Reflection of Bradstreet and Rowlandson

If I would have known ahead of time that A Narrative of Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson by Mary Rowlandson was about a woman that was captured by Native Americans and while there her child dies, and then she spends the rest of her life being a slave but seemingly to slowly assimilate into the Native American culture and society over time, I would have thought that it would be a very interesting story with strong emotions, from when she was captured, and when her child died. As it turns out though, it was a very bland story with little emotion and almost no detail at all. It ended up just being very “preachy” and her writing made her seem kind of stuck up, but that just seems like the writing style of the Puritans of the time period. If I were the Native Americans, I would get very annoyed easily if some strange people came over on boats and tried to force their “one true religion” on me and my fellow people. To them, Christianity sounds just as crazy as the Native American’s religion seemed to the Christians.

After Reading A Narrative of Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, I started to get a feeling for how the Puritans wrote their stories and how they distinguished themselves from other kinds of writers and other writing types. They seemed to be more bland and non descriptive, but they only seemed to write about the experiences that “god had helped them through.” Even after her baby died, Mary said “I have though since of the wonderful goodness of God to me, in preserving me so in the use of my reason and senses in that distressed time, that I did not use wicked and violent means to end my own miserable life” (Rowlandson 83). At the very end, Mary is upset that her son is sick in the woods and that “no Christian friend was near him to do any office of love for him, either for soul or body” (Rowlandson 84). I think that this shows the Puritan belief, and every other religion I guess, that her religion is the right one, and that he son will only be safe and secure if he is around other Christian people that can help him, and not just the Native American “heathens” and their strange nature religions and alien practices.

In "Upon the Burning of Our House" by Anne Bradstreet was another perfect example of Puritan writing. The story is about how her house burned down, but she realized that all of her earthly or, terrestrial, possessions are meaningless because she believes she has a life in heaven where she will have everything she ever wanted. The first thing she thought when the fire started was “to my God my heart did cry; To strengthen me in my distress; And not to leave me succorless.” (Bradstreet 91). I think that this shows how even in the most surprising and dangerous circumstances, the Puritans immediately thought of crying out to god for help in whatever was troubling them.

Rowlandson, Mary. "A Narrative of Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson." Glencoe Literature. Ed. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Co, 2009. 82. Print.

Bradstreet, Anne. "Upon the Burning of Our House." Glencoe Literature. Ed. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Co, 2009. 91. Print.

Journal #2

Once upon a time, there was a duck named Sir Quacksalot. Now, Sir Quacksalot was a very brave duck. He has been off most of his life training for the military to be a knight and then he spent many years defending his duck kingdom from the evil neighboring kingdom of the Canadian Geese.

The only problem that Sir Quacksalot had was that he had no manners when it came to being hospitable to other people and having manners when he went to other people’s houses. He spent so much of his time on his own or at the military barracks, he had no time to develop such manners, and because he didn’t have them, nobody wanted to invite him over or go over to his house for dinner. So one day, he figured that he needed to learn his manners.

The way he decided to learn them was to visit enough houses until he learned how to treat guests and other people’s houses.

One day, Sir Quacksalot was invited over to Mr. and Mrs. Mallard’s house for dinner; this was the perfect opportunity for him to learn his manners. Sir Quacksalot made mistakes from the moment he walked in the door. First of all, he walked into the house without knocking, and Mr. Mallard reminded him that it was polite to knock before entering. Then Sir Quacksalot did not take off his shoes, and once again, Mr. Mallard told him that it is polite for him to take his shoes off by the door. Then Sir Quacksalot just walked into the Mallard’s kitchen and started to eat the fruit that they had sitting out in a bowl. This shocked the Mallard’s, and they told Sir Quacksalot that it is very impolite to eat somebody’s food without asking. After just one visit, Sir Quacksalot now knew how to act at someone’s house. He also learned, from watching how the Mallards treated him, he learned that hosts are supposed to be very kind to their guests. From then on, all of Sir Quacksalot’s neighbors were inviting him to their houses and going to his house for dinner all the time.

Journal #1

Everybody has seen a rabbit with its long ears and short, stubby tail. Since it has been that way for many, many years, most people have forgotten the story of how the rabbit got its long ears and short tail.

One day the rabbit was just hopping around, minding its own business. It was scouring the forest floor for some food for him and his large family. His wife and he just had another son, so he needed to find food for his growing family. He was looking around hand he just happened to stumble upon a farmers carrot patch.

Immediately the rabbit started digging up the carrots, not realizing that he was eating some other family’s food. The farmer, seeing the destruction of his crops, came out and confronted the rabbit. The farmer yelled at the rabbit and told him to get off of his land. The rabbit then realizes that he is eating the farmer’s crops, not some wild vegetation that was just lying around in the forest, so the rabbit politely apologizes to the farmer for eating his crops and then the rabbit is on his way to find some more food to bring back to his ever-expanding family back in his hole.

The next day, when the rabbit was looking for food once more and he came across a large field filled with many different types of vegetables and fruits. The rabbit was cautious this time, though, because he remembered that last time he found a large amount of food, it ended up being a person’s farm. This field was unplowed and had weeds growing throughout it, so the rabbit decided it was safe to eat the food. The rabbit spent all day collecting the food and then he took it all back to his home and fed his entire family and some of the neighbors too.

