Neither, I am sure, could Mr. Martin S.Shockley (see introductory note to myarticle) who gave me the suggestion thatRose of Sharon's milk symbolized theEucharist. Let me venture that Casy deniedthe Jesus who was the figurehead for thenarrow, fundamentalist religion he hadformerly preached. This denial does not

refute the striking similarities I have pointedout in the careers and missions of Casy andChrist. What need did the highly fluentTom have for a spokesman? If Casy ismeant to serve only as a modern Aaron,then he has no real purpose in the novel,and the prominent place he is given thereconstitutes an artistic weakness.Let me say, dogmatically, that the paral-lels of Tom to Peter are as strongly evidentas those of Tom to Moses. There is a

similarity in the flight of Tom to the flightof Peter, Mr. Dunn to the contrary. Bothfled to save themselves from the conse-quences of similar acts. Peter was a radicaland proved it by becoming a disciple ofJesus. If Tom expounds his own doctrine,how can we make consistent his acknowl-edgement of his debt to Casy for the samein his farewell to Ma? Finally, Mr. Dunnnaturally rejected the grave symbols; tohave conceded even their possibility wouldhave weakened his flat rejection of anyanalogies in The Grapes to the New Testa-ment.

H. KELLY CROCKETTMichigan State University