Tobacco Road is a 1932 novel by Erskine Caldwell about Georgia sharecroppers. It was dramatized for Broadway by Jack Kirkland in 1933, and ran for a then-astounding eight years (3182 performances). A 1941 film version, deliberately played mainly for laughs, was directed by John Ford, and the storyline was considerably altered. [1] Year 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1932 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Erskine Caldwell photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1938 Erskine Preston Caldwell (December 17, 1903-April 11, 1987) was an American author born in a house in the woods outside Moreland, Georgia in Coweta County. ... Sharecropping is a system of farming in which employee farmers work a parcel of land in return for a fraction of the parcels crops. ... The Lion King at the New Amsterdam Theatre, 2003 Broadway theatre[1] is the most prestigious form of professional theatre in the U.S., as well as the most well known to the general public and most lucrative for the performers, technicians and others involved in putting on the shows. ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... For the movie, see 1941 (film). ... John Ford (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973) was an American film director famous for westerns such as Stagecoach and The Searchers and adaptations of such classic 20th century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath. ...

Plot introduction

Tobacco Road takes place in Georgia during the worst years of the Great Depression. It depicts a family of poor white tenant farmers, the Lesters, as one of the many small Southern cotton farmers estranged by the industrialization of production and the migration into cities. The main character of the novel is Jeeter Lester, an ignorant and sinful man who is redeemed by his love of the land and his faith in the fertility and the promise of soil. The Great Depression was a dramatic, worldwide economic downturn beginning in some countries as early as 1928. ...

Plot summary

The novel begins with Lov Bensey, a friend of the Lesters, walking to his home at the train yard coal chute. He has walked seven and a half miles to get a sack of winter turnips for fifty cents; which is half of his daily wage. On his way home he stops by the Lesters to talk to Jeeter about Jeeter's twelve year old daughter Pearl, who is married to Lov. Lov is worried for good reason that the Lesters will try to steal his turnips because of their extreme poverty and hunger. While Lov is talking to Jeeter the book introduces the reader to sixteen year-old Dude; the youngest of the Lester boys; Ada; Jeeter’s wife; Grandma Lester, and Ellie Mae, an eighteen year old girl with a grotesque harelip. The entire family, acting in complete desperation, works to steal the turnips from Lov, who then becomes nauseated by the sight and leaves for home. Trinomial name Brassica rapa rapa L. For similar vegetables also called turnip, see Turnip (disambiguation). ... Cleft lip is a congenital deformity caused by a failure in facial development during pregnancy. ...

At this point the preacher Bessie emerges on the scene. Sister Bessie, like Ellie Mae, also has a deformity of the face. Bessie’s nose contains no bone in it, and so when looking straight at her face one can see straight into her nostrils, like a pig. Despite this, Jeeter is still attracted to her. She does some preaching and praying for everyone’s sins, and then proposes marriage to Dude. However, Dude is more interested in her offer of letting him drive the new automobile which she promises to purchase, than in actually getting married to her. Bessie then goes home to ask God whether or not she and Dude should get married. A nostril is one of the two channels of the nose, from the point where they bifurcate to the external opening. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... “Spouse” redirects here. ... Karl Benzs Velo model (1894) - entered into the first automobile race An automobile or motor (usually shortened to just car) is a wheeled passenger vehicle that carries its own motor. ... This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ...

Jeeter has lived on the same plot of land since he was born, and even though his standard of living continued to decline until he and his family began to starve, Jeeter stubbornly refused to move to the city to make a better life for himself by working in a cotton mill. Such a life, he attested, would be impossible for him to live. The Standard of living refers to the quality and quantity of goods and services available to people and the way these services and goods are distributed within a population. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ...

