In this chapter, Steinbeck continues to draw a sharp contrast between the vitality of those who live close to the land and the mechanical lifelessness of those who use the soil for capital concerns. This theme is indicative of Jeffersonian agrarianism, which focus on the life-giving bond between human beings and the land with which they work. This theme is characterized by the sense of decay and death that hangs over the land abandoned by the farmers. Like the "muzzled" and "goggled" driver in Chapter 5, the man who runs the tractor goes home at night, distanced from the life growing in the fields he sows. Without the human element invested in the continuation of the life cycle, there can be no life. When the tractor is turned off, it dies. Similarly, when the farming families leave the region, they take life with them, which is symbolized by the wasting away of the vacant houses. Left to die, the houses are gradually taken over by nature, soon to revert to dust.
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