The author makes a very sad but very true point in chapter nine when he is talking about the ability to start over in a new land and leave all of the pain and sadness behind. The tenant farmers talks about how they can get a brand new start in California, but it will never really be a start because once you are grown there is no starting over, only moving on. This quote from the chapter sums it all up:
"But you can't start. Only a baby can start. You and me-why, we're all that'd been. The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that's us. This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can't start again the bitterness we sold to the junk man- he got it all right, but we have it still. And when the owner men told us to go, that's us; and when the tractor hit the house, that's us until we're dead. To California or any place-every one a drum jaor leading a parade of hurts, marching with our bitterness. And some day- the armies of bitterness will all be going the esame way. And they'll all walk together, adn there'll be a dead terror from it."
Through this passage the author paints a vivid picture of just how hurt and broken these people are, and he also paints a picture of what is to become of all of this anguish and anger building in so many people until it all explodes. No, this is not going to go away so easily. One day these people's hurts and disappointments will burn together into a really big problem, because they are never truly going to be able to let go of it all and move on. As the character stated above, these memories are them. They are as much them as their own flesh and blood.
This message that the author is sending is very powerful and almost comes across a threat to threat to those who have it coming to them for causing this.
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