... is the providing of historical information about the development of land ownership in California, the development of migrant labour. We can find a general correspondence between the material of each intercalary chapter and that of the current narrative portion. (eg.: Highway 66 - the Joads` actual journey). We can see the intricate interweaving of specific details ... Joads` truck returns empty. Often, this interlocking of details becomes thematic or symbolic. The dust which is mentioned 27 times in three pages of Chapter 1 comes to stand not only for the land itself, but also for the b...

• Word Count: 2399
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

... give up their lives to move west. In addition, John Steinbeck would not have gotten his message across in the novel. The first chapter sketches the setting before actually introducing the characters. The setting actually describes the characters and their personalities. It provides the fundamental background circumstances that ... will have to undergo extreme hardships, they will overcome and survive. The determination of the turtle foreshadows the determination of the Joad family. In chapter 7, the reader is introduced to the Used Car lot and the cheating salesman. The farmers are cheat...

• Word Count: 646
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... and Lennie Smalls.4 Clinging to each other's loneliness. George and his simple-minded friend Lennie dream as drifters for a place to call their own. In chapter one Lennie and George spend the night by the Salinas' River a few miles south of Soledad. They plan to start work the next day at the ... In the morning they reach the ranch. Curley (their boss) was expecting them the night before. Curley picks a fight with Lennie. Also, in this chapter we are introduced to many other characters. Candy who is an elderly man who works at the bunkhouse. Candy, an old swamper, missing one hand. Georg...

• Word Count: 1088
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... Black Marigolds, a translated extract from the Sanskrit, written by Chauras, a young Kashmiri poet. In both chapters, the poem planes very different roles. While in chapter thirty, the poem acts as a pleasantry for Doc to read to his guest, in chapter thirty two the poem reflects on Cannery Row itself, and the story that Steinbeck has narrated about it. (145 words; 7 sentences) In ... as any other love poem, and therefore see it as joyous, when it is actually depicting a situation of mourning. (428 words; 10 sentences) The excerpt in chapter thirty two, in contrast to that in chapter th...

• Word Count: 1169
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... Bowl as a whole, as well as the situation of a single family during the event, the Joads. Each chapter fluctuates between either the macro view or the micro view. One chapter will be devoted to the workers, the next to something that will affect the Joads. The intercalary chapters, or the ... novel's themes, to give the reader an insight to the society's background at that time, and to provide a historical account of the "disaster." Chapter twelve provides the reader with an insight into the society's background. The migrants are portrayed as unknowing and exploitable, as seen in their p...

• Word Count: 507
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... , laid carefully by Steinbeck, give the reader a personal insight to what life was like during the journey of the Joad family. In chapter 21, he refers to the migration as " the people moved like ants and searched for work, for food." In this intercalary ... chapter, he relates the movement of the Joads to ants. Steinbeck intermits every other chapter as an intercalary chapter to give the reader a break from the action of the book, but more importantly does ! so to give ... would have no idea of how or why he was where he was and the characters acted the way they did. Instead, Steinbeck ...

• Word Count: 610
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... "inter-chapters" that don't focus mostly on the Joads, and rather the situation at hand for all "Okies" on their way to California. The opening chapter describes the lives of farm owners dealing with the drought in Oklahoma along with a dust storm. "Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined ... a little green showing through the film of dust. The men were silent and they did not move often (3)." In the following chapter, Tom Joad is hitchhiking in a truck, after just being released from McAlester, a state prison, for killing a man while in a drunken brawl. In ... future. After ...

• Word Count: 1730
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... first, then the Spanish explorers who later came, followed by the American colonists, of whom he says they were "even greedier because there were more of them." Through most of chapter one, he continues to talk about his grandparents and their children, but only his grandfather ever really enters the story at any point. The story itself is about Adam Trask ... , who enters the story in chapter two. In chapter two, the point of view enters a more omniscient view and we learn of Adam and his rivalry with his half-brother Charles, who feels that their father loves Adam ... his own life man...

• Word Count: 1364
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... to express the inevitable defeat and futility of all men's plans. A dream of independence usually remains a dream, and when it becomes a real plan, the plan is defeated. Chapter one, "The Gift," introduces all the main characters: the ranch hand, Billy Buck; the little boy, Jody; Jody's father, Carl Tiflin; and Jody's mother, Mrs. Tiflin ... speaking of him as a man to his father who is like all humans trying to deal with death and grief. In "The Great Mountains," the second episodic chapter, the little boy Jody is again playing with his dogs. He is lonely without his pony and, like all...

