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Friday, April 20, 2007
Why Did the Wilson's Car Break Down?
In chapter 16 the Wilson's car breaks down. The Joad's homemade truck is still running fine but the Wilson's touring car blows a con-rod bearing. Why did Steinbeck have the Wilson's car break down and not the Joad's? If the Joad's car would have broken down this would have furthered the Joads' trouble and would have caused the reader to have more sympathy for the Joads. But it is the Wilsons that break down and it is Tom and the Preacher who stay with the car to fix it while the rest of the group goes on ahead. Is Steinbeck trying to express the idea that it is the survival of the fittest in rough times and if the strong, the Joads, help the weak, the Wilsons, then they will become weak as well? Does Steinbeck really want to express the idea that if you are nice and help someone else then you will be screwed because of it?
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5 comments:
Maybe that's not the reason. Maybe Steinbeck keeps the preacher and Tom back for other reasons?
Maybe it's a bonding experience, or Steinbeck's way of revealing Tom and Jim's character a little more.
well, mrs. calkin keeps telling us to keep an eye on jim casey b/c his initials are j. c. (same as jesus christ), so maybe steinbeck is making casey and tom into christ figures-they help the weak.
Tom's initials are TJ... I wonder what that means...
I thought this part of the book was just filler. It was a pointless waste of time. I think that the author had no intention of being profound, he merely wanted a longer book. Basically, Steinbeck is throwing as many hardships at the family as he can to illustrate his point that traveling to California is not easy (and I suppose that eventually they will find out that it wasn't worth it).
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