Extra Credit for Chapters 12-22
Add to your PowerPoint on Chapter 22
-Analysis of Chapter 14
-find a song that represents this
chapter, explain why
-Symbolism of the Ragged Man (Chapter
16)
-Answers to Study Guide Questions
1.
What do the man and woman in the movie pretend to be?
2.
Name the three instruments that the migrant people play?
3.
On Saturday, what event are the people excited about?
4.
Why aren’t the migrant peoples’ children happy in the schools?
5.
Why doesn’t the pretty blonde girl go to the dance with Al?
6.
When men ask Rose of Sharon to dance, what does Ma say?
Bonus: Why are so many crops being wasted?
Date
Assignment
10
SAT Lesson 7; PowerPoint due
11
Veteran’s Day; No School
14
Grapes 26; FWA 2.1 Due
15
Grapes 27-28; Assign Essay 2 (FWA 2.2), due 11/29
16
Grapes 29
17
Grapes 30
18
Alphabet Soup Lesson 9 (Notice, 8 is skipped!)
22
TEST – Grapes 23-30
23
“-isms”… Discussions
24
Project Day
Chapter 23- Looking for
Pleasure
Who doesn’t love a story?
Story 1: Describe the scene that the
soldier relates at the beginning of
Chapter 23
“You pick him up– an’ eatin’ him
don’t never make it up to you,
‘cause you spoiled somepin in
yaself, an’ you can’t never fix it
up” (445)
Story 2: Movie with two rich people who
are pretending to be poor and go to
jail because “they git caught at some
kind of radical meetin’ but they ain’t
radicals” (446).
Steinbeck states that “the jail keeper
he’s mean to ‘em ‘cause he thinks
they’re poor” (446). Why did the jailer
act that way is it because they had no
money or because of their social
status?
Why do we like movies?
Consider this quote in relation: “I
was to a show oncet tht was me,
an’ more’n me; an’ my life, an’
more’n my life, so ever’thing was
bigger.
‘Well, I get enough sorrow. I
like to get away from it” (446).
If a migrant has a little money, he can
do what? Explain his actions.
Considering this quote “Death
was a friend, and sleep was
death’s brother,” how would
you describe the migrant’s
mental state ( 447)?
“You can do anything with a harmonica…
You can mold the music with curved
hands, making it wail and cry like bagpipes,
making it full and round like an organ,
making it as sharp and bitter as the reed
pipes of the hills” (448).
Why is Steinbeck talking about instruments?
Harmonica- you learn through
experience and practice
Guitar- your father teaches you,
until you can play better than him
Have to listen and figure it out
yourself- secret
All three together do what?
How’s this relate back to manself
(creativity + passion)?
As the song plays the migrants have “to
move close. They can’t help it” (449).

Why was the preacher
pacing “like a tiger,
whipping the people with
his voice,” making the
people grovel (450)?

Ezra Huston, Chairman, and the 5 men on
the Central Committee meet. How are they
getting ready for the dance?
◦ 12 men guarding the fences to make sure no
outsiders get in, but they are not to hit anyone
Willie Eaton- entertainment chairman. Has 25
committee members for the night, instead of 5, to
keep an eye on things. Ezra reminds him to make
sure they don’t hurt anybody. Why?
“You give them goddamn Okies stuff
like that an’ they’ll want ‘em. An’ he
says, ‘They hol’ red meetin’s in them
gov’ment camps. All figgerin’ how to
get on relief” (455). Does this sound
familiar?
What causes prejudice?
“‘I mean relief– what us taxpayers puts in an’
you goddamn Okies takes out.’
‘We pay sales tax an’ gas tax an’ tobacco tax.
Farmers get four cents a cotton poun’ from the
gov’ment ain’t that relief? Railroads an’ shippin’
companies draws subsidies– ain’t that relief?”
Rich think they deserve it, but who picks the crops
and does the work?
Where’s the equity?
The tubby man says, “This
here’s the United states,
not California” (456).
What’s the significance of
this quote?
What is this foreshadowing?
Huston says “Why can’t they let us
do it [stay put] ‘stead of keepin’ us
miserable an’ puttin’ us in jail? I
swear to God they gonna push us
into fightin’ if they don’t quite aworryin’ us” (436).
Black hat says, “They’ll git hungry
men.You can’t feed your fam’y on
twenty cents an hour, but you’ll
take anything. They got you goin’
an’ comin’. They jes’ auction a job
off. Jesus Christ, pretty soon they’re
gonna make us pay to work” (462).
What is he talking about?
School
Why do Black Hat’s
kids hate school?
Pa says he has to take the job, even though
Black Hat says the owners will just keep
dropping their wages, adding, “It’s bad
enough to work twelve hours a da day an’
come out jes’ a little bit hungry, but we got
to figure all a time, too. My kid ain’t getting’
enough to eat. I can’t think all the time,
goddamn it! It drives a man crazy” (463).
“The circle of men shifted their feet
nervously”… why is this important?
Why are the dances
important? What does it
allow the migrants to
have because they can
invite their friends to
the dance?
Jule’s “injun blood smelled” what?
 Why does he wish that he was a full
Indian?

