Matriarcat

Selon Warren Motley, la “grille de lecture” de Ma est « matriarcale » :

[Ma] interprets the migration according to the actual experience of the migrants rather than by the inherited and now meaningless patriarchal myth of the frontier. In the West Pa Joad thinks he will find relief from poverty through his individual labor. But his dream depends on land. When he cannot find it, he is crushed. While Ma Joad hopes one day to own a house of her own, a goal of individual fulfillment Steinbeck endorses, she gradually expands her belief that survival until that day depends on keeping the “family unbroken” to include a broader group. (Motley 408)

Steinbeck aurait été fort influencé par la lecture de l’anthropologue Briffault :

[…] the Joad family shifts from a patriarchal structure to a predominantly matriarchal one. So doing, they dramatize the influence of the anthropologist Robert Briffault on John Steinbeck as he tried to understand the Depression » (Motley 397).

Working from Briffault’s theories on the matriarchal origin of society, Steinbeck presents Ma Joad’s growing power as a source of communal strength sheltering human dignity from the antisocial effects of individualism. (Motley 397-398)

See Motley, Warren. “From Patriarchy to Matriarchy: Ma Joad's Role in The Grapes of Wrath.” American Literature 54.3 (Oct. 1982): 397-412.