I read it in high school. ( 1970) As I recall, a starving guy was fed breast milk by that one Joad woman who had lost her baby. That was a weird ending to an otherwise good story.
Yeah, that she invited the adult starving man to drink from her breast was so unexpected to me. I really like the ending but you're right, it's weird. :)
In Russia the Soviets let the workers watch that movie to show how western workers were downtrodden. What the workers took away from the story was that in America even the poorest family could own a car.
B.H.Wilson 