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 ENG 11: American Literature The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck) Reading Packet p. 2 ENG 11: American Literature The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck) Reading Packet p. 3 ENG 11: American Literature The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck) Reading Packet p. 4 ENG 11: American Literature The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck) Reading Packet p. 5 ENG 11: American Literature The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck) Reading Packet p. 6 ENG 11: American Literature The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck) Reading Packet p. 7 ENG 11: American Literature The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck) Reading Packet p. 8 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) Reading Packet p. 9 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) Reading Packet p. 10 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.
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