The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

(Honors Summer Reading) Review and Quote Analysis

Assignment

The Dust Bowl

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Grapes Handout.pdf

LITERARY SIGNIFIGANCE– Literary Movement= Modernism with a bit of

Transcendentalism – “Few pieces of literature so accurately capture and

portray the desperation of a generation… The Grapes of Wrath is one of those novels that defines a country, a people and an era. The story is so deeply ingrained in our identity as a nation that we have an educational imperative to pass it along to each generation”-enotes.com

– It’s just fantastic writing!!!

John Steinbeck

ABOUT THE AUTHOR• “Born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California,

John Steinbeck dropped out of college and worked as a manual laborer before achieving success as a writer. His 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath, about the migration of a family from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to California, won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. Steinbeck served as a war correspondent during World War II, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. He died in New York City in 1968” –www.biography.com.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH:About the Title

• Taken from the hymn “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

– “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;He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:His truth is marching on.”

THE GRAPES OF WRATH:About the Title Continued

• The hymn summons God to bring justice to those who have wrecked havoc over the land and over its people. In other words, the hateful ways of the people are so great that only God can bring about vengeance. In the context of this novel, "the grapes of wrath" may be interpreted as the greed, self-interest, and selfish ways of the landowners and of the banks – all of which lead to the suffering of thousands of migrant workers.

Review AssignmentIn your group, you will analyze your assigned

quote(s) and present that analysis to the class. Please include the following information for each quote:

-Who said the quote? Why is this character important to the novel?

-What was happening at this point in the novel? Where would this event fit on a plot diagram? (Example: inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution)

Review Assignment Continued

-What is the meaning of the quote? (put the quote in your own words)

-What key historical idea does it connect to? or What theme does this quote represent? Why?

-Other analysis?-Photos or Graphics?

GOW Quote #1• “ ‘Cause what’d they take when they tractored

the folks off the lan’? What’d they get so their ‘margin of profit’ was safe? The got Pa dyin’ on the groun’ an’ Joe yellin’ his first breath…they jus’ chopped folks in two for their margin a profit.”

GOW Quote #2

• “Place where folks live is them folks”

Tractored Out

Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange, Photographer of the Dust Bowl Era

a Migrant Mother and Children

GOW Quote #3

• “The women watched the men, watched to see whether the break had come at last…And where a number of men had gathered together, the fear went from their faces, and anger took its place.”

GOW Quote #4

• “And the women sighed with relief, for they knew it was all right – the break had not come; and the break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath.”

GOW Quote #5• “She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome

her position, the citadel* of the family, the strong place that could not be taken.”

– *fortress, usually on high ground

GOW Quote #6

• “Sometimes I’d pray like I always done. On’y I couldn’ figure what I was prayin’ to or for. There was the hills, an’ there was me, an’ we wasn’t separate no more. We was one thing. An’ that one thing was holy.”

GOW Quote #7

• “Then he crept into houses and left gum under pillows for children; then he cut wood and took no pay. Then he gave away any possession he might have a saddle, a horse, a new pair of shoes. One could not talk to him then, for he ran away, or if confronted hid within himself and peeked out of frightened eyes. “

GOW Quote #8

• “The death of his wife, followed by months of being alone, had marked him with guilt and shame and had left an unbreaking loneliness on him.”

GOW Quote #9

• “…at the wheel, his face purposeful, his whole body listening…his restless eyes jumping from the road to the instrument panel…every nerve listening for weaknesses, for the thumps or squeals, hums and chattering that indicate a change that may cause a breakdown. He had become the soul of the car.”

Migrant Family on Rt. 66

GOW Quote #10• “…perhaps the owners had heard from their

grandfathers how easy it is to steal land from a soft man if you are fierce and hungry and armed. The owners hated them.”

GOW Quote #11

• “A crop raised – why, that makes ownership. Land hoed and the carrots eaten – a man might fight for land he’s taken food from. Get him off quick! He’ll think he owns it. He might even die fighting for the little plot among the Jimson weeds…We gotta keep these here people down or they’ll take the country.”

GOW Quote #12

• “The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the causes of revolt went on.”

GOW Quote #13

• “If he’ll take twenty-five, I’ll do it for twenty. No, me, I’m hungry. I’ll work for fifteen. I’ll work for food. The kids. You ought to see them. Little boils, like, comin’out, an’ they can’t run aroun’. Give ‘em some windfall fruit, an’ they bloated up. Me. I’ll work for a little piece of meat…

GOW Quote #14

• …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.”

Picking Lettuce

GOW Quote #15• “And the companies, the banks worked at their own

doom and they did not know it. The fields were fruitful, and starving men moved on the roads. The granaries were full and the children of the poor grew up rachitic, and the pustules of pellagra swelled on their sides. The great companies did not know that the line between hunger and anger is a thin line. And money that might have gone to wages went for gas, for guns, for agents and spies, for blacklists, for drilling. On the highways the people moved like ants and searched for work, for food. And the anger began to ferment.”

Protest

GOW Quote #16

• “The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back, they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And the stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch…and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”