Pride - Chapters 1-10 - Letter F *

The concept of pride is consistently present throughout the first 10 chapters of The Grapes Of Wrath. One of the first ways that Steinbeck explores the idea is by spending almost all of chapter 5 describing the connection between the Oklahoman farmers and their land. Their pride tethers them to the earth, and they hold onto their pride because it's the only thing that they have. This ends up making their displacement all the more painful.

"If [a man] owns property only so he can walk on it and handle

it and be sad when it isn't doing well, and feel fine when the rain falls on it,

that property is him, and some way he's bigger because he owns it.

Even if he isn't successful he's big with his property"(37)

Steinbeck illustrates how the proud farmers of Oklahoma have built up their pride so much that being forced off of it is incredibly damaging to them. They've spent years building this connection with their land only to have it stripped from them, leaving them small and helpless. The banks are taking away not only their land, but parts of their soul and certainly most or all of their social status. This incredible attachment leads to both denial and wrath from the farmers. In Chapter 6, Muley Graves, a friend of Tom and Casy's, professes his will to die for his land. His assertion that the land is part of him leads him to become angry and violent, and he even decides that his pride  is more important than his very life.

"If on'y they didn't tell me i got to get off, why, I'd prob'y be in 

California right now a-eatin' grapes an' a-pickin' an orange when I wanted.

But them sons-a-bitches says I got to get off – an', Jesus Christ, a man can't, 

when he's tol' to!"(47)

Muley Graves is so concerned with his pride that he's willing to die for it, but it's not necessarily all because he has to sacrifice his land. What bothers him is that he has to sacrifice it at the behest of someone else: the banks. Muley refuses to let his life choices be defined by some monster that steals from honest farmers like himself. He knows that the land is not fit for working, but his pride and sense of individuality are more important to him than simply doing whatever is convenient.