John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

| Study Questions: Chapters 1-10 |

| Study Questions: Chapters 11-20 |

| Study Questions: Chapters 21-30 |

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Ch. 21
How does Steinbeck define the danger of machines? What makes technology a threat to humanity? What are the "paradoxes of industry" that Steinbeck refers to? What do they result in?

What happens to wages and prices with the ever increasing supply of laborers in California?

How can the owners cling on to their property in the situation described?

Ultimately, wihout knowing it, what are banks and companies working toward?

What line does Steinbeck suggest will eventually be crossed by the exploited laborers? What is the importance of the following passage?: "And money that might have gone to wages went for gas, for guns, for agents and spies, for blacklists, for drilling. On the highways the people moved like ants and searched for work, for food. And the anger began to ferment." In the tripartite structure of the novel, what process has begun?

Ch. 22
What is the importance of the detailed description of life at the Weedpatch government camp? What goes on at the camp? What are its main features? What does it offer to the migrant workers? What do these episodes suggest about goverment intervention and the possibilities of rational organization of human life? What is the importance of Ma saying, "Why, I feel like people again"?

Are preachers banned at the camp? If not, then why are they so scarce?

Are there policemen in the camp? Why not? How is order maintained? What does this suggest about the need for police forces in society? What then is the actual function of the police? Who controls the police?

Who is Mr. Thomas? Why is he an important figure in the novel? Why can't he pay good wages to his workers even though he wants to? Who determines wages? What is the Farmers' Association? Who/what controls it? What is Mr. Thomas warned about by the Association? Who were the angry "citizens" who burned down the squatters' camp in Ch. 20? Who sent them? Who are the "red agitators"? What do people do or ask for that makes them suspect of being "red"? What does Mr. Thomas warn the laborers might happen at the goverment camp over the weekend? What is the farmers' Association planning? Why?

Who is Hines? How is his figure in contrast with that of Mr. Thomas? What is Hines always talking about? How does he define a "red"? What conclusion does Timothy arrive at regarding the "reds"? What is the significance of Tom agreeing? What does this comment signal? How does it relate to Tom's previous similar statement in Ch. 16?

Who is Jim Rawley? How is he characterized? What are the notable aspects of his behavior and personality? Is he a boss? What is his function at the camp?

Who is Ms. Sandry? What does she tell Rose of Sharon? What is her idea of "sin" and how does that idea contrast with, for example, Jim Rawley's understanding of sin? What is her emphasis on? Is she concerned with the well-being of the working people? What is Steinbeck suggesting by means of this figure? Why is she a danger to the happiness of others? What problems does she represent? How is she connected to the figures of the Jehovites in Ch. 18? What similar noises that she make? Essentially, how does Steinbeck assess religious practices and beliefs which are based on fanaticism, superstition, irrationality, and a denial of  life in this world?

What does Annie Littlefield (one of the Camp Committee ladies) say about the Salvation Army? What is her objection to their supposedly charitable work? What issues is Steinbeck tackling here? How does this relate to the discussion of welfare in John Stuart Mill?

Ch. 23
What forms of entertainment are available to the working people? What is the significance of the storyteller? How do these passages relate to the songs of the guitar player in Ch. 17? What is the significance of the story told? Why is it about the Indians? What does the storyteller suggest? How do these issues relate to what the workers and the country as a whole is experiencing in the novel's present? Who is responsible? Consider the significance of the following passage:
 

