The Grapes of Wrath Reading Packet.

ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Reading Packet p. 1
The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
“There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There
is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a
failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the
straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and ripe fruit. And children
dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from
an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate—died of
malnutrition—because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.
“The people come with nets of 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 they stand
still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs
being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the
mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; 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 filled and growing heavy, growing heavy for
the vintage.”
—John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
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Surviving the
DUST BOWL
(1930-1936)
______________________________________________________________________
------ The Drought
The drought hit first in the eastern part of the country in 1930. In 1931, it moved toward the
west. By 1934 it had turned the Great Plains into a desert. "If you would like to have your heart
broken, just come out here," wrote Ernie Pyle, a roving reporter in Kansas, just north of the
Oklahoma border, in June of 1936. "This is the dust-storm country. It is the saddest land I have
ever seen."
The Dust Bowl got its name on April 15, 1935, the day after Black Sunday. Robert Geiger, a
reporter for the Associated Press, traveled through the region and wrote the following: "Three
little words achingly familiar on a Western farmer's tongue, rule life in the dust bowl of the
continent - if it rains." The term stuck, spreading to radio broadcasts and publications, in private
letters and public speeches.
The Soil Conservation Service used the term on their maps to describe "the western third of
Kansas, Southeastern Colorado, the Oklahoma Panhandle, the northern two-thirds of the Texas
Panhandle, and northeastern New Mexico." The SCS Dust Bowl region included some
surrounding area, to cover one-third of the Great Plains, close to 100 million acres, 500 miles by
300 miles. It is thought that Geiger was referring to an earlier image of the plains coined by
William Gilpin, who had compared the Great Plains to a fertile bowl, rimmed by mountains.
Residents hated the label, which was thought to play a part in diminishing property values and
ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
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business prospects in the region.
The Drought alone did not cause the black blizzards. Although dry spells are unavoidable in the
region, occurring roughly every 25 years, it was the combination of drought and misuse of the
land that led to the incredible devastation of the Dust Bowl years. Originally covered with
grasses that held the fine soil in place, the land of the southern plains was plowed by settlers
who brought their farming techniques with them when they homesteaded the area. Wheat
crops, in high demand during World War I, exhausted the topsoil. Overgrazing by cattle and
sheep herds stripped the western plains of their cover. When the drought hit, the land just blew
away in the wind.
A letter from an Oklahoma woman, later published in Reader's Digest magazine, recalls June of
1935. "In the dust-covered desolation of our No Man's Land here, wearing our shade hats, with
handkerchiefs tied over our faces and Vaseline in our nostrils, we have been trying to rescue
our home from the wind-blown dust which penetrates wherever air can go. It is almost a
hopeless task, for there is rarely a day when at some time the dust clouds do not roll over.
'Visibility' approaches zero and everything is covered again with a silt-like deposit which may
vary in depth from a film to actual ripples on the kitchen floor."
Beginning in 1935, federal conservation programs were created to rehabilitate the Dust Bowl,
changing the basic farming methods of the region by seeding areas with grass, rotating crops,
and using contour plowing, strip plowing, and planting "shelter belts" of trees to break the wind.
Farmers were defensive when outsiders criticized their farming methods. Only when they were
paid did they begin to put the new farming techniques into practice. The dollar per acre they
earned often meant the difference between being able to stay a bit longer or having to abandon
their land. As historian Robert Worster wrote, "The ultimate meaning of the dust storms of the
1930s was that America as a whole, not just the plains, was badly out of balance with its natural
environment. Unbounded optimism about the future, careless disregard of nature's limits and
uncertainties, uncritical faith in Providence, devotion to self-aggrandizement - all these were
national as well as regional characteristics."
------- BLACK SUNDAY (April 14, 1935)
April 14, 1935, dawned clear across the plains. After weeks of dust storms, one near the
end of March destroying five million acres of wheat, people grateful to see the sun went
outside to do chores, go to church, or to picnic and sun themselves under the blue
ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
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skies. In mid-afternoon, the temperature dropped and birds began chattering nervously.
Suddenly a huge black cloud appeared on the horizon, approaching fast.
Those on the road had to try to beat the storm home. Some, like Ed and Ada Phillips of
Boise City, and their six-year-old daughter, had to stop on their way to seek shelter in
an abandoned adobe hut. There they joined ten other people already huddled in the
two-room ruin, sitting for four hours in the dark, fearing that they would be smothered.
