literarydiscussions.myfreeforum.org

Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

I am glad that you bring up the topic of pigs. My copy of Steinbeck's "East
of Eden" reproduces a letter written by Steinbeck, displaying the little
stamp that he put on all of his letters, a cartoon image of a flying pig. I
imagine Steinbeck's life-long ambitions and aspirations as a writer
seemed to him as unlikely for success as the chances of a pig becoming
airborne. Steinbeck's coat of arms stamp had, in Greek letters, "Pigasus"
(not Pegasus, the flying horse), and the Latin inscription "Ad Astra Per Alia
Porci" ("To the stars on the wings of a pig"). Steinbeck saw himself as a
lumbering soul, trying to fly.

Farmers in early America refered to pigs as "morgage lifters" because
they were so easy to raise and sell.

The constitution of the state of Israel declares that no pig shall be raised
on Israeli soil. That legislation has been cleverly circumvented, I am told,
by building farms in Israel with vast platforms, where the pigs are born,
live, and go to slaughter, their feet never having touched the ground. I
suppose this is as close to flying as a pig can get in the real world;
airborne in a legalistic sense.

The metabolism of pigs is so close to human metabolism that pigs are
popular in medical and pharmaceutical research. Pigs are omniverous, as
are humans.

The pig does not have four stomachs and chew the cud, but has a
digestive track very much like our own.

Occasionaly, and at the oddest of moments, I am reminded of a line from
one of Wallace Stevens' poems, "Frogs eat butterflies. Snakes eat frogs.
Hogs eat snakes. Men eat hogs."

I once read that human flesh tastes remarkably like pork. I am not quite
sure who it was who made this observation or how they came by their
knowedge.

Years ago, I lived in Roslindale, a suburb of Boston. One summer night, I
was taking a stroll, near to the Arboretum park, when I saw a man
walking towards me in the distance. At first glance, it seemed as if he
were accompanied by a dog. As the creature ran towards me, I could see
by the dim street lamps, that it had a very un-dog-like profile and build,
and it lumbered and swayed slightly, back and forth, in a way that a dog
never would. I began to feel some apprehension as it came closer and
closer. The man called out, "Don't be afraid! Thats my pet pig." The pig
was so friendly. It seemed to want to greet me and welcome me.

My cousin has worked on his family dairy farm all his life. He emphasized
once to me that "The animals are not pets." It is difficult to slaughter an
affectionate animal. One PBS documentary followed families for one year
as they attempted to imitate exactly the daily life of people in the 1830's.
In one episode, the father must kill the pig they have raised. The pig was
like a pet. Yet they had to slaughter the pig in order to survive. A
neighbor asked the father of the family it he would like someone else to
do it. The father answered, "What kind of a man am I if I can't kill my own
pig."

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing
heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." - Steinbeck

The title of his novel was taken from the Battle Hymn of the Republic, by
Julia Ward Howe ("Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the
Lord, He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are
stored, He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword, His
truth is marching on").

The phrase "grapes of wrath" sound like something Biblical. I have my
Strong's exahaustive concordance opened in front of me, and I have read
all the verses listed under grapes, grape and wrath and there is only one
verse in The Book of Revelation which reads speaks of "the great
winepress of the wrath of God" (Ch. 14, verse 19). My mother was always
sickly and would complain that she looks like "the wrath of God" (or
sometimes "the wreck of Hesperus") whenever anyone threatened to visit.

Steinbeck has a long passage, early in the book I believe, about a turtle
struggling to cross the road. The turtle carries with it, stuck to its shell, a
seed of grain.

Of course, this passage is intended by Steinbeck to be very symbolic.

The turtle's struggle symbolizes persistence and suffering and survival.
Seeds of grain are ancient symbols of life, of dying and then bearing fruit.

Later in the novel Ma Joad states:

“You got to have patience. Why Tom – us people will go on livin’ when all
them people is gone. Why, Tom, we’re the people that live. They ain’t
gonna wipe us out. Why, we’re the people – we go on.”

Tom makes a curiously Christ-like statement to Ma Joad: “Whenever
they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Whenever they’s a
cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there . . . . I’ll be in the way guys yell when
they’re mad an’—I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’
they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’
live in the houses they build—why, I’ll be there.”

An symbolism is used in the Old Testament which is analogous. Steinbeck
may well have been aware of this passage since he seems to have had an
extensive knowlege of the Bible. The family name Joad bears a striking
resemblence to the Biblical name Job.

I have to check this, but from memory, it is in the book of the Prophet
Ezekiel, in chapter 4. According to the story, the prophet is commanded to
take a tablet of clay or stone, and draw upon it a diagram of Jerusalem,
and then lay upon the ground for literally hundreds of days, and play,
symbolically, as if he is laying seige to Jerusalem.

"Take a clay tablet, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on
it. Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it,
set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. Then take an
iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your
face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be
a sign ... "

I believe that the function of such ancient and mythic symbolism has
found its way into literary craft.

Steinbeck's turtle and seed of grain is very much like Ezekiel's clay tablet.

Someone once asked Akira Kurosawa regarding the symbolism and
meaning of "Seven Samurai". Kurosawa replied that if "a meaning" was of
importance, then he would not have made the movie, but would have
simply held up a sign with "the meaning" written upon it.

Why are symbols and parables so important to us? Why can't we always
just hold up a sign with "the meaning" on it, plain for all to see?

We may reflect upon this excerpt from Steinbeck's 1962 speech accepting
the Nobel Prize for Literature:

“The writer is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures
for the purpose of improvement….Furthermore, the writer is delegated to
declare and celebrate Man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and
spirit – for gallantry in defeat, courage, compassion and love. In the
endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags
of hope and emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately
believe in the perfectability of man has no dedication nor any membership
in literature.”

The connection of all human life is one of the novel’s dominant themes.

A few years ago, a total stranger read things I had posted on the internet,
and wrote me a long E-mail, ending with this well-known quote from The
Grapes of Wrath

“Before I knowed it, I was sayin’ out loud, ‘The hell with it! There ain’t no
sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. It’s all part of
the same thing.’ . . . . I says, ‘What’s this call, this sperit?’ An’ I says, ‘It’s
love. I love people so much I’m fit to bust, sometimes.’ . . . . I figgered,
‘Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,’ I figgered, ‘maybe it’s
all men an’ all women we love; maybe that’s the Holy Sperit—the human
sperit—the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a
part of.’ Now I sat there thinkin’ it, an’ all of a suddent—I knew it. I knew
it so deep down that it was true, and I still know it.”

- Jim Casy, Chapter 4 (It may be significant that Jim Casy's initials are
"J.C.", which can bring to mind Jesus Christ.)

This stranger had read my accounts of my life in a Greek monastery, and
how I slowly drifted away to other beliefs, other interests, other ways of
life. One famous iconographer, whom I worked with, left that monastery
and went to Colorado, to found his own monastery. This stranger wrote
me to say that he had spent time in Colorado, with that iconographer, and
had experienced many of the exact same changes and disillusionments
as I described in my posts. His life and my life had evolved in an uncanny
parallel fashion. For him, that Steinbeck quote summed up how he felt.

Get your own free IRC Chat room