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Thesis - John Steinbeck uses Emerson's concept of the oversoul to show the connection between the farmers, the disconnection of the owners with their land, and to emphasize the struggle between the two groups.
1. Chapter 14, pg. 206 - "One man, one family driving from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and I am bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate-- "We lost our land." The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first "we" there grows a still more dangerous thing: "I have little food" plus "I have none." If from this problem the sum is "We have little food," the thing is on its way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two men squating in a ditch, the little fire, the side meat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mother's blanket - take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning - from "I" to "We."
- Before the depression, the farmers and the families were not all connected. They were all separated by their own land. Once they lost the land though, they all reached a common bond. They are now all part of the oversoul, and they are all starting to work together. The owners though, are afraid of the farmers working together, so they try to prevent this from happening. This is the struggle between the two groups. The farmers are trying to work together to overcome the owners, but the owners are trying to separate them by making them fight amongst themselves through hate, fear, and jealousy.
2. Chapter 11, pgs. 157-158 - "And in the tractor maan there grows the contempt that comes only to a stranger who has little understanding and no relation. For nitratesare not the land, nor phosphates; and the length of fiber in the cotton is not the land. Carbon is not a man, nor salt nor water nor calcium. He is all these, but he is much more, much more; and the land is so much more that its analysis. The man who is more than his chemistry, walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch; that man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis. But the machine man, driving a dead tactor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry; and he is contemptuos of the land and of himself. When the corrigated iron doors are shut, he goes home, and his home is not the land."
- As mentioned earlier on the Allusions Page, the oversoul is used to show that components of land and man such as phosphates, nitrates, and carbons are not what the land really is. This passage also emphasizes the disconnection between the owners and the land. Steinbeck writes that the owners do not and cannot see beyond the components of the land to see the bigger pisture. They only see what can make them a profit and do not have any real connection with the land itself. This is why they are not part of the oversoul. They are individuals, but they are connected as a whole.
3. Chapter 25, pg. 488 - "Well, I been a-thinkin' a lot. Why don' them depities get in hear an' raise hell like ever' place else? Think that little guy in the office is a-stoppin' 'em? No, sir."
"Well, what is?" Julie asked
"I'll tell ya. It's causewe're all a-workin' together. Depity can't pick on one fella in this camp. He's pickin' on the whole darn camp. An' he don't care...."
- Finally, someone makes the connection that in order to stand up against the owners and deputies, they must work together. They must all be one as this oversoul to be strong. As individuals, they are weak and can be picked on easily. As a whole though, the owners and deputies cannot defeat them. This is why the government camps were so effective. It had all of these people in a community sharing a common bond as part of this oversoul, and it was too much for the deputies to handle.
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