Chapters 1-5

• Two key characters we’ve met so far: Tom and Casy. We’ll look at Tom more closely later.

• It should strike you that Casy’s initials are J.C.

• He is certainly a Christ-like figure in this book.

• It’s not just that he is a former preacher who “went into the hills thinkin,” much as Jesus Christ went into the wilderness.

Chapters 1-5

• Also consider:

– Casy rejects the notion of sin: “There ain’t no sin, and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do.”

– His new direction defines the religious impulse as human love: “What’s this call, this sperit?...It’s love.”

– This direction also identifies the Holy Spirit as the human spirit in all mankind: “Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of.”

Chapters 1-5

• Casy joins the migration not to escape or preach but to learn from the common human experience.

• What he ultimately learns is that man’s spiritual brotherhood must express itself in social unity.

• It’s a moot point to argue whether the novel promotes specific Christian values because that depends entirely on your definition of what is essentially Christian.

• Suffice it to say that the novel fuels its social message with religious fervor and sanction.

Literary element refresher

• Diction involves a writer’s selection of language.

Diction may be described as formal or informal, abstract or concrete, figurative or literal.

• Dialect is variation of a given language spoken in a particular place or by a particular group of people. A dialect is distinguished by its vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. If we’re only talking about pronunciation, we usually use the term “accent.”

• Dialect is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class.

Grapes dialect

• The story is rich in dialect: language is unique to its region due to vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.

• Words and phrases from chapters 1-5 of Wrath:

• “drownded,” “idears,” “Sperit,” “figgered” “piana” “et”

• “You give her a goin’-over”

• “Touched” (crazy)

The Turtle’s Exodus

• The indomitable life force that drives the turtle, the toughness that allows it to survive predators, the efficiency of nature that uses the turtle to unwittingly carry seeds and bury them – all traits characteristic of the Joads.

• The Joads, too, will carry their house (the truck) with them, survive natural catastrophe, and see both kindness and intimidation.

• They, too, pick up life in one place and carry it to another.

• Chapter 4: Tom picks up the turtle as a present for his younger siblings, talks about turtles with Casy, and eventually releases it. The turtle plods southwest – just as the Joadswill.