Since the rabbit had so much food, he set aside an equal amount of food that he had eaten of the farmer’s crops, so the next day; he went to the man’s farm and gave him the extra as repayment. The farmer was very grateful but the farmer’s dog did not know that the rabbit was not there to steal more food so he attacked the rabbit. First he bit at the rabbit’s long tail, and ripped it off. Then he went for the rabbit’s short ears and hung on to them. The rabbit tried to run, but the dog held on. The farmer quickly realized what was happening and he pulled the dog off of the rabbit’s ears. Now the rabbit had a short stubby tail, and long, stretched-out ears. That is why the rabbit looks the way it does today.

Fahrenheit 451: Question 8 (Final Summer Blog)

Finally, the moment we’ve (okay, so it was mostly me) have all been waiting for. It’s time for blog number fifty! The final blog for the summer of 2011.

So, let’s get down to business. Once again, like I mentioned a couple of blog posts back when I answered question number five, this book has no real historical facts and events in it because it was set in the future, which could be the present years, but there was most defiantly no historical facts beyond the things like billboards were twenty feet long and firemen put out fires not stop them. Those are basic facts though, so I tend not to characterize those as significant facts.

I think that Bradbury believed that people should argue, discuss, disagree; anything to keep the thought processes going on something that matters. This is because when Captain Beatty was talking to Guy about why things were like they were he said “If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, topheavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information” (Bradbury 61). He is presenting a startling future, and at the heart of it all, is a feeling that people should just do whatever makes them feel happy, as long as they don’t start to think and voice ideas that conflict other ideas or thoughts that would lead to someone being unhappy worrying about whether or not he is right on a certain topic. What Bradbury is trying to say is that debate is good, it keeps people from becoming senseless and only worry about happiness at the expense at the rest of the world.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.

Fahrenheit 451: Question 7: Part 2- Water & The Phoenix

Even though fire was an important symbol in Fahrenheit 451, there were also plenty of other symbols too.

One major symbol throughout the book is water. It’s not very surprising, seeing as the other major theme is fire. It’s good to have a little balance when it comes to nature and humans. It starts out when Clarisse talks about the dew in the morning grass, and how Guy does not seem to recall if he knew that. It also comes out when Clarisse leaves him in the rain and he looks up at the sky and tries to catch raindrops in his mouth, which is an unusual thing for a person whose life it is to burn things. One way that it shows again is when Faber turns his sprinklers on to throw off the scent of Montag so the Mechanical Hound that was after him would lose the scent trail and give Guy a little bit more time to get as far away as possible. The biggest way that water shows that it is a major symbol is when Guy jumps in the river to escape the Mechanical Hound and the police helicopters. He ducked under the water, so it provided a safe haven for him to hide where the different technologies of the police could not get him. Another ironic thing that happened was that throughout the book, it talked about how he felt like he was drowning, but when he was in the water hiding from the Mechanical Hound, he felt he was “floating in a sudden peacefulness” (Bradbury 140).

Another important theme that came up at the end of the book would be the phoenix. The phoenix was an ancient mythical bird that would build a pyre every so often and burn itself, and then rise out of the ashes of the fire, a new body but the same spirit of the original bird. Granger compares it to the city that was just bombed. He said “it must be first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we’re doing the same thing, over and over, but we’ve got one damn thing the phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we’ve done for a thousand years and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, someday we’ll stop making the goddamn funeral pyres and jumping in the middle of them. We pick up a few more people that remember every generation” (Bradbury 163).

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.

Fahrenheit 451: Question 7: Part 1- Fire

Throughout the book, Bradbury uses many different types of literary devices to draw the reader in and keep them reading.

One devise that he used quite often was symbolism. The book was full of symbols; the phoenix, fire, water, and even the title of the book has a symbolic significance.

The major symbol in this book was obviously going to be fire, seeing as though Guy is a Fireman that sets things on fire, and the cover of the book is a stack of books burning and a man made of paper burning along with them. It is not just all about the burning houses, it is also about the other subtle things throughout the book. When Guy got the feeling like somebody was just there, which turned out to be Clarisse, he could feel the body heat that made the air slightly warmer than the rest of the surrounding air.

Throughout the book, fire changes from one meaning to another. At the beginning, when Guy Montag was just a simple Fireman, who set stacks of books and houses on fire, and went to bed with a big smile on his face. It was just a tool of destruction and a weapon against the war on the rebels who decided keeping books in their house was a good idea. Then, after the whole killing of Captain Beatty and burning the Mechanical Hound, and after he got into the forrest, fire’s meaning to him changed. It went from being a tool of destruction, to a tool of warmth and a light, and it was even a different color than what he was used to because this one was not a kerosene fire (Bradbury 145). To the old lady that sacrificed herself with her books had another meaning for fire that she revealed when she said “Play the man Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out,” which was a quote from two “heretics” about to be burned for their “crimes” in 1555 (Bradbury 40)

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.

Fahrenheit 451: Question 6

This is one of the best books on the reading list that we could choose our third book from. I have not read the other ones yet, but I’ve heard what they are about, and I think that for me, this book was a good choice for my third book.

Last summer, for English 232, I chose to read George Orwell’s 1984 which I really liked because it presented an alternate future that could possibly happen if mankind did not learn from their past mistakes and fight for what they believe in. Fahrenheit 451 is more similar to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World because unlike 1984, Brave New World was a society that was created by people over a long period of time. In Brave New World, people took vacations often to get away from reality and there were strict laws that you had to abide to, like going to group meetings for “social” time.