"They was a brave on a ridge, against the sun. Knowed he stood out. Spread his arms an' stood. Naked as morning, an' against the sun. Maybe he was crazy, I don't know. Stood there, arms spread out; like a cross he looked. Four hundred yards. An' the men--well, they raised their sights an' they felt the wind with their fingers; an' then they jus' lay there and couldn' shoot. Maybe that Injun knowed somepin. Knowed we couldn' shoot. Jes' laid there with the rifles cocked, an' didn' even put 'em to our shoulders. Lookin's at him. Head-band, one feather. Could see it, an' naked as the sun. Long time we laid there an' looked, an' he never moved. An' then the captain got mad. 'Shoot, you crazy bastards, shoot!' he yells. An' we jus' laid there. 'I'll give you to a five-count, an' then mark you down,' the captain says. Well, sir--we put up our rifles slow, an' ever' man hoped some-body's shoot first. I ain't never been so sad in my life. An' I laid my sights on his belly, cause' you can't stop a Injun no other place--an'--then. Well, he jest plunkered down an' rolled. An' we went up. An' he wasn' big--he'd looked so grand--up there. All tore to pieces an' little. Ever see a cock pheasant, stiff and beautiful, ever' feather drawed an' painted, an' even his eyes drawed in pretty? An' bang! You pick him up--bloody an' twisted, an' you spoiled somepin better'n you; an' eatin' him don't make it up to you, 'cause you spoiled somepin in yaself, an' you can't never fix it up"

Ch. 24
What do the Saturday dances at the Weedpatch signify? Are they symbolic events? What effects do they have on the lives of the working people? How do the "Jesus-lovers" look on the whole thing?

What are the complaints of the wealthy against government camps? What arguments are used against the use of tax money to set up such camps? What do the workers respond? Who is getting the most "relief" from tax money?

Why and how does the Farmers' Association intend to disrupt and destroy the harmonious life at the camp?  How do the campers plan to neutralize the attack? What is the significance of the methods chosen by each side? Is this perhaps a true battle of evil and good? Who prevails? What does Huston tell the troublemakers? What is said as they are gently put outside the camp's fence? What is the significance of that language?

What is the significance of the federal status of the goverment camp enclosures? In addition to its preventing the invasions and abuses of the local police, what form of politics does such a status embody? What form of politics does it attack? How is this related to the politics underlying the other kind of camps, the Hoovervilles? Who was Herbert Hoover(1874-1964)? What political party did he belong to? Why are the miserable squatters' camps named after him? Here are a few snippets about Hoover (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica):
 

"[During the Depression] in accordance with his deeply felt philosophy of individual freedom, Hoover chose to depend mainly on private charity to ameliorate suffering" ... "he was adamant against federal aid to the unemployed urban masses, feeling such aid would lead to corruption and waste. He vetoed a bill that would have created a federal unemployment agency and mobilized congressional opposition to another bill for public works and direct aid to the unemployed" ... "Throughout the rest of the 1930's, Hoover opposed every substantive measure for depression relief, particularly attacking 'radical influences' in Washington."

Ch. 25
Why is the fruit not picked and is instead allowed to rot? Why is it deliberately destroyed? How is Steinbeck employing the idea of rot and decay as a metaphor? Besides unharvested fruit, what is rotting and decaying? What are the causes of that corruption? Consider the following passages:
 

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates--died of malnutrition--because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.
The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is a failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

What might the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency in 1932 (overwhelmingly defeating the Hoover) have averted in the United States? In what way did Roosevelt's economic policies address some of the problems described by Steinbeck? How did they reverse the policies of Hoover and the Republicans? How do those issues relate to the contemporary situation in the United States? Is the danger of severe economic slumps still real? Could the U.S. go hungry again on such a massive scale? What could cause such a disaster? What about the world economic system as a whole? Is the misery in which most people still live throughout the world a problem with a solution? What are the core issues surrounding the existence of misery and hunger? What are the core issues surrounding their solution?

What does Steinbeck think of the scientists and technicians who work to improve crops and increase productivity in farming? What happens to the prices of produce with such improvements in productivity? What happens over time to the small farmers? What stands between the abundance of food generated by improving techniques and the hungry people who need it? What does Steinbeck suggest  about people with enough brains to develop wonderful technologies but who are seemingly unable to come up with a rational system for the distribution of products?

Ch. 26
Why do the Joads leave the goverment camp? Where are they headed for? What is the Hooper Ranch? Who is the man who directs them there? What is the significance of details of his dress such as "a massive gold wedding ring ... a little gold football ... on a slender chain across his vest"? What do these details reveal?

