| Chapters 1-4 | Theme: BreakingIntercalary NovelReligious symbols-the migrant workers and their journey to the parting of the Red Sea and the Israelites. |
| Chapter 1 | Worsening conditions of Oklahoma, earth is sick and dying (Drought). The earth is dry, the wind is damaging and strong, the crops are being “attacked”, dust storms.People are huddling in their homes because of these stormsMen are angry, the women and children are looking for signs of breaking (THEME) |
| Chapter 2 | Truck driver gives a hitchhiker (Tom Joad–Protagonist) a ride. Tom is traveling home to his family farm, 40 acre sharecropping farm. Sharecroppers have bee forced off their land by weather (dust) and the bankTom was in prison at McAlester for homicide. He was sentenced 7 years but got out on parole after 4 for good behavior. |
| Chapter 3 | The turtle is traveling over the dusty earth and attempts to cross the road. The turtle gets hit however the turtle continues forward. |
| Chapter 4 | Tom Joad meets Jim Casy. Casy is described as tall, thin, pale, high forehead, brown eyes, eyes heavy and protruding, neck is stringy. Casy shares his stories of his past as a preacher, he is no longer a preacher. No longer a preacher because, he says he has sinful ideas (guilt), people don’t have the spirit or belief in God any longer, he has lost his belief system. Casy’s nonpreacher like behavior: drinking, cussing, baptized women and after he would sleep with themTom’s explanation of his homicide: he was at a local dance and was drunk, got into a fight with another man, the man stabbed Tom and Tom hit him in the head with a shovel killing him. |
| Chapter 5 | Owners were having to warn the tenant farmers that they were failing, the bank is shown as a monster, the men created the bank, but they cannot control itFamilies tried to understand/had to deal with being forced out of their homesThe tractor driver came to push the families out of their homes. (He didn’t like his job but needed the money to support his family. ($3/day)This left many tenant families homeless |
| Chapter 6 | Casy and Tom find the family gone from their home, Tom looks through random items from his family that were left behindCasy and Tom find/meet Muley GravesTom learns that his family is staying at Uncle Johns because they have been kicked off the land. Muly shares his story, his wife and children went to California. But he stayed behind with his land (despite the fact that it was taken away, he is too proud). He refers to himself as the graveyard ghost because he wanders around. He is depressedTom shows that it is hard to deal with hunger, he was used to eating regularly in prisonSuperintendent spots the fire and the three men—Tom, Casy, and Muley. They hide in a cotton field so they don’t get arrested. They continue hiding in a cave where they sleep. |
| Chapter 7 | Used car dealers sell cars to buyers. The cars are ruined beyond total repair. They sell the cars to the buyers (they are unaware that the cars are in bad shape). The buyers are in need for their journey to California. |
| Dust Bowl 1931-1939 | *1931 rains stopped and the “black blizzards” begin. *Stinging, blinding black dirt*Southern plains-the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, Western Kansas, and Eastern portions of Colorado and New Mexico.*Top soil took thousands of years per inch to build and blew away in minutes*Decade-clug to their homes and way of life, enduring drought, dust, disease, death*”Only one quarter of the Dust Bowlers fled to California-most stayed, persevering through ten grueling years.”*Over plowing created conditions for disaster. |
Grapes of Wrath Ch. 1-7
June 10, 2020