The future of Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World is more probable because the people are probably going to get upset and rebel if the government started burning books on their own, but it was not the government’s idea. The population just grew tired of books and eventually just stopped reading and lost the significance of reading novels. Seeing the opportunity to make the citizens happy and less educated, and so more easily repressed, the government stepped in and started the “Firemen”. People are more inclined to go along with things if they are the general consensus of the population, not just by the government’s power.

The main reason why I think that we read books like Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and 1984 is because it warns us of the slim paths that people walk and that if humans were to slip up, there would be people there to take advantage of the situation. Another common themes shared between the aforementioned books are things like hop and human nature to have ups and downs throughout history. They all end with a kind of hope that maybe people will see what they have done wrong; they just needed everything to go wrong to see how bad it really was.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.

Fahrenheit 451: Question 5

This book does not have that much historic signifigance, mostly because it is set in the future and one that is very different from our own, so I guess the option of history is out of the question. There are a few things in the book that would qualify as social issues that could reflect on today’s world, but not the world in history.

The only social issue in Fahrenheit 451 is about how the people in the future are very anti-social, even by today’s standards. Many people, like Guy Montag’s wife, Mildred, wear these “Seashells” in their ear and they hear the news and they hear music and ratio shows. This reminds me an awful lot of the iPod® earphones that many people today wear around and do not talk to one another. Another thing that is starting to happen today is that people are getting way too attached to their T.V.’s. Back in Bradbury’s day, T.V.’s were just coming out really and he could see that people were starting to get more and more obsessed with their televisions and spent less time outside. The part about the televisions being as big as walls have definitely already come true, and so has the part where they are three dimensional, which would have been a radical thought back in the 1950’s. The part about the televisions in the book being interactive with the viewer is about the equivalent to most modern video games because the viewer can just sit there and whatever they want to happen happens, and some have even started to have voice recognition software so the player can control what goes on with their voice as well as with their controllers.

The thing that Bradbury seems most worried about is that people would still act social, talk and be in the same room, but they would not really be talking about anything substantial. Clarisse points this out when she says “Sometimes I sneak around and listen in subways. Or I listen at soda fountains, and do you know what? People don’t talk about anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else” (Bradbury 31).

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.

Fahrenheit 451: Question 4

It is easy to identify who the “hero” is in this book. We follow Guy Montag throughout the whole book and since the narrator is only a third person limited, he is the only character in the book whose thoughts we can hear, so the hero is clearly Guy. Another easy way to determine who the hero is by process of elimination: Mildred left Guy and turned him in for his books, Clarisse died very early on, Faber was kind of a coward because he stayed back safely in his own home while Guy was a walking target, and Captain Beatty basically taunted Guy to reveal his stash of books and his guilt.

It is hard to sympathize with Guy though because he second guesses and doubts himself all of the time and he makes stupid mistakes, like reciting poetry in front of his wives friends, which eventually leads to burning of his house and his wife leaving him.

He shows that he is not like everybody else when he listens to Clarisse and how he did not turn in Faber even though he knew he had books. He’s been sneaking books before he burns them because he feels that there must be a reason why all of these people are willing to die just for these books. He shows that he has a heart when he can not stop thinking about the lady that died defending the books and whenever he asks his wife, she does not care one bit and tries to talk about her “family” on the television.

He also shows that he have determination because when the hound gives him a shot of poison in the leg before he blasts it with the flamethrower, he keeps going on, even though he says that the pain in his leg feels like somebody is driving nails into it.

One thing that he did that I did not think was heroic at all though was when he planted books at a fellow fireman’s house and then called an alarm so that his house would get burned down. Not a very nice “Guy” when he’s angry.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.

Fahrenheit 451: Question 3

The main theme of this book seems to be censorship, but more of how new technologies like television and how it “destroys the interest in reading literature” (Johnston 9). The people of the time of the book just sit around all day and watch television and they can even talk to it, and they get much attached to it. When Guy Montag asks his wife, Mildred, to turn off the T.V. parlour where the giant television walls are she says “That’s my family” (Bradbury 49).

When Captain Beatty shows up to the house to talk to Guy, he starts talking about how he knows he took a book or two. He says that every Fireman goes through it, and they get over it. He revealed to Guy that fireman actually were at one point in time supposed to put out fires, not start them. He reveals how the process started to this future world: “Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending. Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-nine dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for references. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: now at last you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbors. Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back into the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more” (Bradbury 55). This reveals that it is less like the world in George Orwell’s 1984 because in 1984, the government was the censor, but in Fahrenheit 451, it is the people who decided that books were useless.

At the end of the book, before the city was bombed, Granger talks about how they will wait until they are able to once more put the books back onto paper and wait “until another Dark Age, when we might have to do the whole damn thing over again. But that’s the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing” (Bradbury 153).

Johnston, Amy. "Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 Misinterpreted - Page 1 - News - Los Angeles - LA Weekly." Los Angeles News, Events, Restaurants, Music LA Weekly. 30 May 2007. Web. 21 Aug. 2011.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.

Fahrenheit 451: Question 2

This book is filled with many different, little conflicts that ultimately lead up to both gains and losses for Guy Montag.

The initial conflict was when Clarisse McClellan, the new next door neighbor, and Guy meet. She seems to be very strange, very different from most other people. She likes to just take walks, think about things, and walk in the rain. She says that she does not go to school much, but they do not notice or really care all that much that she is gone, mostly because she does not care that much for the kind of activities that the other kids do. Her reasoning is “An hour of T.V. class, an hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don’t; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing and us sitting there for four more hours of film teacher. That’s not social to me at all. It’s a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it’s wine when it’s not. They run us so ragged by the end of the day we can’t do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun Park to bully people around, break windowpanes in the Window Smasher place or wreck cars in the Car Wrecker place with the big steel ball” (Bradbury 29-30). I think that this shows how the times have changed in this future world. From meeting Clarisse, he says she took his happiness that “he wore like a mask” and that she “ had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on the door and ask for it back” (Bradbury 12).

