A turtle crosses the highway

An intercalary chapter. A land turtle hauls itself across the grass verge and up the embankment of a concrete highway, picking up a head of wild oats in its front leg on the way. A woman in a sedan swerves to miss it; a light truck swerves deliberately to hit it, flipping the shell off the road. The turtle rights itself, the oat head falls out, three seeds lodge in the ground, and the dragging shell covers them with dirt as it crawls on in the same direction it was already going.

The novel's central emblem, placed before the journey begins. Two drivers — one swerving to spare the turtle, one to kill it — set the moral range the Joads will meet. The oat seeds carried and buried by accident make the migration's argument: obstinate movement produces life it never intended.