Ma's eyes passed Rose of Sharon's eyes, and then came back to them. And the two women looked deep into each other. The girl's breath came short of gasping. Ma smiled. "I knowed you would. I knowed!" (Chapter 30) Nothing in The Grapes of Wrath outraged readers as did the scene in Chapter 30 where Rose of Sharon offers her breast to save the dying man from starvation. Clifton Fadiman in The New Yorker wrote that "the ending is the tawdriest kind of fake symbolism." Many would agree with him, however, if the novel were to be examined close ....