Cattle dealer Raymond Ellsaesser tells how he almost lost his wife when her car was
shorted out by electricity and she decided to walk the three-quarters of a mile home. As
her daughter ran ahead to get help, Ellsaesser's wife wandered off the road in the
blinding dust. The moving headlights of her husband's truck, visible as he frantically
drove back and forth along the road, eventually led her back.
The storm on Black Sunday was the last major dust storm of the year, and the damage
it caused was not calculated for months. Coming on the heels of a stormy season, the
April 14 storm hit as many others had, only harder. "The impact is like a shovelful of fine
sand flung against the face," Avis D. Carlson wrote in a New Republic article. "People
caught in their own yards grope for the doorstep. Cars come to a standstill, for no light
in the world can penetrate that swirling murk. . . . The nightmare is deepest during the
storms. But on the occasional bright day and the usual gray day we cannot shake from
it. We live with the dust, eat it, sleep with it, watch it strip us of possessions and the
hope of possessions. It is becoming Real. The poetic uplift of spring fades into a
phantom of the storied past. The nightmare is becoming life."
------ MASS EXODUS FROM THE PLAINS
When the drought and dust storms showed no signs of letting up, many people abandoned their
land. Others would have stayed but were forced out when they lost their land in bank
foreclosures. In all, one-quarter of the population left, packing everything they owned into their
cars and trucks, and headed west toward California. Although overall three out of four farmers
stayed on their land, the mass exodus depleted the population drastically in certain areas. In the
rural area outside Boise City, Oklahoma, the population dropped forty percent, with 1,642 small
farmers and their families pulling up stakes.
The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history. By 1940, 2.5 million
people had moved out of the Plains states; of those, 200,000 moved to California. When they
reached the border, they did not receive a warm welcome, as described in this 1935 excerpt
from Collier's magazine. "Very erect and primly severe, [a man] addressed the slumped driver of
a rolling wreck that screamed from every hinge, bearing and coupling. 'California's relief rolls are
overcrowded now. No use to come farther,' he cried. The half-collapsed driver ignored him -merely turned his head to be sure his numerous family was still with him. They were so tightly
wedged in, that escape was impossible. 'There really is nothing for you here,' the neat
trooperish young man went on. 'Nothing, really nothing.' And the forlorn man on the moaning car
looked at him, dull, emotionless, incredibly weary, and said: 'So? Well, you ought to see what
they got where I come from.' "
The Los Angeles police chief went so far as to send 125 policemen to act as bouncers at the
state border, turning away "undesirables". Called "the bum brigade," by the press and the object
of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, the LAPD posse was recalled only when the
use of city funds for this work was questioned.
ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Reading Packet p. 11
Arriving in California, the migrants were faced with a life almost as difficult as the one they had
left. Many California farms were corporate-owned. They were larger, and more modernized that
those of the southern plains, and the crops were unfamiliar. The rolling fields of wheat were
replaced by crops of fruit, nuts and vegetables. Like the Joad family in John Steinbeck's The
Grapes of Wrath, some 40 percent of migrant farmers wound up in the San Joaquin Valley,
picking grapes and cotton. They took up the work of Mexican migrant workers, 120,000 of whom
were repatriated during the 1930s. Life for migrant workers was hard. They were paid by the
quantity of fruit and cotton picked, with earnings ranging from seventy-five cents to $1.25 a day.
Out of that, they had to pay twenty-five cents a day to rent a tar-paper shack with no floor or
plumbing. In larger ranches, they often had to buy their groceries from a high-priced company
store.
The sheer number of migrants camped out, desperate for work, led to scenes such as that
described by John Steinbeck in his novel, "The Grapes of Wrath." "Maybe he needs two
hunderd men, so he talks to five hunderd, an' they tell other folks, an' when you get to the place,
they's a thousan' men. This here fella says, "I'm payin' twenty cents an hour." An' maybe half a
the men walk off. But they's still five hunderd that's so goddamn hungry they'll work for nothin'
but biscuits. Well, this here fella's got a contract to pick them peaches or -- chop that cotton.
You see now? The more fella's he can get, less he's gonna pay. An' he'll get a fella with kids if
he can."
