John Steinbeck: Früchte des Zorns

 John Steinbeck: Früchte des Zorns, 1939

Kapitel 1:

To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth. The plows crossed and recrossed the rivulet marks. The last rains lifted the corn quickly and scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the roads so that the gray country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover. In the last part of May the sky grew pale and the clouds that had hung in high puffs for so long in the spring were dissipated. The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet. The clouds appeared, and went away, and in a while they did not try any more. The weeds grew darker green to protect themselves, and they did not spread any more. The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth became pale, pink in the red country and white in the gray country. In the water-cut gullies the earth dusted down in dry little streams. Gophers and ant lions started small avalanches. And as the sharp sun struck day after day, the leaves of the young corn became less stiff and erect; they bent in a curve at first, and then, as the central ribs of strength grew weak, each leaf tilted downward. Then it was June, and the sun shone more fiercely. The brown lines on the corn leaves widened and moved in on the central ribs. The weeds frayed and edged back toward their roots. The air was thin and the sky more pale; and every day the earth paled.

Kapitel 5:

"[...] Eine Bank ist nicht wie ein Mensch. Oder einer, der 50.000 Acker besitzt, ist auch nicht wie ein Mensch. Das ist das Ungeheuer.

Sicher, riefen, die Pächter, aber es ist unser Land. Wir haben es ausgemessen und wir haben es umgepflügt, wir sind darauf geboren, und wir sind darauf getötet worden, wir sind darauf gestorben. Wenn es auch nicht gut ist, es ist doch unser Land. Darauf geboren zu sein, es bearbeitet zu haben, darauf gestorben zu sein – dadurch ist es unser Land geworden. Nur dadurch und nicht durch ein Papier mit Zahlen. Darauf gehört einem das Land.

Tut uns leid. Wir sind's ja auch nicht. Es ist das Ungeheuer. Die Bank ist nicht wie ein Mensch.

Ja, aber die Bank ist ja auch nur von Menschen gemacht.

Nein, da hast du unrecht – völlig unrecht. Die Bank ist etwas ganz anderes als Menschen. Jeder Mensch in der Bank hasst das, was die Bank tut, und doch tut die Bank es. Die Bank ist mehr, als Menschen sind, das sage ich dir. Sie ist ein Ungeheuer. Menschen haben sie gemacht, aber sie können sie nicht kontrollieren. [...]" (S. 39) 

The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it. The tenants cried, Grampa killed Indians, Pa killed snakes for the land. Maybe we can kill banks—they’re worse than Indians and snakes. Maybe we got to fight to keep our land, like Pa and Grampa did. And now the owner men grew angry. You’ll have to go. But it’s ours, the tenant men cried. We—— No. The bank, the monster owns it. You’ll have to go. We’ll get our guns, like Grampa when the Indians came. What then? Well—first the sheriff, and then the troops. You’ll be stealing if you try to stay, you’ll be murderers if you kill to stay. The monster isn’t men, but it can make men do what it wants. But if we go, where’ll we go? How’ll we go? We got no money.

We’re sorry, said the owner men. The bank, the fifty-thousand-acre owner can’t be responsible. You’re on land that isn’t yours. Once over the line maybe you can pick cotton in the fall. Maybe you can go on relief. Why don’t you go on west to California? There’s work there, and it never gets cold. Why, you can reach out anywhere and pick an orange. Why, there’s always some kind of crop to work in. Why don’t you go there? And the owner men started their cars and rolled away. The tenant men squatted down on their hams again to mark the dust with a stick, to figure, to wonder. Their sunburned faces were dark, and their sun-whipped eyes were light. The women moved cautiously out of the doorways toward their men, and the children crept behind the women, cautiously, ready to run. The bigger boys squatted beside their fathers, because that made them men. After a time the women asked, What did he want? And the men looked up for a second, and the smolder of pain was in their eyes. We got to get off. A tractor and a superintendent. Like factories. Where’ll we go? the women asked. We don’t know. We don’t know. And the women went quickly, quietly back into the houses and herded the children ahead of them. They knew that a man so hurt and so perplexed may turn in anger, even on people he loves. They left the men alone to figure and to wonder in the dust. After a time perhaps the tenant man looked about—at the pump put in ten years ago, with a goose-neck handle and iron flowers on the spout, at the chopping block where a thousand chickens had been killed, at the hand plow lying in the shed, and the patent crib hanging in the rafters over it. The children crowded about the women in the houses. What we going to do, Ma? Where we going to go? [...]

