Rose of Sharon’s Pregnancy

Tom's younger sister, Rose of Sharon, begins the journey to California pregnant with her first child. She dreams of establishing a new life in the city and how she will dress her baby once she is there. In this way, she embodies the idealist views of the migrants during that time. Because she is pregnant, she also symbolizes a possible new beginning, a "rebirth" of the migrant class. But this obsession consumes her so much that she becomes condescending and adopts an attitude of superiority over others. Because she is pregnant, Rose of Sharon perhaps believes her possession is proof of her already attained new reality. For example, as the family packs the truck for California, Rose of Sharon refuses to help for fear that she might hurt her fetus.
This goes to show, however, how fragile the American Dream is. While perhaps Rose of Sharon takes advantage of her position as a pregnant woman, and identifies her baby with the symbol of the West, she is also extremely fearful of losing it, repeatedly asking her mother again and again if whatever activity she does will be harmful for her child. This intense fear of losing her baby foreshadows her still-birth. Indeed, the harsh realities hit hard after Rose of Sharon's husband leaves her, and she gives birth to a dead child.
The instilled hope at the beginning comes crashing down, and the future of the migrants appears bleak. While Rose of Sharon's pregnancy was once a symbol of new hope, it transforms into a symbol of abandoned and destroyed dreams.
Her character becomes even more fascinating by the end of the novel, however, when she is transformed into a sort of Madonna: When the family comes across a starving man and his son, Rose of Shanon gives the old man her milk. Here, she becomes the care-taker and the nurturer she never could be with her baby, and in some way redeems herself. Most importantly, however, her milk is not a symbol of the American Dream as it once did, but echoing my prior blog post, it is a unifying factor for the migrant class. Her act not only humanizes her, but also shows how a shared experience of hardship and suffering creates a sort of pact between the lower class.