• Word Count: 4593
• Approx Pages: 18
• Grade Level: High School

... , as Robert DeMott points out in his introduction to the novel, Steinbeck is given to "frequent sentimentality" (Steinbeck ix). Take, for instance, chapter nine. It first describes the farmers of Oklahoma selling their belongings to junk men, and at low, unfair prices at that. One man tries ... lyrical" (Steinbeck xi) chapters that tell the more expansive story of the dispossessed farmers as a whole. For instance, he cuts off the narrative in chapter 25 to say, There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure h...

• Word Count: 1715
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... Then once the Joads got the job, they realized that it wasn't as good as it looked (this is the fading away to darkness). Entry for: Part 3, Chapter 23 "The migrant people, scuttling for work, scrabbling to live, looked always for pleasure, dug for pleasure, manufactured pleasure, and they were hungry for amusement" ( ... fairly packed, but I still find time for fun, and if I can't sometimes I make my work that I am doing into fun. Entry for: Part 3, Chapter 25 "The spring is beautiful in California. Valleys in which the fruit blossoms are fragrant pink and white waters in a shallow sea....

• Word Count: 832
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... Row, John Steinbeck uses a palette of adjectives to describe the small little town located in California. We are first told of the local Grocery, Lee Chong's Grocery, in which the chapter's events take place. Owned by Lee, the store is properly owned and ran on part trust with the locals, as most are in debt to Lee; however, Lee does not ... meal for clearment of debt. Lee agreed to this trade, but at his surprise, after giving up the deed to the old place, Horace shot himself in the shack. The chapter is ended with the local roughnecks, Mack and his gang, forcefully offering their hosp...

• Word Count: 276
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... what was wrong. He even tries to explain this himself. He cant tell if he's dreamed something or not and he doesnt know how to behave around other guys. In chapter 4 Crooks gets the chance to be horrible to some one else. He turns on Lennie and starts to be really nasty to him suggesting George wont come back. I think all ... he uses real places to mark the general area that the story is set in, the Salinas river, for example. The characters all speak in a 1930's American style, like in chapter one when George says to Lennie We ain't got any' and An' watta I got?'. This adds further rea...

• Word Count: 2660
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: High School

... and the style with which the author depicts his characters and their hopeless dreams, are the basis for concluding the main themes in the last chapter of the novel. Imagery plays an important role in setting the mood for Lennie's predestined death. The author repeatedly describes the progression of ... was blue and soft... The shadow in the valley was bluer, and the evening came fast. - Figurative language is abundant in the last chapter, particularly when the author describes the surroundings. The descriptions of the snakes in the water, like the descriptions of everything else about t...

• Word Count: 727
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

The Red Pony The Red Pony is a short novel that consists of four chapters. It is episodic, meaning that each chapter could stand alone. They are intertwined, and each chapter plays its part in the overall message and themes of the novel. The setting is on a ranch in California in the closing days of the Great Depression. This novel serves ... the new generation of life. The juxtaposition of the cypress tree and tub of clean spring water represent that death is inevitable; everything in life will pass. In the final chapter, as Jody watches a flock of white pigeons sitting in the black cypress...

• Word Count: 749
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... trouble or hurt or need to poor people. They"re the only ones that"ll help-the only ones." (Steinbeck) We see many examples of this, and one is in chapter 15 at the truck station. You have three people who do not have much money, the truck driver, waitress, and the restaurant owners. The owners and waitress gives the family ... a discount on bread and candy and then the truck driver leaves the waitress a large tip. Then we look at chapter 17 and we see the person at the car dump gives Tom and Al things at a good discount. We also take a look at Ma Joad, and as we know the ... Joads do ...

• Word Count: 1597
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... trouble or hurt or need to poor people. They"re the only ones that"ll help-the only ones." (Steinbeck) We see many examples of this, and one is in chapter 15 at the truck station. You have three people who do not have much money, the truck driver, waitress, and the restaurant owners. The owners and waitress gives the family ... a discount on bread and candy and then the truck driver leaves the waitress a large tip. Then we look at chapter 17 and we see the person at the car dump gives Tom and Al things at a good discount. We also take a look at Ma Joad, and as we know the ... Joads do ...

