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5.Of what importance is Muley in this story? What's the difference between being the hunter and being the hunted? .
Muley introduces the conflict of the story to Joad and Casy who have both been away and missed the migration. He also serves as the messenger between young Tom and his father, "by god it's lucky I come by cause ol" Tom worried himself I [told him] "whyn't you write down a letter?" and" Tom says, " if I don't, you keep an eye out for Tommy." (Steinbeck, 62) letting Tom know that his family was ok, and later, where they were. The difference between being the hunter and being hunted is when you"re "huntin" somepin your strong but when you get hunted - sompin happens to you you aint" strong; maybe your fierce, but you ain't strong [you"ll] maybe shoot a fella in the dark, but [you] don't maul nobody with a fence stake no more" (Steinbeck, 78) Muley compares himself, as a hunter, to a mean wolf, but as the hunted, a weasel; a life where one must sneak around and attack unnoticed, the life of the hunted. .
6.Chapters 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 tell the narrative about Tom Joad and his family the way novels usually do. What is the function of the other short chapters (1, 3, 5, etc)? What does Chapter 7 imply about used-car salesmen? .
Chapters 1, 3, and 5 serve as a different view of life during the migration, a view different than that of the Joad family. They present a less detailed "examination" of the great migration, a drift away from the sharp naturalistic representation of life through the family. In chapter 1, the reader is told the story of how the great migration came to be in an almost biblical "Genesis" tone, "The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth became pale, pink in the red country and white in the grey country." (Steinbeck, 1) Later in chapter 3, the land turtle is used symbolically to depict the farmers" predicaments, "a light truck approached, and as it came near, the driver saw the turtle and swerved to hit it his front wheel struck the edge of the shell, flipped the turtle like a tiddly-wink, spun it like a coin, and rolled it off the highway.
