Blog 20

I will now discuss and analyze chapters one, two, adn three. The author uses the Joad family as a classic family in this time period. They are portreying a classic farm family that is driven out of their own home by the Dust Bowl, and then is later strongly effected by the failing economy. The author tracks the Joad family throught the chapters to show how the family flees and tries to overcome the industry at the time.

The start of the novel establishes a few of the novel's main themes. In the first and third chapters the author vividly describes what the Dust Bowl is like(Steinbeck 10). The Dust Bowl was a tragedy that was like a spark at the beginning of the Great Depression. It was a very bad dust storm that strongly effected farming, which caused a lot of people to lose their jobs. In Chapter one Steinbeck vividly describes what the farms are like when they are on the fast track to failure because of the Dust Bowl. Then in Chapter 3 the author uses a symbol of a turtle that is struggling to cross the road. He is struggling greatly and not getting anywhere quickly, which is exactly what the farmers are going to go through. Both Chapters one and three are very depressing. They are dark visions of what the world was like then. The weather in chapter one and the rude driver in chapter three are just slight glimpses of what some of the obstacles that the Joad's are about to go through as they have to cross the country in order to seek success. It shows that the world is full of obstacles that are going to make life not only hard, but dangerous. Very similarly to the turtle trying to cross the road, the Joad family will have to keep going and going to get through and try to overcome the economy and the obstacles the trip accross country is going to bring. The first three chapters are just an insight to what the book is going to be like and that is very difficult.

Both chapters share a particularly dark vision of the world. As the relentless weather of Chapter 1 and the mean-spirited driver of Chapter 3 represent, the universe is full of obstacles that fill life with hardship and danger. Like the turtle that trudges across the road, the Joad family will be called upon, time and again, to fight the malicious forces—drought, industry, human jealousy and fear—that seek to overturn it.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2002. Print.