The Grapes of Wrath Study

The Grapes of Wrath Study As the novel opens, what is devastating the land? ️️The dust, the drought, and the fear of losing everything When the men's faces become hard and angry and resistant, why are women relieved? ️️Because they're not giving up What theme of the novel is exemplified in this quote from the last paragraph of the chapter: "Women...knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole." ️️-The men were the head of the household. -The women relied on the men and would fight as long as they did too) Find elements of personification and simile in Chapter 1. Explain them. ️️-The last rains lifted the corn quickly. (1rst paragraph, 3rd sentence) -The clouds appeared and went away, and in awhile they did not try anymore. (1rst paragraph, line 6) -The dust slipped back into darkness and the wind cried and whimpered over the fallen corn. (bottom of page 2) ADJ from chapter one: ️️Bleak, pale, depressing Find an example of alliteration on page 8. ️️The truck driver ".... looked over his coffee at the lean and lonely waitress. He talked the smart listless language of the roadside..." Why do you suppose the truck driver agrees to give the hitchhiker a ride? ️️He wants to be a good person and wants to show he is not afraid of the owners of the company. Why does Tom Joad appear to be surly? ️️He feels the truck driver is nosy. Where has Tom Joad been for four years, and for what reason has he been there? ️️He has been in the McAlester State prison for having killed someone with a shovel. Tom says his father is a "cropper" with "forty acres"; the surprised driver says, "A forty acre cropper and he ain't been dusted out and he ain't been tractored out?" (Pg. 8)What does the driver mean? ️️He seemed surprised that Tom Joad's father has not been driven off the land because of the dust storms or showed off the land by the tractor and the banks. A sharecropper rarely had land, let alone forty acres. What seems to be the point of devoting three entire pages, the whole chapter, to a turtle crossing the road? ️️The turtle seems to represent endurance and persistence of some kind. The turtle is the Joads. Define theme. See if you can find a theme in the turtle vignette. ️️Theme- the central or dominant idea behind the story. Mankind must struggle against overwhelming forces. Why did Jim Casy give up being a preacher? ️️Initially, he felt like a hypocrite because, after preaching about sin and virtue he committed sex acts with the women he was preaching to. He came to the conclusion that maybe there is no sin and virtue, just things people do. What is Casy's conclusion about love, the soul, and the Holy Spirit? ️️He loves pople, not Jesus or God. He has come to believe that in the world there are not individual souls; instead there is one big soul that everyone is a part of. What contrast is there between Jim and Tom? ️️Tom is tough; he speaks directly and acts forcefully. Jim is more circumspect; he is a thinker. As they near Tom's home, what surprise awaits them? ️️His family home looks abandoned. If Jim Casy is a Christ-figure, what, besides his preaching, points to it? ️️His initials are J.C. What are the banks compared to in this chapter? ️️They are equated with monsters that need profits to feed on or they will die. What makes it economically desirable for the banks to drive the tenant farmers off the land? ️️They can replace ten to fifteen tenant families with one man and a machine. Additionally, the banks will own the production from the farms w/o having to deal with people living on the land. What two arguments do the farmers give the "owner men"? ️️The tenant farmers ask for another year, when prices will go up. They also use the emotion of their past lives on the land; fighting Indians being born there and borrowing money to stay. How is the tractor driver described? ️️He is described as being part of the machine; he is as much detached from the land as the bank is. The tractor breaks the bond between man and the land. Since the tractor driver is one of the local people, why does he do the dirty work for the banks? ️️The three dollars a day he is paid feeds his family. Desperation will make a good man go against his conscience. When Tom realizes that the neighbors have not come and taken the good boards and window frames from the house, what is his conclusion? ️️Tom realizes that there is something seriously wrong that goes beyond his own family. Why does Muley Graves not go with his family to California? ️️He cannot bring himself to leave the land of his father and grandfather; he will not leave, he says, because other men have tried to force him off the land. Why did Tom's family not put up the fight he expected them to? Why did they not shoot the tractor driver and fight to stay on the land? ️️They realize that if they shoot the driver, they will accomplish nothing; it is the bank's margin of profit that is the enemy and they cannot fight that. What is Jim Casy referring to when he says, "Muley 's got a-holt of somepin, an' it's too big for him, an' it's too big for me"? ️️Miley realizes that a man actually does have a choice, despite saying the opposite; he can eat elsewhere by himself, or he can share his food with his fellow sufferers. However a moral man, which Muley considers himself to be, must share. What philosophical ideas about killing and prison does Tom wonder about? ️️Tom knows that he was put in jail to teach him not to kill, but if the same situation were to occur