• Word Count: 1596
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... Huckleberry Finn, highlighting syntax, diction, and imagery, will substantiate this theme. Twain's uses syntax to develop the human connection between Huck and Jim from the beginning of the novel. During Chapter 8 when Huck first stumbles upon Jim, using quick and non-expressive sentences, he doesn't ask Jim why he is on Jackson's Island nor if he cares that Jim told people ... from different races. At this point in the novel, Jim and Huck are showing that they are going to be together for a while. Obstacles to their friendship are shown in Chapter 11 when Huck, dressed like a woman, is...

• Word Count: 887
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... trouble because as a child of ten does, he forgets things like where he is, where he's going and who the people around him are. This is apparent in the first chapter when he forgets about what has happened in Weed. " An" you ain't gonna do no bad things like you done in Weed, neither." "Like I done in Weed?" (24) This quote ... 's brought Lennie up like this because that is the only way George knows and all George's personality and characteristics have rubbed off on Lennie. This is shown in the first chapter when we first meet the characters. As George comes down the pathway into the cle...

• Word Count: 5465
• Approx Pages: 22
• Grade Level: High School

... self indulgence into caring about his or her family, and then finally society. Many characters in the novel complete this cycle, especially Tom Joad. When we first meet Tom in chapter two, he is walking down the road in a cheap new suit because he was just released from prison. Tom convinces a trucker to give him a ride. Throughout the duration of the ... become much deeper as the novel progresses. Casy and Jesus both saw a common goodness in the average man and viewed every person as holy. When Casy is saying grace in chapter eight, he compares himself to Jesus. He said, "I been in the...

• Word Count: 1107
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... do. So George tries to show Lennie his wrongs and help him to try and correct them by not repeating them again as he shows later on in the first chapter on page 15 where George asks Lennie, "What you gonna say tomorrow when the boss asks you questions?" Lennie, of course, responds with an agreement of not talking ... hurt me." (40). Despite how strong Lennie is, he never tried to hurt George then, nor in the future, this shows his true friendship for George. Later on in chapter three, Carlson, one of the ranch handymen, complains about the old man, Candy's dog smelling and limping aroun...

• Word Count: 842
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... how the Joad family deals with moving to California. How they survive the cruelty of the landowners that take advantage of them, their poverty and willingness to work. The opening chapter paints a vivid picture of the situation facing the drought-stricken farmers of Oklahoma. Dust is described a covering everything, smothering the life out of anything that wants to grow. The dust ... themselves from the sun's unyielding rays....The wind grew stronger, uprooting the weakened corn, and the air became so filled with dust that the stars were not visible at night." (Chapter 1) Throughout the...

• Word Count: 1049
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... 's Of Mice and Men deals with the plight of migrant laborers in California during the Great Depression, with the focus on two random migrant workers, George and Lennie. The first chapter sharply establishes the relationship between the two primary characters. George is by necessity a rational realist who must care for the simplistic and child-like Lennie. George consistently scolds and reprimands ... the majority of the characters in the novel, but the aspiration that is perceived and known by most readers is the one shared with George and Lennie. In the first chapter Lennie asks George ...

• Word Count: 695
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... ' travels in The Grapes of Wrath parallels the Hebrew migration from the plagues of Egypt, across the desert, and into Canaan - in the Joads' case, California (O'Connor, p67). A quote from Chapter Seventeen in The Grapes of Wrath provides another example of how Steinbeck alluded to Bible stories: "The families learned what rights must be observed - the right of privacy in the ... make it clear to Americans that the suffering of these displaced families was completely unnecessary and that America could have easily provided for these people (O'Connor, p67). A controversial quote in Chapter...

• Word Count: 1509
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... is to compare Steinbeck's characteristics with a broad range of literary accomplishments, rather than to judge the "correctness of his position regarding contemporary urgencies and controversies" (Tedlock 20). In George Snell's chapter on Steinbeck in The Shapers of American Fiction: 1798-1947, he notes Steinbeck's strengths and weaknesses: "an enormous gift of story-telling", "catholicity of sympathy" and "'common touch,'" ease of ... classic comic routine so that the reader warmly identifies and recognizes the relationship. Steinbeck's narrator establishes and characterizes George's l...

• Word Count: 2015
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School