A Long Way from Chicago

With the arrival of the Great Depression’s effects on Grandma’s town, these chapters show how life begins to change and how people find ways to circumvent the law (as they did even before the depression began) in order to save money. Grandma’s caper with the illegal catfish trap in Chapter 3 demonstrates the key differences between Urban Versus Rural Lifestyles, for not only does she ignore aspects of the law that Joey, as a Chicago resident, is quite nervous about breaking, but she also teaches her grandchildren by example that law enforcement officials will sometimes ignore one’s transgressions, especially when they are themselves guilty of similarly questionable activities. Thus, Grandma’s flippant response to Joey’s question about fines reflects her belief that working outside the law is perfectly acceptable as long as one is careful about it.

The subtext of the narrative therefore implies a stark difference between breaking a law and behaving immorally. Accordingly, the end of the chapter shows Grandma using her wits to escape the legal consequences of her actions. For every crime the sheriff accuses her of, Grandma counters with a similar crime that the sheriff is committing, such as also setting illegal traps for catfish. Grandma can’t prove to the town that the sheriff and his buddies were drunk and behaving badly at the Rod and Gun Club, but she doesn’t need to. The mere threat that word of his misdeeds will become known is more than enough incentive for the sheriff to balk at officially charging her with a crime. Thus, in this particular case, the power of reputation trumps the power of the law. To preserve his respectable image, the sheriff is well motivated to drop his complaints against Grandma, grudgingly accepting that it is simply the price he must pay to keep his own misconduct a secret. While the sheriff’s final threat to charge her for operating a soup kitchen without a permit may be legitimate, the lack of evidence and the feeble tone of the threat both combine with the irony of Grandma’s crafty victory to imply that the sheriff is not only a less-than-law-abiding citizen, but he is also not very good at his job. This also implies a sharp contrast between the law enforcement practices in the country, versus the tougher aspects of law enforcement in Chicago.

Despite such run-ins, Grandma’s central personality beneath her many sharp edges is one of generosity, thus demonstrating The Supportive Power of Family, even as her charitable acts extend far beyond her immediate family to include friends and even strangers. Thus, Grandma’s determination to feed the drifters shows her kind heart and her willingness to help those in need, even if she has to bend or break a few laws to do it. The food she brings the older woman likewise symbolizes her sense of familial obligation to those who have a strong impact on her life; the woman once fed Grandma in exchange for work at a time when Grandma was in need, and because the woman is now in a similar position, Grandma willingly returns the favor. It is important to note that Grandma does not expect payment or recognition for what she’s doing. She feeds the drifters because she believes it is the right thing to do, and she hopes that it will inspire them to someday help someone in need and continue to foster a wider sense of family and community.

Chapter 4 digs deeper into the social hierarchies and quirks of the town, and it delves fairly deeply into the ongoing theme of Urban Versus Rural Lifestyles, as well as the social strata that exist even within a town as simple as Grandma’s. The woman who asks Grandma to enter her gooseberry pie into the contest is one of the town’s elite, and her higher status is aptly demonstrated by the fact that her primary concern in this time of great economic stress is that the resulting food shortages are preventing her from upholding her own reputation in the county fair contest. Her decision to invite Grandma to enter the contest in her stead therefore has less to do with her respect for Grandma’s gooseberry pies and more for her concern that someone in the town must gain recognition and uphold the local reputation for excellent cooking.

The resulting days of pie baking and Grandma’s scheme to switch the name cards at the fair show her competitive side. Although her actions in the novel up to this point demonstrate that Grandma typically doesn’t care how other people view her, it is clear that once she enters a competitive situation, she throws her whole self into doing everything she can to win, even breaking the rules. Yet ironically, this particular instance of rule-breaking backfires on her, for if she had simply left the name tags alone, she would have been recognized as the baker of the winning pie. Thus, this chapter provides an apt contrast with the previous story by establishing itself as a cautionary tale that shows the often unforeseen consequences of breaking the rules, establishing that even Grandma can be a bit too clever for her own good. Grandma’s somewhat fluid sense of morality is further demonstrated when she lies to the pilot and claims that she won the blue ribbon so Joey can fly in the plane. In her mind, lying in this situation is justified because it more accurately represents the truth. By rights, she should have won the contest, so she sees no problem with claiming the free flight as a blue ribbon-winner.

Chapter 5 marks a turning point for Joey and Mary Alice that brings the book’s major theme of Coming of Age into particular prominence. Up until this point, they have stuck together whenever they visited Grandma because there was little to do in town and they both believed that sharing each other’s company was far better than having none at all. With this latest chapter, it is clear that they are both getting older and are more eager to achieve some level of independence from each other. However, the fact they go to the same place and sit at separate tables shows that they still want to be around each other, even if they won’t admit it. The earlier chapters feature both Joey and Mary Alice helping Grandma with the chapter’s resolution, but in this case, Mary Alice is unaware that Grandma sent Joey to act as the ghost, and this disconnect symbolizes how siblings tend to grow apart and get involved in their own things as they mature and align with different interests.

In addition to furthering the novel’s Coming of Age theme, the central romance of Chapter 5’s storyline is an allusion to Shakespeare’s classic tale of Romeo and Juliet, for the serving girl and the boy who loves her are from conflicting families. However, rather than both families being upper-class, as is the case in Shakespeare’s play, the boy’s parents are upper-class and refuse to allow their son to associate with the lower-class serving girl. The latter portion of the chapter features members of both families showing up unannounced at Grandma’s, something that Grandma has tried to avoid. The couple’s success in finally escaping both the town and the influence of their warring families deliberately departs from the tragic ending of Romeo and Juliet, and brings their own Coming of Age to a successful conclusion, for unlike the protagonists of the classic story upon which their romance is based, they do not allow the limitations of their family to come between their own maturation and development as people.