Muley Graves shoots at car

Muley Graves shoots at a car to defend his right to stay on the land, a defiant act that marks his transformation from a proud hunter into a hunted, weasel-like figure who resists the forces that have dispossessed him.

Background and Defiance

Muley Graves is a tenant farmer who refuses to leave his land when the bank and the Shawnee Lan' an' Cattle Company tractor off the tenants. While his wife and children have gone to California, Muley stays behind, living like a "damn ol' graveyard ghos'" and surviving on rabbits and prairie dogs. He carries a heavy weight in his side coat pocket, a gun he is prepared to use. When Tom Joad and Jim Casy encounter him at the abandoned Joad farm, Muley explains his stubborn resistance: "I'm stayin'. They ain't gettin' rid a me. If they throw me off, I'll come back, an' if they figger I'll be quiet underground, why, I'll take a couple-three of the sons-a-bitches along for company." His defiance is rooted in a deep, almost mystical connection to the land where his father was gored to death by a bull and where his son Joe was born.

The Shooting

Later that night, after the three men have built a fire and eaten rabbit, they see a car approaching. Muley identifies the driver as Willy Feeley, a former neighbor who now drives the tractor and has become a deputy sheriff. Muley has been hunted for two months, and he has developed a new, weasel-like cunning. When the car draws up to the house and a spotlight sweeps the field, Muley whispers to Tom and Casy, "Shall I shoot through the house? They couldn't see where it come from. Give 'em somepin to think about." Tom agrees, but Casy objects, saying it won't do any good. Muley, however, has already established a pattern of such resistance. He explains that he once knocked Willy unconscious with a fence stake from behind, and that he has "took a shot at the headlights" once or twice before. This keeps the deputies careful and uncertain. The car eventually leaves, and Muley leads the men to a cave in a water-cut where he sleeps.

Consequences and Transformation

The shooting is not an isolated act of violence but a symptom of Muley's profound transformation. He tells Tom and Casy, "I was mean like a wolf. Now I'm mean like a weasel. When you're huntin' somepin you're a hunter, an' you're strong. Can't nobody beat a hunter. But when you get hunted—that's different. Somepin happens to you. You ain't strong; maybe you're fierce, but you ain't strong." His act of shooting at the car is a fierce but ultimately weak gesture of a man who has been reduced to a fugitive. It does not reclaim his land or change his circumstances; it only reinforces his status as a hunted creature. The shooting also serves as a warning to the deputies, keeping them at bay and allowing Muley to continue his solitary, ghost-like existence on the land he refuses to abandon. Casy recognizes the tragedy in Muley's situation, noting that he is "lonely—but you ain't touched." Muley's defiance, while heroic in its stubbornness, is a lonely and ultimately doomed resistance against the impersonal forces of the bank and the tractor.