It is a scary thought thinking about how crazy it would be to be locked up in a jail for years like Tom is discussing in chapter sixteen of Grapes of Wrath. Although they discussed earlier that it is hard getting out of prison because you are so used to being there and the regularity of all the amenities that are provided to you, that does not mean it is as nice as that description makes it seem.
Although eventually you get used to the life of being a prisoner and having every day mapped out for you the exact same way, it cannot be an easy road to get to that point where you don't care anymore. There would be a point on that road to not caring that would seem as though you would never make it through. Some of them even go crazy to some extent as displayed in the following passage:
"Maybe I'm kinda stir-nuts. I'll tell ya about it sometime maybe. Ya see, its just sompin you wanta know. Kinda interestin'. But I got a kind a funny ideas the bes' thing'd be if i forget about it fora while. Maybe in a little while it won't be that way. RIght now when I think about it my guts gets all droppy an' nasty feelin'. Look here, Al, I'll tell ya one thing - the jail house i jus' a kind a way a drivin' a guy slowly nuts. See? An' they go nuts, an' you see 'em an' hear 'em an' pretty soon you don' know if you're nuts or not. When they get to screamin' in the night sometimes you think it's you doin' the screamin' - and sometimes it is."
This would be the hardest part of being in prison I think. It would not be the demons of living with whatever you did to get in, it would be to deal with the demons of the prison itself and all the people around you dealing with their own personal demons.
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