Chapter Six 

The Reverend Casy and young Tom stood on the hill and looked down on the Joad place. The small unpainted house was mashed at one corner, and it had been pushed off its foundations so that it slumped at an angle, its blind front windows pointing at a spot of sky well above the horizon. The fences were gone and the cotton grew in the dooryard and up against the house, and the cotton was about the shed barn. The outhouse lay on its side, and the cotton grew close against it. Where the dooryard had been pounded hard by the bare feet of children and by stamping horses’ hooves and by the broad wagon wheels, it was cultivated now, and the dark green, dusty cotton grew. Young Tom stared for a long time at the ragged willow beside the dry horse trough, at the concrete base where the pump had been. “Jesus!” he said at last. “Hell musta popped here. There ain’t nobody livin’ there.” At last he moved quickly down the hill, and Casy followed him. He looked into the barn shed, deserted, a little ground straw on the floor, and at the mule stall in the corner. And as he looked in, there was a skittering on the floor and a family of mice faded in under the straw. Joad paused at the entrance to the tool-shed leanto, and no tools were there—a broken plow point, a mess of hay wire in the corner, an iron wheel from a hayrake and a rat-gnawed mule collar, a flat gallon oil can crusted with dirt and oil, and a pair of torn overalls hanging on a nail. “There ain’t nothin’ left,” said Joad. “We had pretty nice tools. There ain’t nothin’ left.” Casy said, “If I was still a preacher I’d say the arm of the Lord had struck. But now I don’t know what happened. I been away. I didn’t hear nothin’.” They walked toward the concrete well-cap, walked through cotton plants to get to it, and the bolls were forming on the cotton, and the land was cultivated.

“We never planted here,” Joad said. “We always kept this clear. Why, you can’t get a horse in now without he tromps the cotton.” They paused at the dry watering trough, and the proper weeds that should grow under a trough were gone and the old thick wood of the trough was dry and cracked. On the well-cap the bolts that had held the pump stuck up, their threads rusty and the nuts gone. Joad looked into the tube of the well and spat and listened. He dropped a clod down the well and listened. “She was a good well,” he said. “I can’t hear water.” He seemed reluctant to go to the house. He dropped clod after clod down the well. “Maybe they’re all dead,” he said. “But somebody’d a told me. I’d a got word some way.” “Maybe they left a letter or something to tell in the house. Would they of knowed you was comin’ out?” “I don’ know,” said Joad. “No, I guess not. I didn’ know myself till a week ago.” “Le’s look in the house. She’s all pushed out a shape. Something knocked the hell out of her.” They walked slowly toward the sagging house. Two of the supports of the porch roof were pushed out so that the roof flopped down on one end. And the house-corner was crushed in. Through a maze of splintered wood the room at the corner was visible. The front door hung open inward, and a low strong gate across the front door hung outward on leather hinges. Joad stopped at the step, a twelve-by-twelve timber. “Doorstep’s here,” he said. “But they’re gone—or Ma’s dead.” He pointed to the low gate across the front door. “If Ma was anywheres about, that gate’d be shut an’ hooked. That’s one thing she always done—seen that gate was shut.”

Chapter Seven I

In the towns, on the edges of the towns, in fields, in vacant lots, the used-car yards, the wreckers’ yards, the garages with blazoned signs—Used Cars, Good Used Cars. Cheap transportation, three trailers. ‘27 Ford, clean. Checked cars, guaranteed cars. Free radio. Car with 100 gallons of gas free. Come in and look. Used Cars. No overhead. A lot and a house large enough for a desk and chair and a blue book. Sheaf of contracts, dog-eared, held with paper clips, and a neat pile of unused contracts. Pen—keep it full, keep it working. A sale’s been lost ‘cause a pen didn’t work. Those sons-of-bitches over there ain’t buying. Every yard gets ‘em. They’re lookers. Spend all their time looking. Don’t want to buy no cars; take up your time. Don’t give a damn for your time. Over there, them two people—no, with the kids. Get ‘em in a car. Start ‘em at two hundred and work down. They look good for one and a quarter. Get ‘em rolling. Get ‘em out in a jalopy. Sock it to ‘em! They took our time. Owners with rolled-up sleeves. Salesmen, neat, deadly, small intent eyes watching for weaknesses. Watch the woman’s face. If the woman likes it we can screw the old man. Start’ em on that Cad’. Then you can work ‘em down to that ‘26 Buick. ‘F you start on the Buick, they’ll go for a Ford. Roll up your sleeves an’ get to work. This ain’t gonna last forever. Show ‘em that Nash while I get the slow leak pumped up on that ‘25 Dodge. I’ll give you a Hymie when I’m ready. What you want is transportation, ain’t it? No baloney for you. Sure the upholstery is shot. Seat cushions ain’t turning no wheels over.

