Chapter 18

Strength

     "I wisht I could wait an' not tell you.  I wisht it could be all-nice."  That is what Ma Joad says as she reveals to the family that Granma is dead.  Not only is she dead, but she has been dead for awhile.  Ma knew that she was dead the entire time but no matter how bad she was shaken up by that, she did not let her family know.  She knew that if she told her family, the trip to California would take even longer.  Chapter 18 shows Ma Joad's real strength.

      "Family's fallin' apart, I don' know.  Seems like I can't think no more.  I jus' can't think.  They's too much."  Ma says this right after she finds out that Noah is going to stay behind at the river.  Noah said that he fell in love with the Colorado River when he first saw it.  This part is important because Ma believing that the family falling apart is a reoccurring theme throughout the novel.  Just when the reader thinks that the family will stop separating, somebody else leaves.

     Wisdom is more of your morals and what you believe in.  You often get your wisdom from from your good friend of your family.  You get wisdom from people that are close to you.  Knowledge is things that you learn in general.  Somebody can be knowledgeable, but not wise.  Wisdom comes from experience.  An example from my own experience would be school.  I would go to class to obtain knowledge, but I would become wise by talking to my friends and learning ways to act.