Flood and stillbirth of Rose of Sharon's baby

The flood at the boxcar camp and the stillbirth of Rose of Sharon's baby form the novel's climactic convergence of natural disaster, economic collapse, and personal tragedy. As relentless rain turns the stream into a rising flood, the Joads and their fellow migrants build a desperate levee to protect their shelter, but a fallen cottonwood tree breaches it, inundating the camp. In the same hours, Rose of Sharon goes into premature labor, and after a long, painful night, the baby is born dead. The event strips the family of its last hope for a new generation and forces them to abandon their possessions, culminating in Rose of Sharon's final, mysterious act of nursing a starving stranger in a barn—a gesture that transforms utter loss into a radical, shared humanity.

Causes and Background

The flood arrives as the final blow in a chain of disasters that has already stripped the Joads of land, home, and several family members. After the peach strike is broken and wages drop to two and a half cents a box, the family flees the Hooper ranch and finds shelter in a line of abandoned boxcars beside a stream. For a brief period they experience a fragile prosperity: picking cotton, buying pork chops and Cracker Jack, and planning for Al's marriage to Aggie Wainwright. But the season is ending, and winter is coming. The rain begins with gusty showers and gradually settles into a steady, gray downpour that lasts for days. The dry earth first drinks the moisture, then puddles form, then little lakes spread across the fields. The stream beside the boxcars begins to creep up its banks. On the second day of rain, Al takes down the tarpaulin that had separated the two families in the car, and the Joads and Wainwrights become one group. On the third day, the sound of the stream rises above the drumming rain. Pa and Uncle John watch the water edge toward the camp. Pa sets a twig upright on the bank and sees the water climb around it. He proposes building a levee, but Wainwright is reluctant, and Al threatens to leave with Aggie if the Wainwrights go. The men go from car to car, trying to organize the other families.

What Happens

While the men work frantically in the rain, Rose of Sharon's labor begins. She has been sick with a heavy cold, her face flushed and her eyes shining with fever. A sharp cry cuts through the car. Ma puts her hand under the covers and knows. Mrs. Wainwright, who has helped with many births, takes charge. The two women close the heavy sliding door, light a lantern and a Rochester lamp, and begin walking Rose of Sharon back and forth between the pains. The girl screams under the fierce contractions, and the sound drives the men harder. Uncle John, unable to bear the screaming, works himself into a frenzy, saying he will run away if he cannot keep working. The men build the levee higher, weaving willow whips into a mat and kicking them into the mud. The stream rises slowly up the new wall. Then, from up the stream, a great cottonwood tree topples, its branches snagging on the embankment. The water piles up behind it, the bank washes quickly down, and the current flows into the flat, under the cars, under the automobiles. The levee is gone. The men break and run. Al tries to start the truck, but the motor is full of water and the battery is fouled. The water creeps into the boxcar, a thin film at first, then six inches deep. Inside the car, the labor continues through the night. The pains come closer, twenty minutes apart, then closer still. At last they stop. Mrs. Wainwright brings a lantern to an apple box in the corner. On a newspaper lies a blue shriveled little mummy. "Never breathed," she says softly. "Never was alive." The baby is dead.

Consequences and Aftermath

The stillbirth shatters the family's remaining hope. Rose of Sharon lies exhausted, her eyes questioning Ma, who can only say, "You couldn't he'p it." The family huddles on a platform built from the truck's side-boards as the water rises. The rain becomes intermittent, then stops. On the second morning, Ma announces they are leaving. Pa carries Rose of Sharon through the breast-high water to the highway. Uncle John carries Ruthie. Ma staggers with Winfield on her shoulder. They walk along the road until they find a rain-blackened barn on a slight hill. Inside, they discover a man lying on his back, near death from starvation, and a boy sitting beside him. The boy explains that his father has not eaten for six days. Ma looks at the starving man, then at Rose of Sharon. The two women look deep into each other. Rose of Sharon whispers, "Yes." Ma kisses her forehead and leads the others out, closing the door. Alone, Rose of Sharon loosens the blanket, bares her breast, and lies down beside the stranger. She pulls his head close and says, "There." Her hand moves gently in his hair, and she smiles mysteriously. The event marks the final dissolution of the Joad family as a bounded unit and the emergence of a new, unbounded kinship based on shared need. The baby's body, placed in an apple box, is taken by Uncle John to the swift stream. He sets the box in the current and lets it go, saying fiercely, "Go down an' tell 'em." The box floats away, out of sight. The flood, the stillbirth, and the final act of nursing together complete the novel's movement from the particular tragedy of one family to a universal, almost sacramental vision of human solidarity.