The Odd Chpters

In chapters such as 7, 9, and 12 Steinbeck uses third person to tell about events such as the car dealership, HWY 66, and the farmers selling their possessions. These chapters are obviously relevant to the story of the Joads summing up past chapters and foreshadowing upcoming chapters. But are the people that he discussed in these chapters the Joads, even though he does not say their name, or are they nameless to represent that a lot of people during the era were in the same situation that the Joads were in? And do these chapters seem a little repetitive since they are just a review of what he talked about in past chapters and just tell the reader what is going to happen to the Joads in the upcoming chapters? Is he using these chapters to make the book longer or is he trying to accomplish something with these odd chapters?

Good or Bad Decision??

So Tom is breaking parole to go with his family. Besides the obvious reasons of getting put back in jail if he gets caught, are there any other negative effects to his decision?? Is there a positive side??

Muley

Does anyone else think that Muley's purpose has run out?

The Family "Reunion"

I really liked the family reuniting. It really hit close to home for me because I am close to my family. Reading about all the different people seeing Joad for the first time in a long time really took me down memory lane. Joad also parallels to someone in my family. This story is also starting to make some sense now that I can truly relate the family and Joad back to my own family and relatives.

Alive and Dead

Was anyone else particularly impressed with Steibeck's descriptions of alive and dead? How the farms are dead now that they are empty, about the man working the fields that are not his land, and how the grandpa was dead as soon as he left the land.

"There is a warmth of life in the barn, and the heat and the smell of life. But when the motor of a tractor stops, it is as dead as the ore it came from. The heat goes out of it like the living heat that leaves a corpse" (157).

"But the machine man, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry... When the corrugated iron doors are shut, he goes home, and his home is not the land" (158).

"He died the minute you took 'im off the place... He was breathin'... but he was dead. He was that place, an' he knowed it" (199).

Is it foreshadowing of more death to come or simply description in relation of the death of the grandpa?

Car Salesman

Does the car salesman have anything to do with the actual story line. I am confused. Please help.

Family Government

so how does everyone feel about the family government? i don't know, i think it's pretty crap that the grandpa still sits at the head of the "counsil" even though he is insane. also, the thing about old Tom and uncle Jon (i think thats his name...) sitting in the front while the pregnant girl stand on the bed of the truck...that is stupid. skrew tradition or whatever that is.