Chapters 17-20: Life in Hooverville

When Ma is making stew for her family for dinner she began to notice that a bunch of children had come to surround her and her stew that she was in preparation of. As she is making the stew she is beginning to notice that many of the children looked hungry, so she asked them if they were, all nodded their heads and kept staring at the stew. She then proceeded to tell all of the children that she did not have enough stew to provide for her family and all of them also, the children and their families. As she is sitting there with her family though she is at a point of sympathy for the children, and she sees that there is still some stew left over, so she gives some to the children. As she did so she realized she couldn’t give some to every child, and one of the children that didn’t get any asks its mother why it didn’t get any. And its mother looks at Ma in an angry manner. But Ma didn’t know what to do so she felt sorry she couldn’t help, which is natural to have happen to someone no matter who they are. Later as they are leaving the Hooverville that they had come to, Ma says: "We're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people - we go on." I think Ma is right, because she has to help her family also, not just people she doesn’t know, so she is right about what she says. I mean we all want to survive and live with our family, so she is honestly being a normal human being.

Chapters 14-16: "This is the beginning - from 'I' to 'we.'"

In chapter fourteen of The Grapes of Wrath, there are lots of people who are journeying to the state or California, and the people in California are worried that they poor people on the roads and the streets will come together and overtake the state of California. In chapter fifteen there is a time when there are two boys who come to a grocery store in a destitute state with their father. They ask for a loaf of bread for a dime, and are turned away by the gal at the counter, but soon she softens and gives them the bread and a few pieces of candy for only twelve cents, and the truckers who were there at the time, left extra large tips for the gal at the counter for showing such kindness to the boys and their father. In the book it quotes that Mae says “The loaves are worth 15-cents”. Throughout these chapters it shows that people do care about one another no matter the circumstances. In chapter sixteen there is a time that the Joads are with the Wilson’s and their car breaks down, so they go for parts and find a place where the man is worried about his business to much and freaks out about his luck and all of the hardships in California that people have to face. But when the Joads get back out on the road the find that many people are working together and are saying “twenty families became one family”, because so many families are combining together to help each other.

Chapters 7-13: Personal Connections

I am not engaging myself into The Grapes of Wrath, because it has a boring plot line and is not up to par of most books that I read. An example of what I mean would be the first page of the book where it says “To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth. The plows crossed and recrossed the rivulet marks.” I think that this is extremely boring, because of detailed words in this book, and the way the author tries to show that there is something deep to all of the meanings of these events in these books. Truly these things just bore mean to the point of me falling asleep repeatedly. So far, the characters in this book are going through struggles that coincide with some things in my life, such as when they are on their journey from their home, and they have hard times with one another. It reminds me of when I have moved from place to place, and we had hard times with moving and leaving behind our friends and life where we were. I do not see this book following anything similar to my life in the long run, because it is about people dying and traveling all over the place just to get to a final destination. I think that this book is just meant for the people from back then and that no one could truly relate to anything in this story, because we are not from this time period. So truly we all are just not a part of any of this unless, you were someone who lived in the Dust Bowl at this point in time of the world’s history.

                I am not looking forward to reading the rest of this book because I honestly can’t stand books that are like this, they bore me like no other type of book can. I wish that I could just go and sit in a hole and not doing anything for the rest of my life, instead of reading this book because I just can’t stand it at all. I don’t like to read about book that tell big history ideas, when I could just learn about a brief history of what happened, whey make people read a book that is just there to make people feel bad for the people from back then even though it is over with. I mean yes I do feel bad for the people in history with sad stories, but I don’t want to read them all and bore myself with doing so.

Chapters 3-6: Economic and Political Pressures

The Banks are influencing the farmers in such a way that the farmers are unable to keep their farms and they are not able to get more crops and money, because the banks have influenced them all so much that they now are destitute. The role of the banks in the life of the farmers is this; they gave the farmers money so that they could continue to own their properties, but while the Great Depression was in full swing the banks needed the money to stay afloat in a society barely surviving with what it had. So over time the banks began to overcome the farmers with their need for money and the mortgages rising on each farm and its property. So the farmers decided to start to work with the banks to keep their livelihood and their homes, though many of the farmers were starting to work against one another the banks still did not have the money they needed to have to stay afloat so they began to fire all of the farmers even though they were working together. When this happened most of the farmers were forced to leave their homes behind, while their fellow farmers were hired in their place and they had their home and farms destroyed, even while the farmers were leaving from their homes they would get ripped off from the banks as they did with the job, because the banks would be in on the sales that the farmers looked into, and would rip the farmers off with outrageous prices on all the supplies the farmers were searching for.

Chapters 1-2: Meeting Tom Joad

The truck driver, when he gives Tom Joad shows that he is not willing to submit to the will of ‘the man’. Tom Joad was able to persuade the truck driver into giving him the ride even though there was a sign that said that there are No Riders. Tom Joad persuaded him through his ability to create guilt in the drivers mind and thereby show that the truck driver would only be a good person if he gave a poor man a ride. Tom creates a scenario that shows the truck driver that the rich just prey upon the poor and weak people of society and that they take advantage of those people through all of their rules that they have.  Through Tom’s ability to do this he shows the truck driver most rich people are arrogant, self-centered, power hungry snobs. Though the truck driver was under the idea of his superiors he still felt sympathy for Tom and decided that he would be a rebel with tom by imposing the option to give Tom a ride in his truck with him.  Tom was able to use the one part of a human that is there for most every person, the ability to care for one another. By doing so the truck driver was willing to grant Tom the ride to his home. This all shows that the driver was a caring individual and understanding person. Tom then got his ride to his destination from his ingenuity and need to get home after his release from jail.