As roadside camps of poverty-stricken migrants proliferated, growers pressured sheriffs to
break them up. Groups of vigilantes beat up migrants, accusing them of being Communists, and
burned their shacks to the ground. To help the migrants, Roosevelt's Farm Security
Administration built 13 camps, each temporarily housing 300 families in tents built on wooden
platforms. The camps were self-governing communities, and families had to work for their room
and board.
When migrants reached California and found that most of the farmland was tied up in large
corporate farms, many gave up farming. They set up residence near larger cities in shacktowns
called Little Oklahomas or Okievilles, on open lots local landowners divided into tiny subplots
and sold cheaply, for $5 down and $3 in monthly installments. They built their houses from
scavenged scraps, and lived without plumbing and electricity. Polluted water and a lack of trash
and waste facilities led to outbreaks of typhoid, malaria, smallpox and tuberculosis.
Over the years, they replaced their shacks with real houses, sending their children to local
schools and becoming part of the communities, although they continued to face discrimination
when looking for work, and were called "Okies" and "Arkies" by the locals, regardless of where
they came from.
“The land just blew away; we had to go
somewhere.”
—Kansas preacher
June 1936
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dustbowl/maps/index.html
ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Reading Packet p. 12
“Battle Hymn of the Republic” | Julia Ward Howe (1861)
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.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watchfires
Of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar
In the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence
By the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ
In burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with My contemners,
So with you My grace shall deal":
Let the Hero born of woman
Crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet
That shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men
Before His judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him;
Be jubilant, my feet;
Our God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies
Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom
That transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy,
Let us die to make men free;
While God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Reading Packet p. 13
Extrapolating Meaning from Motifs
OBJECTIVE: Create a 4 to 8-minute presentation that clearly, logically, and convincingly
shows how your group’s respective motif1 is used by Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath to
communicate a specific theme or message. Your presentation should include visual aids and
must be fashioned in the following structure:
1. Introduction: This is comprised of both a universal thematic statement, sufficient
development toward purpose of your presentation, and a thesis statement arguing what
message/theme Steinbeck intends to convey through his treatment of your respective
motif.
2. Analysis of Evidence: Provide three strong examples from chapters 1-22 (scenes, plot
details, or quotes), analyze and interpret the evidence, and explain how these specific
strands of evidence support/prove your thesis statement. Be sure to cite the chapter from
which you drew your evidence.
3. Conclusion: Extrapolate a lesson, moral, or message Steinbeck wants us to take away
from his novel that your analysis of evidence thoroughly communicates. How does this
lesson, moral, or message complement and contribute to our understanding of what it
means to be an American?
LIST OF MOTIFS
1. Metamorphosis (e.g., land, lifestyle, individual’s character)
2. Expectation vs. Reality
3. The American Dream
4. The loss of human dignity threatens existence
5. Survival rests in group action
6. The need for brotherly love
7. Amassed bitterness will lead to negative action
8. There is merit in the agrarian way of life
9. Pragmatism
10.Prejudice
11.Continuation of the life cycle
1
motif: n. a distinctive feature or dominant idea in a literary composition
ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Reading Packet p. 14
Oppression of Minorities: A Theme in Literature
In Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Nicolay Levin says to his brother, Konstantin:
You know that capital oppresses the laborer. The laborers with us, the peasants,
bear all the burden of labor, and are so placed that however much they work they
can’t escape from their position of beasts of burden. All the profits of labor, on
which they might improve their position, and gain leisure for themselves, and after
that education, all the surplus values are taken from them by the capitalists. And
society’s so constituted that the harder they work, the greater the profit of the
merchants and landowners, while they stay beasts of burden to the end. And that
state of things must be changed.
These words express a subordinate concern in Anna Karenina: society’s tendency to
exploit the powerless. The peasants in tsarist Russia were virtually enslaved in
agricultural work.
John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is concerned primarily with the plight of the
Okies, dispossessed farmers forced into becoming migrant workers. Steinbeck describes
the deprivation and desperation of the migrants, as well as the hard system that exploits
them.