He ends up losing his house and wife after several people turn in an “alarm” that he has books in his house. He also loses his job because of this, and also because he burned his Chief alive and ran into the city.

What he ends up gaining in the end though, is a new family of people who welcome him as a brother because he knows the book of Ecclesiastes. He has gained a new home with the people who are keeping the candle of knowledge burning.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.

Fahrenheit 451: Question 1

Ray Bradbury’s writing style in Fahrenheit 451 was very different from John Steinbeck’s writing style in The Grapes of Wrath, and even more different than Ernest Hemingway’s writing style in The Old Man and the Sea. Bradbury did not go into much detail about most things, which Steinbeck did for all of The Grapes of Wrath, and it was not very frank, like Hemingway’s was in The Old Man and the Sea. Bradbury spends most of the time on metaphors and similes, so it is not that easy to read quickly, you have to slow down to fully grasp what he was trying to get across in the first place. Maybe that was on purpose, because the setting in the book explains that books got shorter and everybody read things quicker, and to novel writers, that is a nightmare of a future.

The narrator in this story is a third person, but this time instead of it being a third person omniscient, like in The Grapes of Wrath and The Old Man and the Sea, it is only a third person limited omniscient because we can only hear the thoughts of Guy Montag, instead of everybody’s thoughts.

The writing in the book reveals that Bradbury fears the time when people lose interest in things like long novels and strolls in the park, and focus on things like T.V. or short days at the Fun Parks, where the kids break windows and things like that, and when they drive, they will go too fast to see the beauty of the land right outside of their window. “Christ is one of the ‘family’ now. I often wonder if God recognizes his own son the way we’ve dressed him up, or is it dressed him down? He’s a regular peppermint stick now, all sugar-crystal and saccharine when he isn’t making veiled references to certain commercial products that every worshipper absolutely needs” (Bradbury 81). I think this quote reveals just how far Bradbury thinks the world might go to if we live watching our T.V.’s.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Final Thoughts

I think that The Grapes of Wrath is one of the best books that I have ever had to read for any school project, and it’s better than some of the book that I have willingly chosen to read in my free time. I think that it is just the way that Steinbeck wrote it and how honest and raw it was. It was also very detailed which helped me connect more with the characters and helped me visualize the story better. I can easily tell why the book has sold over fifteen million copies, why it still sells 150,000 copies annually, why it won a Pulitzer Prize in 1940, and why it was one of the main reasons why John Steinbeck got the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962 (Steinbeck xi).

The title of the book comes from Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” in which one line was “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored” (Steinbeck x). The original hymn was written during the civil war, and it criticized the Southern soldiers, and its message was anti-slavery. It talks of how only god can right the wrongs the Southern people have done. I think this is why Steinbeck picked this as the title; maybe the only way that the wrongs that big farm owners and the corporate executives did against the farmers of the Central United States. The title also worked because there were many vineyards in California, and those grapes were the price of many families being displaced.

I guess there is no way to get around it, the ending of the book was… different. I have never once heard of a classic book that had an ending that involved a woman breast feeding a grown, half starving man. That is why the ending is so memorable; it is very, very unique. It shows how far the people were willing to go to help a starving person. It will be tough to forget the ending, and that is exactly what Steinbeck most likely wanted.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Question 8

I think that this book very closely and accurately reflects the events in the history of the time period that it is set in. It criticizes the corrupt Californian farmers for what they did to the migrant farmers, which Steinbeck sympathized with and made the reader feel the pain that they felt through the very detailed writing style.

There were many people who thought that this book was a communist’s way of worming their way into American society, and there were also many more Americans that felt that it was one of the greatest books because it provided such an in depth look into the lives and struggles of the migrant farm workers. It would be safe to say that the Californian farm owners did not appreciate being cast in the sort of light they are in the book, but that is what they were really like, so that’s how Steinbeck characterized them as. I can also see how people could see how there was a slight communist/liberal biased by the things that Casy said, like “Maybe it’s all men an’ all women we love; maybe that’s the Holy Serit—the human sperit—the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of” (Steinbeck 24).

One big thing that I think influenced Steinbeck would be that he was born and grew up in California, and he lived there during the time the novel is set. He saw how they were treated, and he just had to let people know their story, the story of the small family that had to move across the country and when they get to California, there’s no work.

I think that Steinbeck was trying to stress the responsibility people have to take care of their fellow people, like Mae in the diner, or when Ma Joad gave the hungry kids even though the Joad family was still hungry. It is easily seen that the good characters in the book helped other people, while the group that was looked down upon, the big farm and company owners, did thing for themselves and for profit.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Question 7

Steinbeck uses many different writing techniques to draw the readers in and help them connect the readers to the various characters. He uses symbolism, foreshadowing, and changing of narration point of view. One device that he did not use much of though would be suspense. He could have put that Grampa Joad was sick and seemed to be about to die, and then put that at the end of the chapter, put in a couple short chapters about things other than the Joad family, all the while building suspense, and then put what happens to Grampa at the beginning of another chapter. But no, he just said that Grampa was getting sick and then he died, and the family went on. Same for Granma, even more so because Ma just blurted it to the rest of the family, so they were just as surprised as the readers.

