Building the levee

Building the levee is the desperate, collective effort by the Joads and other migrant men to construct an earthen dam against the rising floodwaters that threaten the boxcar camp, an action that ultimately fails when a cottonwood tree tears through the bank, forcing the families to abandon their shelter and marking the final collapse of their struggle for stability.

Causes and Background

The flood that necessitates the levee is the culmination of the relentless winter rains that have already devastated the migrant community. The rain began with gusty showers and gradually settled into a steady, gray downpour that soaked the earth until it could hold no more. Puddles formed, then lakes, and the streams swelled into roaring freshets that cut out the roots of cottonwoods and brought down trees. The migrant people, already huddled in their tents and barns, faced the greatest terror of all: no work for three months, and with it, hunger and sickness. The boxcar camp, where the Joads had found a dry, tight roof, was situated on a low flat beside a stream, and as the water crept up the bank, the threat of inundation became immediate. Pa Joad, watching the water rise, marked its progress with a twig and saw that it was climbing fast. He realized that the only chance to save their shelter was to build a bank, a levee, from the highway embankment on one side to the other, and he went to rally the other men in the camp.

What Happens

Pa Joad, Uncle John, Al, and the other men from the boxcars threw themselves into the work with a fury born of desperation. They had only eight shovels among them, so those without tools cut live willow whips and wove them into a mat, kicking them into the mud to reinforce the bank. The men worked beyond weariness, their faces set and dead, their movements jerky like machines. The rain beat down on them, and their shirts and trousers clung tightly to their bodies. As the evening came, the women set lanterns in the car doors and kept pots of coffee handy. The stream rose slowly up the side of the new wall, tearing at the willow mat, and Pa cried out, "Higher! We got to git her higher!" The work continued into the night, the men lifting their heavy feet like draft horses. Inside the Joad car, Rose of Sharon was in labor, her screams cutting through the sound of the rain, and the men worked on, driven by the knowledge that they could not leave now. Uncle John, tormented by the screaming, worked with a kind of frenzy, saying he would run away if he stopped. The levee held for a time, but then, from up the stream, there came a ripping crash. The beam of a flashlight showed a great cottonwood toppling into the water. The tree moved slowly down, its branches catching on a stump, and then its roots swung around and hooked themselves on the new embankment. The water piled up behind it, and the bank washed quickly down, washing around ankles, around knees. The men broke and ran as the current worked smoothly into the flat, under the cars, under the automobiles.

Consequences and Aftermath

The failure of the levee was the final blow. The water poured into the boxcar camp, rising until it was breast-high on the men. The Joads' truck, its engine fouled by water, would not start. The family was forced to abandon their shelter, carrying Rose of Sharon, who had just given birth to a stillborn child, through the flood to the highway. They found refuge in a rain-blackened barn on a slight rolling hill, where they encountered a starving man and his son. The flood and the failed levee had stripped them of everything: their home, their possessions, their last hope of staying in one place. The action, born of collective effort and desperate hope, ended in a defeat that mirrored the larger tragedy of the migrant people, who were driven from the land by forces they could not control. The levee's collapse was not just a physical event; it was the symbolic end of the Joads' attempt to build a new life, leaving them with nothing but the will to survive.