Alongside Jeeter’s preoccupation with farming the land was his preoccupation with his own imminent death. Ada as well was fixated on her death, but their morbidity did not take the form of lamentation or self-pity. Ada’s main concern was that she was not buried in her tattered, old, out-of-style calico dress, while Jeeter’s main concern was that his body would not be left in the old corn storage shed where it would be eaten by rats. He held a terrible phobia of rats ever since he saw his father’s dead face half-eaten by them on the day of his funeral. Neither of these two characters had any doubts that they were going to die sometime soon, and it was not their present life but their lifeless bodies which they cared about the most. It is as if they realized that their way of life was already dead, and their primary concern became not the preservation of that life but its appearance during burial. Calico is a fabric made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. ... Binomial name L. Corn (Zea mays L. ssp. ... Species 50 species; see text *Several subfamilies of Muroids include animals called rats. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

After Bessie returns the next day she exclaims that God has given his approval for the marriage between her and Dude to proceed. The two then start the long walk to the Fuller so that they could purchase the new Ford, for the purpose of traveling around the country and preaching. Once they are in the auto showroom, the salesmen take advantage of Bessie's rural naiveté to pull off a quick and profitable sale, while at the same time constantly making fun of her deformed nose. The couple then head off to get their marriage certificate and are harassed by the county official, who reprimands Bessie for attempting to marry a boy of sixteen years. Finally, they get the marriage license, and the anxious Dude gets to drive the automobile again. For the blues musician, see T-Model Ford. ... Napa, California: USA A new bride humorously observes the legal signing of her marriage license by her maid of honor. ...

Over the course of the next two days, the automobile slowly gets wrecked more and more. First there is an accident with a wagon in which they end up killing the black driver, and then Dude drives into a stump. The seats get trashed by Jeeter’s blackjack wood, which he attempts to sell in the city, and the engine becomes irreparably damaged by being run without sufficient oil. On top of this, the spare tire is sold for three dollars in order to pay for gasoline, food, and a night at a hotel where Bessie becomes prostituted by the manager from room to room. After all of this occurs, Bessie refuses to let Jeeter ride in the car anymore, which makes him upset to the point of kicking her off the land. Ada and Jeeter then proceed to beat Bessie and poke her with sticks until she and Dude take off in the car. A colorized automobile engine The internal combustion engine is a heat engine in which the burning of a fuel occurs in a confined space called a combustion chamber. ...

In the process of fleeing from Ada and Jeeter’s onslaught, Dude had backed right over Grandma Lester, and she lay mashed into the dirt road, almost dead. Lov runs down to see Jeeter, and asks him if he knows what happened to Pearl, Lov’s 12-year-old wife, who had run away to the city to be free of both Lov and the bleak and desperate country life surrounding her. Jeeter notes that more than a few of his daughters have run away to the city. After this discussion about the girls running away, the two notice Grandma’s corpse and drag her into the field to dig her grave and bury her. Ancient unreadable gravestones mark the position of graves in the parish churchyard at Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, England A grave is a place where the body of a dead animal, generally human, is buried, often after a funeral. ...

Lov departs and Caldwell reflects on Jeeter’s position as a tenant farmer in the South. Even though Jeeter, like so many others around him, had the urge to plant a crop during this time of the year, there was nothing he could do. His landlord was an absentee and had abandoned Jeeter and the rest of those who had lived on his land and given him shares of their crop in exchange for credit for seeds and fertilizer. The stores in the city would not grant any more credit to Jeeter or any of the other farmers because it was too risky and there were too many asking for it. A tenant farmer is one who resides on and farms land owned by a landlord. ... The U.S. Southern states or The South, known during the American Civil War era as Dixie, is a distinctive region of the United States with its own unique historical perspective, customs, musical styles, and cuisine. ... Absentee landlord is an economic term for a person who owns and rents out a profit-earning property, but does not live within the propertys local economic region. ... Spreading manure, an organic fertilizer Fertilizers (also spelled fertilisers) are compounds given to plants to promote growth; they are usually applied either via the soil, for uptake by plant roots, or by foliar feeding, for uptake through leaves. ...

On this sad note the novel concludes, as Jeeter and Ada sleep, they are killed in the fire which spreads to their house, and which Jeeter created to burn off the hedge, in the hopes of being able to somehow gain enough credit to farm the land that spring. Credit as a financial term, used in such terms as credit card, refers to the granting of a loan and the creation of debt. ...

External links

• Tobacco Road at All Movie Guide