Final Piece of Hope in Grapes of Wrath

As the final sentences close on Grapes of Wrath, there is one last last ray of hope shining for the Joads and for the world as a whole. Through the touching scene before you, the reader can see that maybe the future will not turn out so bad. 47

Rose of Sharon was a selfish, self-absorbed girl throughout most of the book who was only concerned with herself and her unborn child and how that made her special and deserving of special treatment. She felt as though she were so mature and deserving simply because she was carrying a child. I almost believe that the baby was born stillborn not only as a testament of the suffering and anguish of those migrant farmers who lived in that time, but I also believe it was taken from her because she was not yet ready or deserving of such a great responsibility. 101

However, as the curtain falls on this sad novel, I believe Rose of Sharon finally gets to a point where she is ready to be a mother and an adult. As she sits there suckling the dying man and giving of her own life to him to keep him alive, a maternal instinct finally takes over inside of her. She has nothing to gain from helping the man, and his life will not be from her or because of her like it would have been with the baby. She simply takes care of him because a motherly instinct inside of her takes over and she realizes it is the right and unselfish thing for her to do. As this happens, one can almost imagine a sort of light appearing in the dark and gloomy barn as a single ray of hope piercing the darkness, and if one looks hard enough they can almost picture Tom out there somewhere working to make the world a better place and Jim Casy looking down and smiling from where he now lives in heaven with the God he spent his life so desperately seeking. 192