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The Grapes of Wrath Chapter 23 Summary

  • The migrant workers are always looking for pleasure; looking for ways to ease their minds and to escape their sorrows and fears.
  • Sometimes families will sit around telling stories about the days they used to fight and kill Native Americans for their land.
  • One man describes the sadness he felt when he killed a Native American.
  • Sometimes, people will save up enough money to go see movies in town, and then they'll come back and give a full, detailed report of the film.
  • Other times, getting drunk can help you temporarily forget your troubles and daydream harmlessly in your head.
  • And then there's the harmonica. People like to learn new tricks on their harmonicas.
  • The guitar's really fun to play too—but you need calluses on your left fingers and a callus on your right thumb.
  • The fiddle is something else—someone once heard that the older the fiddle, the better the sound.
  • The people like to dance, too. There's a Texan boy dancing with a Cherokee girl, and they are dancing really fast.
  • The Texan boy and the Cherokee girl disappear into the darkness together.
  • A preacher assembles congregants in an irrigation ditch and they pray for the souls of the sinners who watch movies, drink alcohol, make music, dance, and get busy.