“The to get to shore. After a

“The to get to shore. After a

“The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet, so the earth became pale, pink in the red country and white in the gray country. In the water-cut gullies the earth dusted down in dry little streams. Gophers and ant lions started small avalanches. And as the sharp sun struck day after day, the leaves of the young corn became less stiff and erect; they bent in a curve at first, and then, as the central ribs of strength grew weak, each leaf tilted downward. Then it was June, and the sun shone more fiercely. The brown lines on the corn leaves widened and moved in on the central ribs.

The weeds frayed and edged back toward their roots. The air was thin and the sky more pale; and every day the earth paled.””The concrete highway was edged with a mat of tangled, broken, dry grass, and the grass heads were heavy with oat beards to catch on a dog’s coat, and foxtails to tangle in a horse’s fetlocks, and clover burrs to fasten in sheep’s wool;The sun lay on the grass and warmed it, and in the shade under the grass the insects moved, ants and antlions to set traps for them.”They hesitated on the edge of the shade and then they plunged into the yellow sunlight like two swimmers hastening to get to shore.

After a few fast steps they slowed to a gentle, thoughtful pace. The cornstalks threw gray shadows sideways now, and the raw smell of hot dust was in the air. The corn field ended and dark green cotton took its place, dark green leagves through a film of dust, and the bolls forming. It was spotty cotton, thick in the low places where water had stood, and bare on the high places.

The plants strove against the sun. “The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar. Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds.

They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses.”The small unpainted house was mashed at one corner, and it had been pushed off its foundations so that it slumped at an angle, its blind front windows pointing at a spot of sky well above the horizon. The fences were gone and the cotton grew in the dooryard and up against the house, and the cotton was about the4 shed barn, The outhouse lay on its side, and the cotton grew close against it. Where the dooryard had been pounded hard by the are feet of children and by stamping horses’ hooves and by the broad wagon wheels, it was cultivated now, and the dark green, dusty cotton grew.”Snub-nosed, monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight sown the country, across the country, through fences, through door yards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. “Sticking their snouts into it”, gives the Cat’s a human characteristic of having a snout, and therefore is personification.

“The driver munched the branded pie and threw the crust away.”Munched”, is an example of the author’s word choice. It is diction.

“And now a light truck approached, and as it came near, the driver saw the turtle and swerved to hit it. His front wheel struck the edge of the shell, flipped the turtle like a teddly-wink, spun it like a coin and rolled it off the highway.The comparison of the hit turtle to a tiddly-wink and a flipped coin is a comparison using like or as.

It is a simile.”A thick-furred yellow shepherd dog came trotting down the road, head low, tongue lolling and dripping. Its tail hung limply curled, and it panted loudly. Joad whistled at it, but it only dropped its head an inch and trotted fast toward some definite destination. “Goin’ someplace,” Joad explained, a little piqued. “Goin’ for home maybe.”This description of this dog symbolizes the Okies long arduous journey to California.

“I says, ‘Maybe it ain’t a sin. Maybe it’s just the way folks is. Maybe we been whippin’ the hell out of ourselves for nothin’.”Casy describes the way people punish themselves through their concience as whipping themselves. This extreme exaggeration is a hyperbole.”He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or trust or beseech the land.

“The structure of this sentence is repeated with the repetition of the word, “or”.”Curious children crowded close, ragged children who ate their fried dough as they watched.”The repeated “c” sound gives the sentence alliteration.”And over the grass at the roadside a turtle crawled, turning aside for nothing, dragging his high-domed shell over the grass. His hard legs and yellow-nailed feet threshed slowly though the grass, not really waling, but boosting and dragging his shell along.”By using nearly two pages describing the turtle’s slow and repetative movements, Steinbeck sets the tone of the community. He shows us how things were simple back then and life moved along at a much slower pace.

He is setting the tone.”I got to thinking like this- Here’s me preaching grace. An’ here’s them people getting grace so hard they’re jumping and shouting. Now they say laying up with a girl comes from the devil. Bur the more grace a girl got in her, the quicker she wants to go out in the grass. An I got to thinking how in hell can the devil get in when a girl is so full of the Holy Sperit that it’s spouting out of her nose and ears.”This statement is full of irony.

It is ironic that a preacher goes out in the grass with a girl he just gave a sermon on holiness to and it is ironic that the more grace a person has in them the more they want to go out in the grass and sin.”He cut out pork chops an’ put them in the pan and he put ribs an a leg in the oven. He et chops till the ribs was done, and he et ribs till the leg was done. And then he tore into that leg. Cut off big hunks of her and shoved them in his mouth.” “By and by he et so much he throwed up and went to sleep.

“This is a satirization of southern farmers who were forced to eat all of an animal once they were slaughtered so the meat would not go bad.IV. MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LITERARY TECHNIQUES”The Band or the Company-needs-wants-insists-must have-as though the Band or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them.

These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time.”This is a recurring image throughout the novel. Steinbeck throughout the novel compares the banks to monsters, taking without remorse or feeling.The title is taken from “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”-(“He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.”) This is a biblical allusion.

“He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or trust or beseech the land.”The structure of this sentence is repeated with the repetition of the word, “or”.”The cat roared with a ferocious intensity.

It’s purr rattled throughout the land and shook the very ground it destroyed”This is Steinbeck using vivid sound imagery to describe the destructive nature of the big machines.Bibliography: