Chapter 1 establishes the epic context and tone for the entire novel. This brief, but important, opening chapter provides a backdrop for the main events of the narrative, describing the event primarily responsible for spurring the great migration to California during the 1930s. The destructive force of the Dust Bowl is staggeringly described as a backward life cycle, a regression from fertile green to a dead and dusty brown. The deterioration of the land that forces the farmers to huddle and "figger" foreshadows the plight of the Joads: Forced off their land by a bank looking for profit, they will move west seeking a new livelihood. The beautifully apocalyptic description of the slow spread of decay throughout the Oklahoma country is strongly influenced by the King James Bible and sets the brooding and oppressive tone of the novel.
The opening chapter also introduces many of the themes that will be played out throughout the course of the novel. The suggestion of unity and human dignity in the huddled circle of men will be developed in the narrative. Likewise, the theme of survival, particularly survival in the face of environmental destruction, is implied by the refusal of the men to break. This theme, too, will be examined in detail in the narrative chapters.
Chapter 1 is the first of the so-called intercalary chapters, inserted between the narrative chapters, which are generalized accounts of the social, economic, and historical situations that shape the events of the novel. These chapters provide significant commentary on the narrative elements of the novel and establish that this story is not one of an isolated group of individuals. The Joads' troubles — dispossessed, stripped of dignity, and struggling to maintain familial unity — are not unique to their family, but representative of an entire population of migrating people. Throughout the novel, the broad events of these intercalary chapters will be brought into sharp, personalized focus by the specific plight of the Joad family.