They were hungry and they were fierce. And they had hoped to find a home,
and they found only hatred. Okies—the owners hated then because the owners
knew they were soft and the Okies strong, that they were fed and the Okies
hungry: and 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. And in the towns, the storekeepers hated then because they had no
money to spend. There is no shorter path to a storekeeper’s contempt, and all his
admirations are exactly opposite. The town men, little bankers, hated Okies
because there was nothing to gain from them. They had nothing. And the laboring
people hated Okies because a hungry man must work, and if he must work, if he
has to work, the wage payer automatically gives him less for his work: and then no
one can get more.
And the dispossessed, the migrants, flowed into California, two hundred and
fifty thousand, and three hundred thousand. Behind them new tractors were going
on the land and the tenants were being forced off. And new waves were on the
way, new waves of the dispossessed and the homeless, hardened, intent, and
dangerous.
And while the Californians wanted many things: accumulation, social success,
amusement, luxury, and a curious banking security: the new barbarians wanted
only two things—land and food; and to them the two were one.
— Chapter 19, The Grapes of Wrath
ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Reading Packet p. 15
The biblical book of Exodus describes the Israelites’ enslavement by the Egyptians:
EXODUS 1:8-14
8
Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9And he said to his
people, "Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. 10Come, let us
deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies
and fight against us and escape from the land." 11Therefore they set taskmasters over
them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and
Raamses. 12But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more
they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. 13So they
ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14and made their lives bitter with hard
service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they
ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
EXODUS 5:6-14
6
…Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people:
"You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and
gather their own straw. 8But require them to make the same number of bricks as before;
don't reduce the quota. They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, 'Let us go and
sacrifice to our God.' 9Make the work harder for them so that they keep working and pay
no attention to lies."
10
Then the slave drivers and the overseers went out and said to the people, "This is
what Pharaoh says: 'I will not give you any more straw. 11Go and get your own straw
wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced at all.' " 12So the people
scattered all over Egypt to gather stubble to use for straw. 13The slave drivers kept
pressing them, saying, "Complete the work required of you for each day, just as when
you had straw." 14And Pharaoh's slave drivers beat the Israelite overseers they had
appointed, demanding, "Why haven't you met your quota of bricks yesterday or today, as
before?"
15
Then the Israelite overseers went and appealed to Pharaoh: "Why have you treated
your servants this way? 16Your servants are given no straw, yet we are told, 'Make
bricks!' Your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people."
17
Pharaoh said, "Lazy, that's what you are—lazy! That is why you keep saying, 'Let us
go and sacrifice to the LORD.' 18Now get to work. You will not be given any straw, yet
you must produce your full quota of bricks."
7
ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Reading Packet p. 16
The Grapes of Wrath and Emersonian Philosophy
_____________________________________________________
Steinbeck’s book The Grapes of Wrath raised untold controversy when in first appeared in
publication. Usually, the people who made attacks on the novel were the individuals who were
ashamed for how the migrants were treated and of the way Americans were treating their fellow
Americans. The novel is attacked today on only one point: the social philosophy declared in the
novel.
His attackers accused Steinbeck of being a Communist. However, today we can see after
more understanding that it is not so much a communistic philosophy2 as it is an Emersonian
philosophy. SO it is important in studying this novel that we understand Emerson’s views.
Emerson believed in the Oversoul. Every man comes from this Oversoul. Every man returns
to this Oversoul when he dies. In this way, Emerson was saying that every man was divine. This
is essentially the beliefs advocated by Jim Casy in The Grapes of Wrath. This belief is
Transcendentalistic and not communistic. Though Emerson himself did not agree with the
appellation of Transcendentalism to describe his new philosophy, Transcendentalists held that
reality is not the rational world we see immediately around us; it is ultimately spiritual rather
than material. To really see reality we must transcend the material things that surround us every
day. Emerson stated that truth and right can be understood and perceived by each individual
through each person’s conscience or by intuition (i.e., the ability to understand something
immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning). Emerson trusted man’s instinct for
comprehending right and wrong, truth and reality, and to tell each man how t live and live in a
“right” manner.
Emerson felt that each man should hearken to that voice within himself and to resist the
pressures of society. Each man’s soul exists in a mystical and harmonious relationship to what
Emerson calls the Oversoul. This Oversoul is a supreme being or maybe just a spirit that both
transcends and is one with the individual soul.
Emerson considered his concept of an Oversoul as a new way of thinking for those who were
dissatisfied with archaic religions, obsolete morality, antiquated thinking and writing, and with
the Old World and its tired and outdated ways in general.
