The Grapes of Wrath: Worksheet C
Dorothea Lange
In 1933, Dorothea Lange, a young, successful portrait photographer, picked up her camera and left her studio,
located on Union Street in San Francisco. Compelled by the visible human anguish of the Great Depression, she
traveled through the streets to a food distribution area --- a bread line --- that had been recently set up by White Angel,
a wealthy woman living in San Francisco. That day Dorothea Lange took several photographs. But the most telling was
the one of an "unshaven, hunched-up little man, leaning on a railing with a tin can between his arms, his hands
clenched, the line of his mouth bitter, his back turned to those others waiting for a handout." Lange tacked the
developed image of this man on the wall of her studio, naming it "White Angel Bread Line."
From that day until her death in 1965, she applied her creative imagination, her commitment to excellence, and
her skill as a photographer to record social and cultural events in America. Best known – and perhaps most lasting --are her photographs of the 1930s and 1940s.
Hers is a social history: the seeing of those least able to have a voice during the pivotal years of the Great
Depression and World War II. With camera in hand, Dorothea Lange recorded the forgotten men, women and children
of the 1930s: the rural poor whose meager existence stretched from the southeastern to the southwestern states.
Then, as Americans' attentions and energies turned from economic turmoil to fighting fascism, Lange used her critical
eye to record the human dignity and pride of Japanese Americans forced to leave their homes and relocate to the
internment camps.
The Grapes of Wrath Group Chapter Questions
Chapters 8-11
Address the following on a separate sheet of paper by locating evidence in the chapter which supports your conclusion.
Chapter 8
“And then her fingers went up to his cheek as a blind man’s fingers might. And her joy was nearly like sorrow” (74).
1.
2.
In the third full paragraph, how many themes are present and where?
What does the story of Uncle John tell us about his character? What is his central emotion and what does Casy’s question to Tom during
the story reveal about John’s troubles?
3. What paradox is present in Casy’s revelation about his having been a “preacher” by name?
4. Is there a Christian image in the pigeons?
5. How does Ma respond to the two strangers? Any Christian imagery?
6. What contradictory descriptions are present in the description of Ma? Based on this description, what must happen for the family to get
to California?
7. What is Ma’s primary concern in Tom? What does Tom do that reassure’s Ma? Why does it?
8. What does the story of Noah’s birth do to our sense of Pa’s character?
9. Read Casy’s prayer closely. What themes are present in his words? Does the family appear to hear him? What animal is Granma
compared to?
10. Al. What is his value? Why does Steinbeck include him? Look at his description at the end.
Chapter 9
“We could have saved you, but you cut us down, and soon you will be cut down and there will be none of us to save you” (87).
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What is the primary emotion in the voice of the speaker?
What is the really being purchased, according to the speaker?
What does the little girl exhibit that the buyer of the horses does not? What connection is he missing?
What biblical allusions are present?
What is it that the people are most afraid they are losing? Are they right
Chapter 10
“Casy got to his feet. He knew the government of families, and he knew he had been taken into the family” (103).
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
What is Tom’s advice about the handbills, and what does it mean?
What is Tom’s advice about the trip? Where did he learn this truth?
Tom suggests that the handbills are telling have truths. Why might this be true? What outcome would this have?
What is Casy’s plan for California?
What contradictory descriptions do we see in Rose of Sharon? Why this name?
What was the system the men did not understand? What system is evident in the governing of the family? Are the titles and positions
effective?
7. What is the purpose of the realistic description of the slaughter of the pigs? What biblical allusion(s) are present?
8. Casy tries to help Ma but she says, “It’s women’s work.” What is Casy’s response? What does this reveal?
9. Of the things Ma keeps and burns, which are important and why?
10. What foreshadowing does Grampa’s refusal to go possible create?
Chapter 11
“So easy that the wonder goes out of the work, so efficient that the wonder goes out of the land and the working of it and with the wonder the deep
understanding and the relation” (115).
1.
2.
3.
What from chapter 5 is being reiterated in this chapter? What conclusion does this suggest?
What does the second section of this chapter seem to describe? Does this change the previous conclusion about where man is going and
what will happen to the world?
There are apparently contradictory images here. What are they?