Some examples of foreshadowing would be when the dog got hit by a car in chapter thirteen, when Granpa dies, and when the man tells the Joad men about how bad it is in California. It seems like the closer that the Joad family got to California, the worse things get. Family members start dying and just leaving out of the blue, like Noah and Connie.

There is also a good amount of symbolism in this book. The road is a symbol for hope. It talks about how Route 66 is the “Mother Road, the road of flight” (Steinbeck 118). I also heard once that back then, Route 66 was one of the only major highways, and not many roads intersected it, so this could also symbolize the fact that the farmers had two choices: go onward toward California and risk the unknown, or turn back to starve at their old houses with the rest of their family. Another symbol is the turtle in chapter three because it got hit by a car, was flipped upside down, and then it just flipped back over and kept going on its way. Even after it got picked up by Tom, it went southwest when it escaped and when he eventually let it go. That could also be foreshadowing because the Joads were going to head southwest to California as well.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Question 6

When I heard about the basic story line of the book, a family that travels to California during the Dust Bowl, did not really make the book all that appealing, and I had no idea how it was going to be able to span four-hundred fifty-five pages. After reading the book though, it was more than just their troubles alone, it was about the whole time period and about the troubles of all of the other families going to California like the Joads. It was also about the different kind of people that started this migration of evicted farmers and ultimately every one of their deaths that could have been avoided, or put off I should say, if they were allowed to just stay in their houses.

I think the reason why we still read this book is because it’s themes are timeless and will still be relevant no matter how old the book is; humans will do anything it takes if it means their survival and the survival of their family, humans will always help other people that are in need even if they themselves are not in a good situation to help others, there will be people who lie and deceive and manipulate people so they can make money, and that people suffering the same losses will ban together to fight for the same cause. In the book it even talks about these timeless themes: “When property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed” (Steinbeck 238).

Another important reason, maybe even the reason why Steinbeck wrote this book, is because it gives a side to story of the migrant farm workers that was not taught in history class. I remember when we talked about the Dust Bowl, and the only thing about the migrant farm workers that was mentioned was that there were a lot of them that moved to California to work, and how working conditions were poor there, but that was about the extent of how much that was said about them. The author T.C. Boyle said “You can read (about the lives of migrant workers) in your textbook… but if you read it in Steinbeck’s version you get to live it, breathe it” (NPR 12)

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

"NPR : Grapes of Wrath, Present at the Creation." NPR : National Public Radio : News & Analysis, World, US, Music & Arts : NPR. Web. 19 Aug. 2011.

The Grapes of Wrath: Question 5

This book is all about the history and social issues of the farmers and Western people during the American Dust Bowl during the 1930’s. It was a time of great change, and whenever there is great change, social issues are going to spring up.

In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck clearly states his opinion on what had happened to the migrant farm workers and of the owners and business men who caused all of the problems for the farmers. It started off with the owners and banks deciding to kick off the tenant farmers so that they could plant cotton and make some profit out of the land, even if it would suck the soil of the rest of its nutrients. Then, when the farmers were wondering where to go after being evicted from their homes, by way of tractor knocking it down, the owners gave out pamphlets and advice to go to California where there are plenty of jobs with nice wages and everything is perfect there, but they knew what it was really like there; overcrowding and jobs that barely kept the children alive.

They purposely made a class of “serfs” almost, people that would work simply for food. Chapter twenty-two talked about how, with all of the farmers pouring in, the people already living in California hated them, for they lowered the wages, took up space, and they were worried that they were thieves and criminals; “degenerates” (Steinbeck 283). It talked about how farmers would fight for lower wages just to get the job, “and this was good, for wages went down and prices stayed up. The great owners were glad and they sent out more handbills to bring more people in. And wages went down and prices stayed up. And pretty soon now we’ll have serfs again” (Steinbeck 283). The townspeople were mad at the wrong group, for it was not the farmer’s fault that they were forced into poverty, but the great land owners, and they were doing it on purpose.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Question 4

The hero of the story is very easy to identify for The Grapes of Wrath. He seems at first to be quite a nasty character, but then he quickly shows to be a caring and smart person. The hero is of course none other than Tom Joad.

It is safe to say that Tom is not a person that anyone would want to mess with when he’s mad, but he would be a perfect person to take onto a long and dangerous journey across the country with everything you own. He is really good at getting to the heart of the matter quickly, he isn’t one to beat around the bush, like when the truck driver said the sticker said no hitch-hikers allowed and Tom replied “sure—I seen it. But sometimes a guy’ll be a good guy even if some rich bastard makes him carry a sticker” (Steinbeck 7). It also shows that people already have contempt for big business owners (wait until he finds out about what they did to the farms).

Tom is also very complex, sure he killed a man with a shovel, but he shows no remorse for it; he even said he would do it again if he were in the same situation. When the truck driver got a little nosey Tom told him “You got me wrong, mister, I ain’t keepin’ quiet about it. Sure I been in McAlester. Been there four years. Sure these is the clothes they give me when I come out. I don’t give a damn who know it. An’ I’m goin’ to my old man’s place so I don’t have to lie to get a job” (Steinbeck 12). It shows how honest he is and how he does not regret the things that he has had to do.

Tom is also a good advice giver throughout the book. He tells the one-eyed mechanic to get an eye patch, take a bath, and top wallowing in self pity; he tells his brother Al to stop worrying about people blaming him when the car breaks down. He takes control of situations when nobody else steps up, and he usually ends up making very good decisions that help the family greatly.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Question 3: Part 3

Basically every action displayed in The Grapes of Wrath is done because of one reason; the families were lied to at every turn. From the land owners to the car salesman, people lied to the desperate and fairly inexperienced farmers on their way to California, just to make a quick buck.