A boy tells Huston that “They’s a car
with six men parked… They got
guns” (465). What are they doing?
Why does “shrill whistle sound”
(468)?

The cops don’t need a warrant if there’s
what?
Huston talks to the boys and says you
“Don’t knife your own folks… boys, put
‘em over the fence. An’ don’t hurt ‘em.
They don’t know what they’re doin”
(470). How does this represent the
universal soul?
Why did the boys do it?
When pa says, “They’s change a-comin. I
don’t know what. Maybe e won’t live to
see her. But she’s a-comin’. They’s a
res’less feelin’. Fella can’t figger nothin’
out, he’s so nervous,” what is he
foreshadowing(471)?
Black Hat’s story about Akron, Ohio




Shipped people in to work cheap, but they unionized.
Why did this upset the business owners? What did all the
business owners call them as they tried to run them out of
town?
One Sunday, 5,000 marched with rifles and had their “turkey
shoot” and there “ain’t been no trouble sence” (471).
Black Hat thinks that they should do what every Sunday?
Chapter 25- Fallen Eden
Who are the “men of understanding and knowledge
and skill”? Although these men have “transformed the
world with their knowledge” how is their work
ineffective?
 “men of understanding and knowledge and skill” =
educated men (scientists).
 perfect the crops, making the harvest successful.
 economy cannot support their work because it is
too unstable.
 Their work is ineffective because the crops never make
it to market and go to waste. ( capitalism ruins their
work)
“The decay spreads over the State, and the sweet smell is a great sorrow on
the land. Men who can graft the trees and make the seed fertile and big can
find no way to let hungry people eat their produce. Men who have created
new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be
eaten. And the failure hangs over the State like a great sorrow.” What is it
saying about politics and the economy of the California at the time?
The economy has no base, so it cannot grow.
 lack of work for the poor, causing problems for all classes
 goods cannot be sold because no one has money.
 economy will remain stagnant until there is a drastic change.
Politically
 shows faults in capitalism
 calling for a more socialist system?
 collective soul theme in the novel; working and living as a community is much more effective that the
motivation and greed of an individual.
The waste described in the chapter is effective,
memorable, and creates a vivid picture for the reader.
Why is this description so effective? How does
repeating the title make the chapter even more
memorable?
 We’ve seen starvation, malnutrition, and poverty repeatedly
 Chp 25 introduces the surplus of food that is not sold.
 waste and destruction of food while children starve?
The title is repeated in the final sentence of the chapter:
“In the souls of the people, the grapes of wrath are
filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
-time for change is arriving, and the angry migrant
families will fuel this change.

juxtaposition between waste and want
◦ Joads' are out of money and the children feel the effects of
malnutrition.
fruit is destroyed when price is not high enough for
profit.
 prices are low because the largest growing companies
-- which are vertical operations owning their own
processing -- decide to squeeze out the smaller
growers by taking a profit only on the canning,
depressing the unprocessed fruit prices (476).

Deadly irony
◦ technology has enabled the extraordinary
production of food, but capitalism causes people
to starve. The technologists have not been able to
create a "system whereby their fruits may be
eaten" (476).
◦ destruction of produce and livestock in the midst
of starvation.
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 trucks,
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 (477).
Images of Eden
The chapter opens with fertility, growth, and
promise. (Blossoms swell and grow, quickens,
etc.)
 Eden as perfect garden, full of all the things
necessary for life—beauty and sustenance.
 Human Perfectibility/Potential—ability to
grow things, shape nature, even to improve
upon it
 Even the power to create in the hands of
these men.

Fall from Grace
Sense of Decay
 Repetition of imagery of death. Adam and
Eve’s sin led to human mortality, this sin
kills the people and the land
 From perfection and life, humans can only
create death
 Smells of failure/regret
 Profit supersedes desire to use land in a
useful way

Sin
It is a crime against nature and man to
put profit ahead of lives, to destroy the
bounty of the earth for the sake of
money
 The sin spreads—the damage goes from
the migrant workers to the small
businessmen and farmers.
 They have laid out the course of their
own doom.

Anger
The Grapes of Wrath—coming to fulfillment. The vintage will
be ripe soon—the anger will not be contained.
 Connection to Julia Ward Howe’s 1862 “Battle Hymn of the
Republic”—an American abolitionist song that argued that it
was time to end the scourge of slavery.
 Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.