Jim Casy, who is arrested and killed in the novel, is a modern Christ figure. He says there is
no such thing as sin—no sin and no virtue—just things people do. In this novel, Casy tries to
unify the workers for the sake of justice. He believes that all people are holy and that each soul is
only a piece of a larger whole.
The Grapes of Wrath, whose vision is of this Oversoul, contains depth, power, and vision. It
is an American classic told realistically, naturalistically, objectively; it is Steinbeck’s rage at the
privileged power structure and their abuse of 300,000 migrants who were forced to migrate
during the 1930’s.
2
Communism is a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society
in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and
needs.
ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Reading Packet p. 17
“The Ghost of Tom Joad” | Bruce Springsteen © 1995
Men walkin' 'long the railroad tracks
Goin' someplace there's no goin' back
Highway patrol choppers comin' up over the ridge
Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge
Shelter line stretchin' round the corner
Welcome to the new world order
Families sleepin' in their cars in the southwest
No home no job no peace no rest
The highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
Searchin' for the ghost of Tom Joad
He pulls a prayer book out of his sleeping bag
Preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag
Waitin' for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last
In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass
Got a one-way ticket to the Promised Land
You got a hole in your belly and gun in your hand
Sleeping on a pillow of solid rock
Bathin' in the city aqueduct
The highway is alive tonight
But where it's headed everybody knows
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
Waitin' on the ghost of Tom Joad
Now Tom said, "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me, Mom, I'll be there
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes, Mom, you'll see me."
The highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes
I'm sittin' downhere in the campfire light
With the ghost of old Tom Joad
ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Reading Packet p. 18
“Dust Bowl Blues” | Woody Guthrie © 1964
I just blowed in, and I got them dust bowl blues,
I just blowed in, and I got them dust bowl blues,
I just blowed in, and I'll blow back out again.
I guess you've heard about ev'ry kind of blues,
I guess you've heard about ev'ry kind of blues,
But when the dust gets high, you can't even see the sky.
I've seen the dust so black that I couldn't see a thing,
I've seen the dust so black that I couldn't see a thing,
And the wind so cold, boy, it nearly cut your water off.
I seen the wind so high that it blowed my fences down,
I've seen the wind so high that it blowed my fences down,
Buried my tractor six feet underground.
Well, it turned my farm into a pile of sand,
Yes, it turned my farm into a pile of sand,
I had to hit that road with a bottle in my hand.
I spent ten years down in that old dust bowl,
I spent ten years down in that old dust bowl,
When you get that dust pneumony, boy, it's time to go.
I had a gal, and she was young and sweet,
I had a gal, and she was young and sweet,
But a dust storm buried her sixteen hundred feet.
She was a good gal, long, tall and stout,
Yes, she was a good gal, long, tall and stout,
I had to get a steam shovel just to dig my darlin' out.
These dusty blues are the dustiest ones I know,
These dusty blues are the dustiest ones I know,
Buried head over heels in the black old dust,
I had to pack up and go.
An' I just blowed in, an' I'll soon blow out again.
ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Reading Packet p. 19
Biblical Allusions in The Grapes of Wrath
REVELATION 14
The Book of Revelation (or the Revelation of St. John the Divine) is the
last book of the New Testament, recounting a divine revelation of the
future to St. John, a Christian leader of Jewish origin. According to
Christian tradition, John had a vision from heaven about the year 95 A.D.
while exiled on the Roman prison island of Patmos, where he was most
likely sentenced for refusing to worship the Roman emperor Domitian.
The book of Revelation is an example of apocalyptic writing—a form
that delivers a message using symbols, images, and numbers.
Apolcalyptic writing is characteristic of times of persecution. Some of
the symbols and images in Revelation equate the Roman emperor with
Satan and depict the Roman Empire as the ultimate evil. However, there
was no freedom of speech in the Roman Empire, so the only way to
deliver such a message was in a kind of code.
Revelation is also a prophecy. We often think of prophecy as a
prediction of the future, but the original Greek word propheteia means
“speaking the mind of God.” A prophecy may predict the future or it
may not.
Revelation is also known as The Apocalypse from its original Greek
title. The word “apocalypse” has come to be associated with cataclysmic
disaster, judgment day, or the end of the world. However, its true
meaning is an unveiling of revelation of things known only to God.
ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Reading Packet p. 20
REVELATION 14
1
And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty
and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads. 2And I heard a
voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I
heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: 3And they sung as it were a new song
before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that
song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.
4
These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they
which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men,
being the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb. 5And in their mouth was found no guile:
for they are without fault before the throne of God. 6And I saw another angel fly in the
midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the
earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, 7Saying with a loud
voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and
worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. 8And
there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because
she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. 9And the third
angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his
image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, 10The same shall drink of the
wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his
indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy
angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: 11And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up
for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his
image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. 12Here is the patience of the
saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. 13And I
heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the
Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their
works do follow them. 14And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one
sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp
sickle. 15And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that
sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for
the harvest of the earth is ripe. 16And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the
earth; and the earth was reaped. 17And another angel came out of the temple which is in
heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. 18And another angel came out from the altar, which
had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying,
Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes
are fully ripe. 19And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of
the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. 20And the winepress
was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse
bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.
ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Reading Packet p. 21
Outline of Intercalary Chapters in The Grapes of Wrath
PART 1: The drought and Dust Bowl in Oklahoma
Chapter
1
3
5
7
9
Topic
Drought and dust storm
Turtle struggling to cross highway
People evicted from property by owners
Used car salesman discussing customers and cars
Selling and disposing of property; choosing possessions to keep
PART 2: Oklahoma resident travel to California
Chapter
11
12
14
15
17
Topic
Vacant houses
Highway 66
Change; eviction; struggles of migrants
Restaurants along Highway 66
Migrants camping along Highway 66, relationship with other campers
PART 3: Becoming migrant farmers in California
Chapter
19
21
23
25
27
29
Topic
Relationship between landowners and workers
Migrant labor (payment, landownership)
Amusement and pleasure for migrants
Growing season and economic situation
Picking cotton
Rain storms and related struggles
LESSON OBJECTIVE: Explain how an intercalary chapter prefaces and/or reflects events and
experiences that the Joads endure in their narrative. Which of the eleven motifs do you feel is
represented in this parallel? Use specific evidence from the text to validate your conclusions.
1. Metamorphosis (e.g., land, lifestyle,
individual’s character)
2. Expectation vs. Reality
3. The American Dream
4. The loss of human dignity threatens
existence
5. Survival rests in group action
6. The need for brotherly love
7. Amassed bitterness will lead to
negative action
8. There is merit in the agrarian way of
life
9. Pragmatism
10. Prejudice
11. Continuation of the life cycle
ENG 11: American Literature
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Reading Packet p. 22
POTENTIAL ESSAY PROMPTS: Respond to one of the following prompts in a wellorganized and thoroughly supported 4-paragraph essay on a separate sheet of notebook paper. Be
sure to indicate which writing task you are responding to on your essay.
WRITING TASK 1
Steinbeck wrote that the final scene of The Grapes of Wrath is “huge and symbolic, towards
which the whole story moves.” Explain how this scene is the culmination of two of the motifs we
studied.
WRITING TASK 2
Select two intercalary chapters and explain how they preface or substantiate the plight and
experiences of the Joad family.
WRITING TASK 3
Novels and plays often depict characters caught between colliding cultures—national, regional,
ethnic, religious, institutional. Such collisions can call a character’s sense of identity into
question. Write a well-organized essay in which you describe a character’s response to the
cultural collision in The Grapes of Wrath and explain its relevance to the work as a whole.
WRITING TASK 4
In The Grapes of Wrath the Joads represent over a million farmers who are motivated by external
forces beyond their control to intrinsically transform, both as individuals and collectively.
Discuss these profound transformations, drawing evidence from intercalary chapters, plot,
motifs, and characterizations.
WRITING TASK 5
One of the strongest human drives seems to be a desire for power. Write an essay in which you
discuss how a character in The Grapes of Wrath struggles to free himself or herself from the
power of others or seeks to gain power over others (or both). Be sure to demonstrate in your
essay how the author uses this power struggle to enhance the meaning of the work.
WRITING TASK 6
Many critics believe that the Joads represent family values in America and how those values
must change. Trace this theme through the novel to its conclusion in the final scene.
WRITING TASK 7
Amassed bitterness can lead to anger, which can lead to positive or negative action. Explore this
theme, including examples from the three main sections of the book.