It would be easy to see after the book is over that the families most likely should not have gone to California in the first place, at least not all of them. It really was an unfair situation for the farmers because first they were pushed off of their land, then they were swindled out of money that they should have gotten for their belongings, but instead they barely got anything, and then the people selling the cars jacked up the prices because they knew that the people were going to need cars, so they would pay almost any price.

The easiest chapter to see the manifestation of deceit was in the chapter about the crooked used car salesman. He said “Goin’ to California? Here’s jus’ what you need. Looks shot, but they’s thousan’s of miles in her” (Steinbeck 66). This shows how the families were tricked into buying cars that looked good, but they were probably not in the best of shape. The car salesmen didn’t care though, they were just looking to make money. It shows in another line when someone complains that they bought a car and it already broke down, and the car salesman replies “Sure, we sold it. Guarantee? We guaranteed it to be an automobile. We didn’t guarantee to wet-nurse it. Now listen here, you—you bought a car, an’ now you’re squawkin’. I don’t give a damn if you don’t make payments. We ain’t got your paper. We turn that over to the finance company. They’ll get cops after you, not us. We don’t hold no paper. Yeah? Well you jus’ get tough an’ I’ll call a cop” (Steinbeck 65). They also switch out good batteries in the cars with bad ones so that people will have to come back and buy new ones (Steinbeck 62).

Basically the only reason that people went out to California was for work and a home, but the owners lied to them so that they could get cheap and easy labor. They were the cause of the all of the troubles the families went through, and they did not care one bit.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Question 3: Part 2

The story focuses mostly on the struggles of the Joad family and the conflict of the tenant farmers getting kicked off of their land, which affected many, many families, so it would be easy to say that the theme of family plays a big part in the novel.

When the Joad family was preparing to leave for California, they decided that they were going to leave earlier than they had previously thought. “And then all of a sudden, the family began to function. Pa got up and a lighted another lantern. Noah from a box in the kitchen, brought out the bow-bladed butchering knife and whetted it on a worn little carborundum stone. And he laid the scraper on the chopping block, and the knife beside it. Pa brought two sturdy sticks, each three feet long, and pointed the ends with an ax, and he tied strong ropes, double half-hitched, to the middle of the sticks” (Steinbeck 104). This shows just how well connected and trained the Joad family is because they all know their duty, their part in the preparing for salting some pigs in this case.

When Steinbeck was telling the story of the masses of people who made one-night tent communities he said “In the evening a strange thing happened: the twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream” (Steinbeck 193). This shows how the families on the road basically formed one family every night with whoever else was camped there because they all shared the same fears, losses, and dream of working in the California sun.

In the final chapter, when the little boy in the barn was telling about how his father gave the boy his food; “Says he wasn’t hungry, or he jus’ et. Give me the food. Now he’s too weak. Can’t hardly move” (Steinbeck 454).This shows how in even the most dire circumstances, looking starvation in the face, a father would gladly, willingly, give up his food so that his son may eat and live another day.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Question 3: Part 1

The Grapes of Wrath is just full of themes. They range from survival, to religion, and they all play a big part in how the story develops and how the characters grow in the story. There are three very big themes that help shape the novel; change, family, and lies.

Change is the very basis on which this book starts and develops with. The reason why the Joads are forced off of their land? Change. The reason why hundreds of thousands of people are on their way to California? Change. The reason people become violent and crazy? Change. The farmers would have just liked to stay where they were, do what they were doing, but the banks had other plans.

One good quote that shows how the people getting pushed off of the land feel; “’Fella gets use’ to a place, it’s hard to go,’ said Casy ‘Fella gets use’ to a way of thinkin’ it’s hard to leave’” (Steinbeck 51). I can’t even imagine how hard it would be to get forced out of my house, especially if it were the same house that my father and I were born in, and one that my grandfather had to fight for his life to secure.

When the man buying a car from the car salesman in chapter seven tries to trade with his mules to get some extra money towards the car the salesman replies “Mules! Hey, Joe, hear this? This guy wants to trade mules. Didn’t nobody tell you this is the machine age? They don’t use mules for nothing but glue no more” (Steinbeck 64). This shows how the people who were getting pushed off of their farms still used plows pulled behind mules and other such “outdated” tools to farm their land, but now that there were tractors, there was no need for small farms, and big ones started taking over.

In chapter sixteen, Casy almost seems to have a “phycic” ability to anticipate what is going to happen when he says “’They’s gonna come somepin outa all these folks goin’ wes’—outa all their farms lef’ lonely. They’s gonna come a thing that’s gonna change the whole country’” (Steinbeck 174). And sure enough, he was right

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Question 2

The Grapes of Wrath is basically, one drawn out, thirty chapter, one hundred fifty five page long conflict. Every chapter, a new conflict is settled, and then another springs up and takes the last ones place, and sometimes more than one new conflict arose. There was one constant conflict though, and it is the basic human conflict people have to face every day, maybe not as prevalent as the characters in the book, but in one form or another, everyone shares one common urge to do things: survival.

The first conflict of the book, even before the farmers were kicked off of their land, even before the first events of the book, was the four year jail sentence Tom Joad served, which the effects were seen in the early part of the book. He seems to be cool headed, even when criticizing people, for example, the truck driver that was being a little too nosey. I think this came out of having to behave in prison, lest he wanted to get punished.

