GOW+Chapter+14

__**Chapter 14**__

During the Great Depression, the United States begins to change. The “great owners” blame other things like the growing labor movement and new taxes, but these things resulted from the struggles of the Great Depression. The purpose of Chapter 14 is to show the social shift from independent laborers to unionized laborers. Steinbeck uses pathos to invoke feeling within the reader to gain sympathy for the characters in the novel. “The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It’s wool. It was my mother’s blanket-take it for the baby.” (pg. 152) This quote not only gives an example of a common problem facing the people of this time and region (illness), but it also makes the reader feel compassion for these people. Steinbeck uses cause and effect to show what is happening to the farmers. Awful things continually plagued the farmers’ lives; “the causes are a hunger in the stomach.” (pg. 150) The farmers realized that they needed to help each other out, give up their personal desires and unite. “If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive.” (pg. 152) Steinbeck also alludes to great figures in history to show that the farmers are uniting as a result of the depression. The mood is very depressing and hopeless at first, “The Western States, nervous as horses before a thunder storm.” (pg. 150) This would cause the reader to feel sympathy for the farmers. Once the farmers start uniting together, the mood changes to being more scared, not knowing what is going to happen. “For the quality of owning freezes you forever into ‘I,’ and cuts you off from the ‘we.’” (pg. 152) The farmers have no idea if uniting is better than owning as much as one possibly can.

Poor Farmer Before Unionization :-( Steinbeck uses a lot of repetition in this chapter to stress that the changes the nation is going through is forcing the farmers to unite. “…results, not causes. Results, not causes; results, not causes.” (pg. 150) Steinbeck wants to get his point across the changes, such as labor unity and new taxes are not causes of the hard times, but results of their circumstances. Steinbeck uses similes and personification to emphasize his purpose to show that there is a social shift to a more unionized working party. “This you may know when the bombs plummet out of the black planes on the market place, when prisoners are stuck like pigs…” (pg. 151) This simile shows how the “prisoners” (which represent the great owners) can do nothing if the laborers and farmers unite together and strike. “A single tractor took my land.” (pg. 151) Steinbeck personifies the tractor as something that can actually steal someone’s land to show how changes are coming and that many farmers are forced to leave their land. Steinbeck also uses sensory detail to show that times were rough for the farmers. “…this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west.” (pg. 151) This statement uses the visual and hearing senses to let readers picture how hard it was for the farmers. Farmers were doing very poorly on their own and can’t afford anything.

"Farmer After Unionization!"

Works Cited: Harris, Robert A. "A Handbook of Rhetorical Phrases." __Virtual Salt__. 6 Apr. 2005. 21 Mar. 2008 <[|http://www.virtualsalt.com/rhetoric.htm>.] Spark Notes. 21 Mar. 2008 http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/grapesofwrath/section5.rhtml

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