GOW+Chapter+9

Focus questions


 * __Chapter 9__**

In the late 1920's the Stock Market crashed causing millions of people to lose money. During the Great Depression of the 1930's in America that ensued, people all across the country struggled for survival. Later that same year, banks ran out of money and closed creating panic throughout the buisness and agricultural world. These panics caused many farm owners to evict tenants that were living on their land causing a mass migration to California. //The Grapes of Wrath,// by John Steinbeck, illustrates the economic depression and migration on families in America. **Steinbeck shows the problems of Americans as they faced great economic difficulties during the depression, and also shows how man's inhumanity to man causes problems by using symbols and literary devices in a sequence of events from farmer to broker.**

Mood plays a large role in showing the farmers' dilema. In the chapter the primary mood throughout is deppressed and hopeless. The reader can feel the depressed and hopless mood while Steinbeck describes the farmers hardly getting anything for their no longer needed possessions. After the farmers were defeated by their fellow men(brokers), "Some bought a pint a pint and drank it fast to make the impact hard and stunning. But they didn't laugh and they didn't dance. They didn't sing or pick the guitars. They walked back to the farms, hands in pockets, and heads down, shoes kicking the red dust up."(pg. 87) The frustrated farmers, unhappy with their profit, no doubt felt defeated by their own species. They had just sold their life for $18.

Steinbeck also uses metaphor to show the inhumanity of men and the difficulties in a depression. He uses metaphors in the chapter to show what certain possessions mean to the tenant farmers. As the tenant farmer tries to sell his horses he remembers "a little girl plaiting the forelocks, taking off her hair ribbon to make bows, standing back, head cocked, rubbing the soft noses with her cheek. You're buying years of work, toil in the sun; you're buying a sorrow that can't talk." (pg. 87). The tenant farmer remembers great times that he had with all of his possessions and how selling them will be like selling his life. This metaphor shows the farmers bitterness towards men that are buying his possessions for such a low price during a time when men should support each other.



In chapter nine, Steinbeck also uses a variety of sentence types to create different effects. Short sentences, long sentences, and question based sentences are all used to illustrate his main point. Short sentences and question based sentences are used to portray bussiness negotiations during that time while long sentences are typically used to show emotions such as disapointment or dispair. "Fifty cents isn't enough to get for a good plow. That seeder cost 38 dollars. $2 isn't enough. Can't haul it back-- Well, take it, and a bitterness with it."(Pg. 86) Short sentences like the one above clearly show the tense bussiness relationship between the brokers and farmers. The farmers know they are going to get ripped off by the salesmen, but try to remain calm and polite at the same time. Long sentences tend to dig deeper into the souls of the people of that era. "This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can't start again. The bitterness we sold to the junk man--he got it all right, but we have it still. And when the owner men told us to go, that's us; and when the tractor hit the house, that's us until we're dead."(Pg. 87-88). Lengthy sentence structures like the previous vividly illustrate the frustrations of the farmers against those in power and the brokers for for the loss of their life's possessions and their lives.

Rhythm is also used by steinbeck to unveil his main point to the reader. In chapter nine, the rhythm goes from long to short all throughout in order to ceate looser rhythmic effects that will help Steinbeck reveal the point that he is ultimately trying to get accross. "Off horse is eight, near ten, but might of been twin colts the way they work together. See? The teeth. Sound all over. Deep Lungs. Feet fair and clean. How much? Ten dollars? For both? And the wagon-- oh, Jesus Christ! I'd shoot 'em for dog feed first."(Pg. 87) In the previous quote, lines and are both long and short and are meant to be stressed differently while reading. These stressed words help show emotion in the characters' voices and help to go further into how farmers feel about being backstabbed by the junk yard salesmen. The reader is able to feel and sense the emotion better through rhythm and grasp main point easier this way.

Steinbeck uses devices of sense to illustrate his main point in this chapter. One of the devices he uses is personification. He uses this device to show how sorrow and dispear haunt the farmers. "And some day-- the armies of bitterness will all be going the same way. And they'll all walk together, and there'll be dead terror from it."( Pg. 88). In this line, Steinbeck uses personification to give bitterness human qualities when he says they walk and form armies. This line states that one day all of the bitterness that the farmer has will come together and the result will be terror. This shows what farmers felt about the difficulties they were experiencing during this time and how they were sad that the brokers were taking advantage of their problems. The farmers are being treated inhumainly by the brokers during a time of great financial difficulty causing dispear across the farmer population.

This chapter shows how there are many difficulties, including men being inhumane to each other, during an economic depression. This depression that started in the late 1920's and caried on for many years is the worst in American history. Years later, when Roosevelt is president and WWII breaks out, the economy realigns itself putting an end to the depression.

__**Works Cited**__ "Glossary of Literary Terms." __Glossary of Literary Terms P through S- Meyer Literature__. 22 Mar 2008 <[|http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/literature/bedlit/glossary_p.htm>.]

"Metaphor." __Wikipedia__. 2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.,. 21 Mar 2008 <[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor>.]

"Grammatical Mood." __Wikipedia__. 2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.,. 21 Mar 2008 <[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood>.]

"The Grapes of Wrath." SparkNotes. 2006. SparkNotes LLC.. 21 Mar 2008 <[|http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/grapesofwrath/section3.rhtml>.]

Steinbeck, John. __The Grapes of Wrath__. Centennial Edition. New York City: Penguin Books Inc., 2002.

"Espelho de sombras." __Espelho de sombras: Fardo__. 31 Oct 2005. 25 Mar 2008 .

slyons do'neil