As the Joads are leaving the camp before getting to the government camp they come across locals who re-direct them. Tom gets all flared up and almost resorts to physical action to get what he wants but Ma calms him down, telling him that he must be strong and not to resort to hurting someone physically. At the camp the next day, Ma encounters Mrs Sandry and tells the man in white: "If she comes back, I might hit her. I ain't sure. I wont let her worry my girl no more" (439).
Even after telling Tom how he needs to get better about controlling himself Ma goes and threatens to hit someone. Ma may be able to convince other people not to do things but she seems unable of doing them herself. What if Tom saw this? Situations like these have come up a lot recently in the book and I sense that some sort of issue with anger management will come up. Will the Joads find themselves in a rough situation after settling down nice into the new camp? Will the fight at the dance warned by Mr. Thompson be caused by Tom or Ma by coincidence? I don't think we've seen the last of Mrs. Sandry.
I think often its easy to tell people to calm down when you are not seeing and feeling what they are feeling. When Ma is faced with the direct result of someone's (Mrs. Sandry's) actions that hurt her daughter, it stirs up the maternal instinct in her and angers her greatly. In this moment she would probably understand how Tom was feeling earlier and might not tell him to calm down as much. Also, despite the fact that she was also angry, she knows that it is a very bad idea for Tom to act with violence because of his past. He has already killed someone, and would be very capable of doing it again, and she knows this would mean a lot of trouble for their family. Even if she wanted to hurt the people as well she probably recognizes that Tom doing so would be much worse.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Tom is willing to fight the townsfolk because that's kind of how Ma acts, even though she tells him not to start anything in that instance. They both have really only gotten/threaten to get physical when they are defending either themselves or their family. Neither of them have been the one to instigate a fight. Maybe because Ma is defensive of her family, Tom grew up to be the same, but they still need someone to make sure that they're not being too defensive.
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