A Depressing Pregnancy

So when times are rough, go to California.
If times are really rough, get pregnant, then go to California.
That's right! When you can barely afford to feed your own face, (Rose of Sharon) might as well have make another hungry child, as if there are not enough starving people during this time. Who knows, maybe good will come of the kid. Maybe it will be the next Rockefeller and bring the whole family out of poverty. I doubt it, but who knows?

That poor dog...

When the Joad's stop at a gas station their dog runs into the highways and is instantly hit by a car, however, no one seems to really care. Do you guys think people back in those days didn't value their animals as much as we did? Or do you think they weren't really attached to their dog? And even so, why didn't the sight of the dog getting killed not make the Joad's sad? Is it perhaps that people during that time were desensitized by death?

Trouble With Buttons

ok, i'm sure there was some sort of significance attached to grampa's difficulty buttoning up his pants, shirt, and long underwear, but i have no idea what it was. and then the part about him scratching himself...didn't really feel like i needed to know that. can anyone help me out here?

No Law in Oklahoma

When Muley came into the story and the three men stayed at the old Joad house the police came to the house to check out the fire and see if anybody was at the house. Muley talked about shooting the cop, Willy, and said that he had done it before. During the Dustbowl era in the United States did this type of lawlessness actually occur or was Steinbeck just trying to add something to the story? The way Steinbeck described it sounded like the Old West instead of the United States in the mid 1930s.

What Up's With Gradpa?

When the Joads where first taking about going to California Grandpa was excited about going and wanted to squirt grapes all down his face. But when it was time to leave he did not want to leave and had to be druged to get on the truck. Later down the road Grandpa dies and the Joads say it is because he was taken away from his land and was heartbroken. If Grandpa was so upset about leaving his land that it caused him to die why did he want to leave it in the beginning? This did not make sense and if there was any symbolic meaning in his death I think this made the meaning unclear.

Realization

Okay..... this may be a totally out-there comparison, but around page 174 in chapter 13, the Joads are talking to the Gasoline guy.... before it had described him as having " brown corduroy pants, suspenders, a polo shirt, and a cardboard sun helmet". Then on page 174 it says "And he say for the first time the fat man's cheap washed pants and his cheap polo shirt and his paper hat". While before the man had seemed well dressed, he was really shabby and poor. Will this happen with their final destination? California seems like it will be new and nice and a bright, shiny new future, but in reality will it be just be as shabby and poor as their previous home?

so im finally caught up and im interested to see how this whole journey to california thing ends up...of course poor grandpa had to kick the bucket..