Another major conflict would have to be the death of the various members of the Joad family; Granpa, Granma, Rose of Sharon’s baby, and Casy, who was like an honorary Joad. They also had to deal with people just leaving like Noah, Connie and Al. I think that in some ways it the deaths and losses helped solidify the family, made them feel like they should keep going on in their name.

Of course, the main conflict that propelled this book forward was the need for the Joads to find work somewhere so that they could feed themselves and maybe even get a nice house and maybe, just maybe, a bit of land. The closer and closer they got to California though, the harder it was to survive and the more warning signs there were. And when they actually got to California, they had a hard time surviving, and since the book cuts off like it did, we will never know what happened to them.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Question 1

The way that Steinbeck wrote this book really helped set the mood for the story, and helped the reader connect more to the characters and empathize with them. The narrator in this novel is a third person omniscient, which is handy for this kind of story because the narrator is able to, narrate I guess, all of the different feelings of the different members of the Joad family. The narrator also changes trough out the shorter chapters interspersed in between the chapters about the Joad family. The narrator changes to second person, with Steinbeck talking to the reader, in chapter fourteen when Steinbeck says “For the quality of owning freezes you forever into ‘I,’ and cuts you off forever from the ‘we’” (Steinbeck 152). Then, like in chapter seven, the narrator shifts to a first person perspective; “All right, Joe. You soften ‘em up an’ shoot ‘em in here. I’ll close ‘em, I’ll deal ‘em or I’ll kill ‘em. Don’t send in no bums. I want deals” (Steinbeck 63).

I think that it is obvious even after reading only half of the book, that Steinbeck carries the values of friendship, family, and charity in very high regards. As for family and friendship, it is all over the whole story. One example would be how they let Casy come along on their trip, even though he was just going to take up space and eat their food. It also shows through when Ma Joad freaks out every time that Tom says that he should split up or do something that would take him back to McAlester. Charity is also evident when they leave money for the Wilsons when they keep going, when Ma Joad gives the hungry kids at the Hooverville in Bakersfield the rest of their stew, and the most charitable thing that anybody did in the book would have to be Rose of Sharon breast feeding the starving man because it would mean she would have to put aside pride and dignity to help a total stranger.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Chapter 19

Chapter nineteen is a powerful chapter that acts as a window into the struggle between the migrant farm workers and the land owners. It tells of how at first, the Americans took the land from the Mexicans because they wanted the rich farmland, and there was really nothing that could stop there “hunger” for land. Then, their sons grew up on the farms, so they did not hold it in as high regards as their fathers; only saw it as a way of making a profit. That is when the real trouble started, because they merged their farms, and soon there were very few farms, but a ton of farmland. Some farm owners have never even seen the land they own, they just hire people to do it for them (Steinbeck 231-232).

Then, with the Dust Bowl, over three hundred thousand people migrated to California for work, and since there were so many workers, the price of labor went down. This didn’t really sit well with the “Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, and Filipinos” that were already there, because they now made less money (Steinbeck 232). So basically everybody hated them because they lowered the wages, the owners feared they would revolt and take the land, and the shop owners didn’t like them because they never had money to buy anything (Steinbeck 233). On top of all of this hate, they had to live in shanty-towns called “Hovervilles.” They were forced to live right next to acre upon acre of “fallow” land, and they were not allowed to cultivate even the part that only weeds grew in, even if it were for their malnourished children. Everybody hates them because of the way they live, when in reality, they were forced into that lifestyle by the people like the land owners in California.

The owners don’t listen to history and its “rules” like “when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And when a majority of the people are cungry and cold they will atake by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds all the way through history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed” (Steinbeck 238). Faced with these facts, the owners still try to find ways to repress the farm workers so that they don’t rise up, when in reality, they are just solidifying their fate of being revolted against, they are simply just pushing back the date.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Chapter 18

Chapter eighteen is a very important chapter for the Joad family. The family line-up is going to get a little bit different.

Granma is still sick, but the Joad family still can not figure out why she is, they just keep saying that she’s too tired and hot, but it might have something to do with her husband dying a couple chapters back, but they have seem to forgotten already.

The family finally makes it into California, and... nothing has really changed, not any different from the rest of the trip. Plus they still have the desert to cross. They decide to wait until it is night to cross, so they don’t risk dying, and they pull over and start camping. The men go off skinny dipping in the Colorado River, and then a father and son join them. They reveal that they are from California and they are heading back home to starve with their other friends and family, just like the guy at the rest stop. He tells of how bad it is there, and how miserable people are. How the Californians hate all of the migrant workers and call them names like “Okies,” which doesn’t sound that bad, but the way that they say it makes it sound like they are terrible people (Steinbeck 205). He tells stories about how there is a ton of unfarmed land just sitting there, and the owners refuse to let the farmers cultivate it. Obviously, these stories discourage the family, but John says “We’re a-goin’ there, aint’t we? None of this here talk gonna keep us from goin’ there. When we get there, we’ll get there. When we get a job we’ll work, an’ when we don’t get a job we’ll set on our tail. This here talk ain’t gonna do no good no way” (Steinbeck 207).

Noah tells Tom that he doesn’t want to go on, that he just wants to live by the river, and he just walks off into the forest, but when Tom tells his mom and dad, they don’t react that severely, Ma Joad just says “the family’s fallin’ apart” (Steinbeck 216). Ma Joad also almost assaults a police officer with a frying pan when he disrespects her, called her an Okie, and threatened to arrest them if they weren’t gone by tomorrow. Not a very nice guy.