Why are they employed at the Hooper Ranch? What sorts of wages do they receive? What are the conditions of life there? How does it compare to the goverment camp? What different effects do the two types of camps have on the working people? What are people transformed into at a place like the Hooper Ranch? (see the scene after the Joads finish their scanty meal). Are the workers allowed to move freely about the ranch and leave it when they want? What in fact is their situation there? What makes such things possible in a supposedly free country? Is their situation there in some way symbolic of the condition of working people under capitalism?

How does the company store operate? How does it justify its high prices? In what different ways are the workers taken advantage of? How is this situation representative of the condition of all consumers in capitalist societies?

What lesson does Ma claim she has learned from her experiences? Who does she believe are the only people who will help a person in trouble?

How has power shifted within the Joad family? Who seem to be the strongest in the toughest circumstances?

Who does Tom run into after sliding under the barbed wire fence surrounding the camp? What is he doing now? How has he been transformed? What caused the change? What movement is he part of? How does he die? What is the significance of his last words?: "You fellas don't know what you're doin'. You're helping to starve kids ... You don' know what you're a-doin" (compare these words to those of the government camp people to their attackers in Ch. 24). What is Steinbeck suggesting about the reality of spiritual truths and powers in the material world? What does Tom do?

What are the effects of the life they lead on the different members of the Joad family? What is Ma's perspective on this matter? What happens to Winfield? What causes his illness?

Why do the Joads leave the Hooper Ranch? Where do they end up?

Ch. 27
Is the situation different for cotton pickers than for the peach pickers at the Hooper Ranch? What are the different ways in which cotton pickers are cheated by their employers? What are the workers forced to do? How are the wages in this line of work? Why can the workers afford "side-meat"? Will the situation last? Why not? Who is the working people's worst enemy?

Ch. 28
How do the Joads do at the cotton camp?

Where has Tom been hiding? Is this similar to the situation of Muley Graves back in Oklahoma? What has Tom been thinking about? What does he decide to do? What inspires him to that decision? What is the significance of the biblical allusions contained in his statements ( Ecclesiastes 4)? Where did he learn that way of thinking? Consider the implications of the following passages:

I been thinkin' a hell of a lot, thinkin' about our people livin' like pigs, an' the good rich lan' layin' fallow, or maybe one fella with a million acres, while a hundred thousan' good farmers is starvin'. An' I been wonderin' if all our folks got together an' yelled, like them fellas yelled, only a few of 'em a the Hooper Ranch-- ...
...
I'll be all aroun' in the dark. I'll be ever'where--wherever you look. Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. if Casy knowed, why, I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an'--I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build--why, I'll be there. See? God, I'm talking like Casy. comes of thinkin' about him so much. Seems like I can see him sometimes.

What happens to the cotton-picking work?

Ch. 29
What is the significance and effects of the torrential rains and floods? Do people get help from the government? What happens? What are people forced to do?

Ch. 30
How do the floods affect the Joads? What happens to Rose of Sharon's baby? Is there significance in Uncle John's words and the way he lets the baby's body float downstream? Does John's name acquire sudden significance? How about the dead baby whose rotting body is sent to tell the story of what is happening? Has the narrative acquired a sudden level of double, allegorical significance? Are the characters playing dual roles in an immediate, historical and an eternal struggle with transcendental dimensions? Who are they? What roles are the Joads playing as they make their way to a barn on a hill? Who do they find inside the barn? What does Rose of Sharon do? What is the meaning of that action? How about the mysterious smile on her face? What is Steinbeck suggesting has happened? How has he effectively given the deepest and most mystical and yet most graspable and down-to-earth meaning to both his own as well as the biblical texts? How has he unambiguously and categorically answered the questions of the meaning of good and evil; of damnation and salvation; of apocalypse and of eternal life?
 

| Study Questions: Chapters 1-10 |

| Study Questions: Chapters 11-20 |

| Study Questions: Chapters 21-30 |

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