Wikipedia: "Das Schicksal der sogenannten Okies wird anhand der Farmerfamilie Joad, die trotz aller Entbehrungen und Demütigungen ihre Menschlichkeit und Würde bewahrt, exemplarisch geschildert. [...]

Hochverschuldet verlieren die Joads ihr Farmland an eine Bank. Wie Hunderttausende anderer so genannter Okies ziehen sie von der Dust Bowl über die Route 66 nach Kalifornien, um sich dort als Wanderarbeiter zu verdingen. Doch statt der erhofften, gut bezahlten Arbeit erwartet sie dort nur Ausbeutung, Hunger und Fremdenfeindlichkeit.

[...] Das Auseinanderfallen der Familie geht einher mit dem Aufgehen der Einzelschicksale in eine Schicksalsgemeinschaft von Tausenden. Als Rose eine Totgeburt erleidet, kommt es zu einer Schlussszene [...]"

Zitat:

"Mutter sagte: 'Still! Sei nur ruhig. Wir denken uns was aus.'

Plötzlich rief der Junge: 'Er stirbt doch, sag ich Ihnen! Er verhungert! Er stirbt!'

'Still', sagte Mutter. Sie sah Vater und Onkel John an, die hilflos dastanden und den kranken Mann betrachteten. Sie sah Rose von Sharon an, ihre Augen wichen den Augen des Mädchens aus und begegnete ihnen dann wieder. Und die beiden Frauen blicken tief ineinander hinein. Der Atem des Mädchens kam kurz und stoßweise. Sie sagte: 'Ja.'

Mutter lächelte. 'Ich habe’s gewusst. Ich habe gewusst, du wirst's machen! 'Sie blickte herab auf ihre Hände, die sie fest ineinander verschlungen im Schoß hielt.

Rose von Sharon flüsterte: 'Wollt ihr… Wollt ihr dann bitte alle rausgehn?'

[...] Eine Minute lang saß Rose von Sharon still in der Scheune, auf deren Dach leise der Regen flüsterte. Sie ging langsam hinüber in die Ecke und blickte herab in das verwüstete Gesicht, in die großen angstvollen Augen. Und dann legte sie sich neben ihn. Er schüttelte müde den Kopf. Rose von Sharon lockerte ihre Decke an einer Seite und entblößte ihre Brust. 'Du musst', sagte sie. Sie drängte sich dichter an ihn und zog seinen Kopf zu sich heran. 'Komm, hier!' sagte sie. 'So.' Sie schob ihre Hand hinter seinem Kopf und stützte ihn. Ihre Finger fuhren sanft durch sein Haar. Sie blickte auf und durch die Scheune, und ihre Lippen schlossen sich und lächelten geheimnisvoll." (S.477)

Wikipedia: "Steinbecks Roman erschien in den Vereinigten Staaten am 14. April 1939 im Buchhandel.^[2][3] Trotz Anfeindungen aus den Reihen der politischen Rechten und der Großgrundbesitzer bis hin zu Verboten und Bücherverbrennungen^[4] sowie kontroverser Diskussionen in Fachkreisen wurde der Roman 1940 mit dem Pulitzer-Preis und 1962 Steinbeck mit dem Nobelpreis für Literatur ausgezeichnet.

Bereits 1940 entstand eine gleichnamige Verfilmung von Regisseur John Ford mit Henry Fonda als Protagonist Tom Joad, John Carradine als Jim Casy und Jane Darwell als Mutter. Fords Film, der selbst Klassikerstatus erreichte und mehrere Oscars gewann, blieb die bis heute einzige Verfilmung des Romans. Ein Theaterstück von Frank Galati stammt aus dem Jahr 1990.

Der amerikanische Folksänger Woody Guthrie widmete der Romanfigur Tom Joad eine Ballade. Diese wurde später auch von Andy Irvine aufgenommen und abgewandelt. 1991 nahm die englische Band Camel das Konzeptalbum Dust And Dreams auf, das die Handlung des Romans nacherzählt.

Bruce Springsteen benannte 1995 ein Lied und Album, in denen er die sozialen Missstände in Amerika anprangert, The Ghost of Tom Joad. Der Titeltrack wurde fünf Jahre später von Rage Against the Machine gecovert. Den Namen Ghost of Tom Joad gab sich im Jahr 2006 eine Post-Punk-Band in Münster. Im Jahr 2000 benannte sich eine Hamburger Band Früchte des Zorns. Die Alternative-Rock-Band Weezer veröffentlichte 2021 einen Song namens Grapes of Wrath."