Then, they reach California and Ma reveals that Granma was dead. Everybody is surprised to hear this, mostly because Ma Joad was riding with Granma the whole time, and she didn’t say anything. She just wanted to make sure they got across the desert in one piece.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Chapter 17

Chapter seventeen is a very revealing chapter into the lives of the migrant farm workers and how they operated on the road as a whole.

There were these massive camps of people, and if one family stopped because there was water, then another would stop for the water and the company of the other family, and then another family would do the same, and then it would just get bigger and bigger until there were over twenty families in one camp (Steinbeck193).

When these big groups of people came together though they “became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream. And it might be that a sick child threw despair into the hearts of twenty families, of a hundred people; that a birth there in a tent kept a hundred people quiet and awestruck through the night and filled a hundred people with the birth-joy in the morning” (Steinbeck 193). This expands one what the author was talking about in chapter fourteen, how when people experiencing the same thing, they tend to come together; to become one.

With the traveling workers, “every night a world created, complete with furniture—friends made and enemis established; a world complete with graggards and with cowards, with quiet men, with humble men, with kindly men. Every night relationships that make a world, established; and every morning the world torn down like a circus” (Steinbeck 194). People got more organized and better at building the little “worlds,” and out of that, rules started coming up, and from the rules, unspoken laws came up. They were basic rules like feed hungry people, respect people’s privacy, help other people, don’t eat expensive food in the open unless you’re going to share it, no killing, stealing, or sleeping around with other girls; so basically human nature sort of laws (Steinbeck 194). A person that can play the guitar is highly prized in these communities because they can sing songs and bring people together, because who doesn’t like a good campfire sing-along? And in the morning, everything and everybody are gone and the spot ready for the next group.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Chapter 16

For the first time, when a chapter was talking about the Joad family, it said “Joads and Wilsons” (Steinbeck 163). I think that this shows just how the people were back then, they met a family one day, and they were basically one big family the next.

Then it starts to focus in on how the family is becoming used to traveling, used to their new lifestyle. “They settled into a new technique of living; the highway became their home and movement their medium of expression. Little by little they settled into the new life. Ruthie and Winfield first, then Al, then Connie and Rose of Sharon, and last, the older ones” (Steinbeck 163). It would be hard for anyone to live on a farm all of their life, then have to spend several days living on the road, so I guess that is why the younger ones were used to it first, they’ve spent less time in one place than the older ones have.

Rose of Sharon talks to Ma Joad about all of the things that her and Connie are going to do out there in California, so it seems like everybody is excited and expects it to be a golden land of opportunity there, it has to be, or else there would be no reason to go (Steinbeck 164). Then the truck breaks, and when Tom suggests that him and the preacher stay behind to fix it while the rest of the family goes on, Ma Joad explodes, grabs some iron bar, and threatens to beat anybody who tries to tell her that she’s going to be separated from her son again, so they end up agreeing to go only a little farther up and wait where there’s water while Tom, Al, and Casy fix the truck. So they fix it and Tom goes Dr. Phil mode on the junkyard worker, and they make it back to where the rest of the family is.

The family’s staying in a lot that costs fifty cents to get in, but they paid anyway because Granma was pretty much going crazy; talking to herself like she was talking to Granpa. The family can not figure out why she is acting like this, but I think it may have something to do with her husband just dying, it’s just a hunch.

While they’re there, and all the men are talking about going to California to work, one shady guy starts raining on their parade, saying that the pamphlets lie and that there are too many people working there. He reveals that he is coming back from California because he is starving and just wants to die at home. He tells stories about how the labor bosses only hire people who they can tell will work for barely any money, or maybe even just for food. Two of his kids and his wife died from the harsh conditions (Steinbeck 191). Even after all of this, the men just shake it off and go to bed. Seems like there might be something wrong with the situation, but the men just won’t believe it.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

The Grapes of Wrath: Chapters 14 & 15

There was one long chapter about the Joad family, so you know what that means! A couple of short chapters that focus on other families and the moving farmers as a whole and their struggles of getting to California.

Chapter fourteen talks about how the people that already live in the western states, like California, are getting nervous that the migrant farm workers are going to start to ban together, become angry, and do something crazy like staging a revolt or something along those lines. It also talks about how the tractors are not bad, it’s just basically that it is not the farmers tractors, so they do not like them. “Is a tractor bad? Is the power that turns the long furrows wrong? If this tractor were ours it would be good—not mine, but ours. If our tractor turned the long furrows of our land, it would be good. Not my land, but ours. We could love that tractor then as we have loved this land when it was ours” (Steinbeck 151). It talks about how when two (and more) men that are experiencing the same pain that is the “node, you that fear change and revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here “I lost my land” is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate—“We lost our land.” The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one” (Steinbeck 151).

Chapter fifteen shows how “normal” people, in this case diner workers, look at the migrating farmers. She claims to the truck drivers that they are the kind of people that steal things and are always begging and being a nuisance (Steinbeck 158). Then a family of farmers heading west come in and asks if they could buy a loaf of bread for ten cents, and Mae says that she only sells sandwiches, and that the loaves cost fifteen cents anyway. Then the cook, Al, tells here to sell it to them for ten cents, and then Mae sell the father two pieces of candy for a penny. As it turns out, they were supposed to be a nickel each, but it turns out Mae is nice after all. When the truck drivers see this, they leave an extra big tip, good karma you could say (Steinbeck 161).

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.