GOW+Chapter+1

Focus questions 

Steinbeck uses biblical allusions and metaphors of season to show the rising conflict that plagued Midwestern society. A directional shift from agrarian lifestyle to urban cities disrupted the profession, lifestyle, and family structure and threatened the survival of the nation of the twenties and thirties.

· Describe: "The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth became pale, pink in the red country and white in the grey country." This sentence uses imagery to portray a barren, almost lifeless, scene that sets the stage of the book. · Explain: The chapter explains how the average southern family is during the depression. The families are centered on the man, or the father. The women and even the children know that if there is “no break” then everything will be ok. They can tell if the break is coming through the man’s anger, if he doesn’t get angry then the families know he has given up. If the men give up then there is no hope of survival for the rest of the family. · Inform: “The women knew it was all right, and the watching children knew it was all right. Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole.” The women and children relied on “their men” or their fathers and husbands. The men of this age were the main support for almost every family and if they were to crack or to break then the family would go to ruin.

Organization:
- **Chronological**

a. " In the last part of May, the sky grew pale..." " ...as the sharp sun struck day after day..." " Then it was June, and the sun shone ..." " When June was half gone..."

- Chapter 1 is written in order of importance. The effect of this shows the climax of the overall situation. In this case, the dust is immensely covering Oklahoma, resulting to the farmers to leave their home and find elsewhere or stay there and live in in their barren environment of dust.

- **Tone and Mood**

b. The tone and mood is serious and matter of fact; basically melancholy. " And the children came out of the houses, but they did not run or shout as they would have done after a rain." " Men and women huddled in their houses, and they tied handkerchiefs over their noses when they went out, and wore goggles to protect their eyes." " The men sat still---thinking---figuring."

- Steinbeck uses a style of writing called naturalism, which is a "deterministic theory of writing in which it is held that a writer should adopt an objective view toward the material written about, be free of preconceived ideas as to form and content, and represent with clinical accuracy and frankness the details of life." He uses an example of Oklahoman farmers to set up the rest of the novel for the Joads' migration to California.

mdang per. 3

Steinbeck started off using concrete words. But later uses literary devices (i.e. personifications, similes) to add few descriptive abstractions. “The last rains lifted the corn quickly and scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the roads so that the gray country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover.” (page 1) “For the stars could not pierce the dust to get down, and the window lights could not even spread beyond their own yards.” (page 3) *Although a lot of the dialog later in the book is colloquial dialog, the first chapter keeps the slang lingo on the DL. The first chapter is about setting the stage for the rest of the novel and Steinbeck chose to just keep the language straight forward and to the point. Steinbeck’s appeal to sight can be found in, “The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth became pale, pink in the red country and white in the gray country.” By describing the color changes of the countries, sky, and earth, he paints a visual. Before and after of the land is like the before and after of society. It started off in spring, a place of Steinbecks Use of Literary Devices “An automobile boiled a cloud behind it.” Personification- automobiles cannot really boil clouds. “Gray plumes into the air like sluggish smoke.” Simile- compares the plumes to smoke using “like”. “Corn fought the wind.” Personification- corn cannot really fight the wind. Shows corn (corn a symbol for the agrarian lifestyle) violently trying to fight the wind (the wind is the "stunting" or the place where the transition into modernity occurs). This shows the resistance of society against the capitalist/industrialist/urban influences that are begining to rupture America as an agrarian society. “the earth crusted, a thin hard crust” repeats crust, somewhat showing a sort of detestation for the crust (crust could also represent the affect that the shift in society has on the people, they detest it). “the sky became pale, so the earth became pale” repeats pale, giving it a sort of meloncholy feel Contains many run-on sentences as well as short sentences. “Houses were shut tight, and cloth wedged around doors and windows, but dust came in so thinly that it could not be seen in the air, and it settled like pollen on the chairs and tables, on the dishes. The people brushed it by their shoulders. Little lines of dust lay at the door sills.” Not only are the people trying to keep out the dust, they are trying to keep out the new and hold on to their old way of life. But the dust still came in and and sat on their dishes. The people brush it off but the new way of life still lay outside of their doors.
 * Language and Style **

Sentences vary in length, giving it a “stop and go” feel. “The men sat still—thinking—figuring.” This short sentence uses the verbs “sat”, “thinking” and “figuring” to illustrate the clockwork of the men’s thinking process during their disparity. "The children stood near by, drawing figures in the dust with bare toes, and the children sent exploring senses out to see whether the men and women would break.” Longer sentence. He uses a longer sentence to show the process of what the children did in sequence.  “Houses were shut tight, and cloth wedged around doors and windows, but dust came in so thinly that it could not be seen in the air, and it settled like pollen on the chairs and tables, on the dishes.” Run-on sentence.  Uses conjunctions at first to connect the ideas (“and cloth”, “but dust”, “and it settled”) and then abruptly ends the chain with a preposition (“on the dishes”). The dust coming in thinly shows that the times are creeping up on them.

mweir p3

Resources:

"Naturalism." __Dictionary.com__. 2008. Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. 22 Mar 2008 <[|http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/naturalism>.]

" The Grapes of Wrath." 20 March 2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 Mar 2008 <[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath>.]

Steinbeck, John. __Grapes of Wrath__. London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2006.