"Grapes of Wrath" Posting 4

For posting number 4, I read chapters 10 and 11. Tom's mom is worried about moving to California. Tom tells her that the conditions out there are very bad. His mom doesn't believe him. Casy wondered if he could go along with the Joads to California to work with them. Pa is worried because Tom may not be able to go to California due to the parole rules. When Tom was released from prison, he wasn't completely free, he was on parole. The family decides to alllow Casy to join them. Grandpa was reluctant to leave, but the family gave him sleeping pills and snuck him into the truck. As they were leaving it says that Ma did not look back, but straight ahead.

I thought this part in the book was more optimistic because the family is getting ready to move to California. They don't seem to upset because they left the next day. In my opinion this shows that they are ready to start a new life.I think the sentence saying that Ma did not look back, but straight ahead symbolizes that she can't change the past so she may as well look toward the future and hope for the best. I am really enjoying this book, and after reading 11 chapters, I can't wait to read more.

"Grapes of Wrath" Posting 3

For the third posting, I read chapters 7-9. In these chapters, we learn that Uncle John didn't take his wife to the hospital when she had a stomachache, and she later died from a burst appendix. After that he did anything he could to make up for it. Tom meets his parents and they are surprised and happy to see him. All of the family ask if Tom has escaped from prison. Al, Tom's younger brother comes home. The men start to work on fixing Pa's truck.
The tenants start packing everything up to move. They sell items they have for little money, but at least it's some money. Whatever the tenants didn't sell, and didn't need, they put into a big bonfire and watched it burn. After the flame died out, they all got in their trucks and left.

These chapters started out pretty happy with the Joad family reunion. Everyone just seemed so happy to see Tom, even though they thought he escaped jail. After that the story was sad again because it went to the Tenant side of the story. I thought it was sad how the tenants had to burn pretty much everything they own because they couldn't take it with them.

"Grapes of Wrath" Posting 2

For my second blog posting, I read chapters 4-6. In these chapters, a man named Tom Joad, one of the main characters, watches the truck drive off from the turtle. He picks it up and takes it to his little brother. On his way he meets Jim Casy. Jim Casy is a former minister who knew Tom as a child. Tom confesses about how he killed in a man in a brawl and is not ashamed of going to prison for it. Jim wants to visit Tom's family and when they get to Tom's house, it's deserted.
Also a lot of tenants lost their jobs and have to move on. They decided to all move west. One of the tenants sees a man driving a tractor. The tractor driver warns the man that he needs to leave his house by dinner time because he is going to have to tear it down.
When Tom and Jim get to the house, they see it has been destroyed. A man named Muley tells them that the Joad family moved to his Uncle John's house to pick cotton. The three of them see a car coming and Muley tells them to hide. It was the deputies. After that Muley takes them to a cave to sleep, but Tom refuses.

I found these chapters to be kind of sad because everybody is realising that their lives are falling apart. The tenants are loaing their jobs and Tom just los his home and is forced to hide from the cops for tresspassing at his own house. I enjoy learning about the Depression because I've never learned it before. I was going to in eigth grade, but I moved here and learned something else. This story helps better my knowledge of what the struggle was like for people living in these times. The way owners would make tenants lose their jobs, just so they, the owners, could make more money. I'm enjoying this book so far. I hope it continues to be good.

"Grapes of Wrath" Posting 1

For my first blog posting, I read chapters 1-3. In these chapters, John Steinbeck talks about the setting. Also, a hitchhiker asked a truck driver if he could have a lift. Despite the rules saying the trucker couldn't pick up hitchhikers, he did it anyway. Then, a turtle starts walking across a highway. A car swerves in order to avoid. Following that, the trucker swerved too, but his intentions were to hit it, which he did. The turtle just got thrown to the side and survived.



I think John Steinbeck did a great job of detailing the environment and what’s going on in the Dust Bowl. The entire first chapter is dedicated to setting up the setting. I think the turtle mentioned in the first paragraph represents mankind in a way. This is because it has to face obstacles, like the highway, which could be a symbol for life. Although it has to cross the dangerous highway, it is well equipped with a shell for protection. Even when it was hit by the truck, which could represent an obstacle in life, it just waited a second, and continued its journey.